https://sputnikglobe.com/20231021/us-officials-fear-for-abraham-accords-future-amid-gaza-crisis-1114391443.html
US Officials Fear for Abraham Accords’ Future Amid Gaza Crisis
US Officials Fear for Abraham Accords’ Future Amid Gaza Crisis
Sputnik International
The explosive new round of violence in the three quarters of a century-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict has potentially served to hasten regional geopolitical realignments, with Saudi Arabia putting normalization talks with Israel on hold, and Iran and America’s Arab allies uniting in condemnation of the IDF’s actions in Gaza.
2023-10-21T16:24+0000
2023-10-21T16:24+0000
2023-12-05T09:23+0000
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US officials are growing weary that the fallout from the raging Palestinian-Israeli crisis may seriously undermine the Abraham Accords architecture put in place by Washington to reach a lasting, US-favorable normalization and peace pact between Israel and the Arab World to focus on the purported “threat” from Iran.“It just really was difficult for us to face the next day knowing that, where we thought we were making advances, now it’s probably going to be on hold for just a bit,” the lawmaker, who was in Riyadh for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on prospects for Saudi-Israeli normalization on the day Hamas launched its operation, said.The surprise escalation, which prompted Israel to launch an unrelenting campaign of artillery, air and missile strikes into Gaza, prompted Riyadh to freeze normalization talks with Tel Aviv. Instead, Crown Prince Salman took his first-ever phone call with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to discuss the Gaza crisis. On Saturday at the Cairo Summit for Peace, Saudi Arabia urged the international community to “take a strong stand to obligate Israel to respect international laws” in Gaza.Speaking to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday, Salman condemned Israel’s “heinous” attacks on Gaza, and warned of the “dangerous repercussions” related to the conflict’s potential escalation.Democratic lawmaker Mark Kelly, another member of the Senate’s Abraham Accords Caucus, downplayed the significance of the Arab World’s rage amid the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, saying the accords are designed to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding, not ensure Arab support for the Jewish State.But the senator’s chain of logic isn’t convincing, with observers pointing out that the crisis hasn’t escalated so far due to, not in spite of, the measured reaction to Israeli attacks by Hezbollah and Syria, and from Iran, which has joined Russia, China, Turkiye, and other countries in calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.Instead, US officials themselves have sought to escalate the situation, with hawkish politicians and lawmakers coming out of the woodwork over the past two weeks to accuse Tehran of supporting Hamas in Gaza, and a tough "response" against Iran.“The Iranians are using Arab allies, namely Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] and Hezbollah as their agents to foment this, there’s no question about it,” ranking Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee member James Risch told US media, claiming the potential Arab-Israeli rapprochement may have “struck the match” for the escalation.Iran’s leaders have defended Hamas’ operations against Israel, but denied any role or responsibility in the militant group’s October 7 attacks, with Washington and Tel Aviv so far failing to present any evidence to the contrary.“Supporters of the usurping regime, and even some people from the regime itself have said some nonsense over the past days and it’s still continuing. They have said the Islamic Republic of Iran is behind [Hamas’] move. They are wrong,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said last week. “Those who say what the Palestinians did was caused by non-Palestinians have not yet gotten to know the Palestinian people and make wrong calculations,” he added.The Saudi-US alliance, which served as a key pillar in US calculations against Iran following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, has been upended by Riyadh’s moves in recent months to seek more independence from Washington – starting with the surprise China-brokered normalization pact with Tehran in March, and bookended by the kingdom’s move to join the BRICS bloc in August.To date, just six countries in the 22-member Arab League have normalized relations with Israel – four of them thanks to the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020.The Biden administration made plans in 2021 to “continue a process that began under Trump” with the accords “while securing achievements of its own through new deals,” but has so far failed utterly to add any new countries to the peace process, much less make breakthroughs of its own.
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US Officials Fear for Abraham Accords’ Future Amid Gaza Crisis
16:24 GMT 21.10.2023 (Updated: 09:23 GMT 05.12.2023) The explosive new round of violence in the three-quarters of a century old Palestinian-Israeli conflict has potentially served to hasten regional geopolitical realignments, with Saudi Arabia putting normalization talks with Israel on hold, and Iran as well as many of America’s Arab allies uniting in condemnation of the IDF’s actions in Gaza.
US officials are growing weary that the fallout from the raging Palestinian-Israeli crisis may seriously undermine the Abraham Accords architecture put in place by Washington to reach a lasting, US-favorable normalization and peace pact between Israel and the Arab World to focus on the purported “threat” from Iran.
“Obviously we were very sad about what was happening in Israel, the dynamics in the Middle East are very difficult,” Republican Senator Joni Ernst, co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus,
told Beltway media in a piece published Saturday.
“It just really was difficult for us to face the next day knowing that, where we thought we were making advances, now it’s probably going to be on hold for just a bit,” the lawmaker, who was in Riyadh for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on prospects for Saudi-Israeli normalization on the day Hamas launched its operation, said.
“We had left the meeting the night before with such optimism, and then when we found out about the attacks on Israel, it really struck us that this had just made our task that much harder,” Ernst complained.
The surprise escalation, which prompted Israel to launch an unrelenting campaign of artillery, air and missile strikes into Gaza, prompted Riyadh to freeze normalization talks with Tel Aviv. Instead, Crown Prince Salman took his first-ever
phone call with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to discuss the Gaza crisis. On Saturday at the Cairo Summit for Peace,
Saudi Arabia urged the international community to “take a strong stand to obligate Israel to respect international laws” in Gaza.
21 October 2023, 04:54 GMT
Speaking to
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday, Salman condemned Israel’s “heinous” attacks on Gaza, and warned of the
“dangerous repercussions” related to the conflict’s potential escalation.
Democratic lawmaker Mark Kelly, another member of the Senate’s Abraham Accords Caucus, downplayed the significance of the Arab World’s rage amid the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, saying the accords are designed to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding, not ensure Arab support for the Jewish State.
“Everything’s relative here, right? So far, this hasn’t expanded to a bigger conflict. And one of our goals here is to make sure that it doesn’t, make sure that Iran doesn’t get involved, that Hezbollah - that this doesn’t expand to a conflict in the north of Israel. And so far that’s the case,” Kelly said.
But the senator’s chain of logic isn’t convincing, with observers
pointing out that the crisis hasn’t escalated so far
due to, not
in spite of, the measured reaction to Israeli attacks by Hezbollah and Syria, and from Iran, which has joined Russia, China, Turkiye, and other countries in calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Instead, US officials themselves have sought to escalate the situation, with hawkish politicians and lawmakers coming out of the woodwork over the past two weeks to accuse Tehran of supporting Hamas in Gaza, and a tough "response" against Iran.
“The Iranians are using Arab allies, namely Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] and Hezbollah as their agents to foment this, there’s no question about it,” ranking Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee member James Risch told US media, claiming the potential Arab-Israeli rapprochement may have “struck the match” for the escalation.
“If there is, and I think there will be eventually, normality between Israel and Saudi Arabia, this is going to put Iran on an island, and they can’t stand that,” Risch added.
Iran’s leaders have defended Hamas’ operations against Israel, but denied any role or responsibility in the militant group’s October 7 attacks, with Washington and Tel Aviv so far failing to present any evidence to the contrary.
“Supporters of the usurping regime, and even some people from the regime itself have said some nonsense over the past days and it’s still continuing. They have said the Islamic Republic of Iran is behind [Hamas’] move. They are wrong,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
said last week. “Those who say what the Palestinians did was caused by non-Palestinians have not yet gotten to know the Palestinian people and make wrong calculations,” he added.
21 October 2023, 03:41 GMT
The Saudi-US alliance, which served as a key pillar in US calculations against Iran following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, has been upended by Riyadh’s moves in recent months to seek more independence from Washington – starting with the surprise China-brokered
normalization pact with Tehran in March, and bookended by the kingdom’s move to
join the BRICS bloc in August.
To date, just six countries in the 22-member Arab League have normalized relations with Israel – four of them thanks to the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020.
The Biden administration
made plans in 2021 to “continue a process that began under Trump” with the accords “while securing achievements of its own through new deals,” but has so far failed utterly to add any new countries to the peace process, much less make breakthroughs of its own.
6 December 2022, 20:22 GMT
