“We’ve just started”: Abraham Accords partners are celebrating one year since their signing

NEW YORK – United Nations ambassadors to Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco on Monday marked a year since the signing of the Abraham Accords at a New York event, which highlighted the rapid development of ties between their countries since the normalization were inked agreements.

Organized by the Israeli Mission to the United Nations at the Manhattan Jewish Heritage Museum, the event was attended by envoys from several other countries, including Oman’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN Ahmed Dawood Ali Al Zadjal , whose country does not maintain official diplomatic relations with Jerusalem.

The Trump administration, which negotiated the agreements, sought a last-minute push for Oman and Israel to normalize ties, but Muscat resisted, saying it wanted to see progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace first.

No Sudanese representative, however, signed an agreement to establish diplomatic ties last October. However, the agreement has not yet been finalized and there has been considerable opposition in Sudan. A diplomatic official told The Times of Israel that the UN mission in Sudan received an invitation, but decided not to attend the ceremony.

Probably the main person in charge of the event was the ambassador of the United States to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield. In statements after his four colleagues, the envoy praised participants in the Abraham Accords for having transformed “the ink of a page into concrete improvements between countries.”

Thomas-Greenfield included the recent opening of embassies, ambassadorial appointments, direct flight launches and Holocaust Remembrance Day observance among the many fruits of last year’s standardization agreements.

Like most Biden officials, he refrained from referring to agreements as the “Abraham Accords,” in an apparent effort to distance himself from the term coined by the Trump administration. However, he pledged to work to develop existing normalization agreements and establish new allies for Israel in the Arab and Muslim world.

Thomas-Greenfield did not provide any details on how the administration plans to advance these goals, and U.S. President Joe Biden has not appointed a specific envoy to head the issue, as was the case with Trump.

In addition, the current administration’s lack of enthusiasm for the sweetened deals the former president was willing to offer to potential partners in the Abraham deals, such as the sale of F-35 fighter jets in the UAE United States, recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed region of Western Sahara, or billions in debt relief for Sudan: indicates that it will not be willing to go as far as necessary to convince other reluctant Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel.

The U.S. ambassador said she was “determined to explore how we can translate these agreements into progress within the UN system.”

However, he noted that he clarified that US support for these ties will not come at the expense of efforts to support Israeli-Palestinian peace.

“We are still committed to the two-state solution. We firmly believe that Israelis and Palestinians deserve equal measures of freedom, dignity, security and prosperity, and that US diplomacy will continue to focus on practical steps to advance this vision in the immediate term, “Thomas-Greenfield said. echoed a point of family conversation that the Biden administration has used in countless statements published on the subject over the past year, one that has exposed it to criticism from the progressive side of the Democratic Party, which has accused the House White lips pay for the service on the issue, while not acting more forcefully on behalf of Palestinian rights.

However, Thomas-Greenfield paid more attention to the Palestinian issue than any other envoy who spoke at Monday’s event.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, took the opportunity to strike a blow at Ramallah’s leadership, which has criticized the Abraham Accords as a duplicate attempt to bypass the Palestinians.

“Perhaps even the Palestinians, as they see the benefits of our peace and the prosperity it entails, will ultimately see these agreements as an opportunity and not a threat,” Erdan said.

However, most of his speech focused on Israel’s other neighbors in the region.

“Moderate countries in the Middle East must unite to address our shared challenges, such as climate change, and form a regional alliance to address our shared threats, most notably Iran,” he said.

“This alliance could share information on different threats and even collaborate on defensive capabilities. Can you imagine Israeli air defense systems like Iron Dome protecting the airspace of our new partners in the Gulf? Maybe someday even the Saudi Arabia? ”He proposed.

Asked to comment on Thomas-Greenfield’s position in favor of two states, Erdan told The Times of Israel that the current Israeli government respects the U.S. position, but thinks differently “and believes it is not currently can achieve “.

“Even the Biden administration, when they talk to us, recognize that it cannot be achieved at present,” he said, adding that in the meantime, both countries are focusing on advancing economic projects that can improve the Palestinian quality of life.

“He [two-state] the option is not on the table, so we focus on what unites us more than what divides us, ”the Israeli ambassador said.

Erdan noted that the Trump administration, which initiated the Abraham Accords, also did not support the two-state model either. “It was not the position of the previous administration, although from time to time it was.”

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has effectively gone back and forth on the issue, initially stating, “I look at two states and one state, and I like what both sides like.” He later backed a two-state solution and unveiled a peace plan in 2020 that he argued was within the two-state paradigm. However, he foresaw that Israel would annex all its settlements and leave the Palestinians in a semi-autonomous, non-contiguous Palestinian state in 70% of the West Bank. Trump officials were also cited several times for calling the traditional paradigm of the two states unrealistic.

The Palestinians were not even mentioned by name in the brief statements of the ambassadors of Bahrain and Morocco, and the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, Lana Nusseibah, only raised the issue briefly, expressing her hope that the agreements ‘Abraham would lead to a’ lasting agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. ‘

Nusseibah, Bahrain’s ambassador Jamal Al Rowaiei, and Moroccan envoy Omar Hilale focused on the ties their respective countries have developed with Israel over the past year. They also presented their countries as beacons of coexistence and tolerance, pointing to the growing Jewish communities they host.

“Our relationship [with Israel] it draws its strength from the long-standing protection of the Jewish community in Morocco, ”said Hilale.

“The flourishing of the Jewish community in the UAE – the first Jewish community recently established in an Arab country in centuries – is just a test of how the three Abrahamic religions can coexist and work alongside our region in peace,” he said. dir Nusseibah.

“We have only begun to explore the opportunity for such agreements in our wider region,” he added.

Erdan, who is also Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the United States, will travel to Washington on Tuesday, where he will attend a subsequent anniversary event hosted by the Abraham Peace Institute of Accords. The center was launched earlier this year by Jared Kushner, Trump’s former senior adviser and son-in-law, and one of the main intermediaries in the normalization agreements.

Kushner will offer brief comments before introducing a group with Erdan, UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba and Bahrain Ambassador to US Sheikh Abdullah bin Rashid al-Khalifa.

Senior officials from the State Department of the Biden administration will also attend, AAPI executive director Robert Greenway told ToI last week.