Bilateral agreement or one-sided decision: Abraham Accords a false peace | Shanghai Gov - 11 Oct 2023 |

Toward the end of Donald Trump's presidency, the US administration rolled out a "peace process" that they called the "Abraham Accords" in September 2020.

Driven by the Christian fundamentalist and Zionist Inhibitions of Mike Pompeo, as well as Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the accords aimed to buy off states in the Middle East in exchange for securing recognition of Israel. This saw the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco all recognize Tel Aviv. An immediate geopolitical goal of the accords was an attempt to diplomatically isolate Iran, as well as other forces in the region which seek to resist Israeli occupation of Palestine.

However, the Abraham Accords were flawed for one significant reason. That being they offered a "one-sided" peace whereby Arab states simply recognized Israel without any change to the status quo or Israel's behavior in general.

This was an absurd premise given the same administration had made the unilateral decision to recognize occupied Jerusalem as Israel's capital, as well as continued occupation of and settlement building in the West Bank amongst numerous other things, in other words rewarding bad behavior. Ironically, it is well known in Western discourse that making a one-sided peace without any form of compromise or resistance constitutes
"appeasement."

And that's precisely what the Abraham Accords were, appeasement. A true and lasting peace is when both sides engage in a mutually acceptable compromise to avert conflict which takes into consideration their respective national interests. But the Abraham Accords did no such thing, because Israel was not required to make any compromises and nor were the Palestinians by any stretch even part of the negotiations.

Rather, the US used unilateral diplomacy to buy off the participating governments, appealing to their individual motives. For example, recognizing Morocco's annexation of the Western Sahara. Thus, rather than serving the true interests of peace, the accords only increased the sense of injustice pertaining to Palestinians.

And it is for that reason that the Accords have acted as a profoundly destabilizing force that have directly contributed to the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and the Gaza strip. It should be noted on analyzing this that the term "unprovoked," as wielded by Western politicians, is inherently misleading, because such a term seeks to imply that the status quo was in any way, politically tenable or stable. The US had attempted to impose diplomatic isolation on Palestine while Israel continued its routine provocations and attacks against the West Bank, emboldened by a hardline Benjamin Netanyahu administration which had recently returned to power.

The United States in general has a diplomatic strategy of subtly "moving the goalposts" while in effect claiming to support a peaceful status quo, even as its own actions are in effect undermining that "status quo." The US will repeatedly claim in doing so that it is committed to diplomacy, but refuses to move on its position. This usually results in forcing the other party into a corner, leading to military action as a perceived last resort. The US then brands that party as the aggressor and pretends the outcome is "unprovoked."

Pompeo says U.S. began work to set up consulate in Western Sahara https://t.co/F9oKLZfhb3 pic.twitter.com/g4GIvPodQa

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 24, 2020

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