Organized under the auspices of the head of American diplomacy Anthony Blinken, this meeting will be held in Israel on Sunday and Monday. It will bring together three of the states that have normalized their relations with the Jewish state: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. Much to the chagrin of the Palestinian Authority.
After having normalized its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020, and with Morocco in 2021, Israel will welcome this weekend the foreign ministers of these three states during an already qualified meeting “of history”. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced the holding of this diplomatic summit which will take place on Sunday and Monday. This meeting, which we do not know for the time when it will be held in Israel, is organized on the occasion of a tour in the region of the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which is to begin on Saturday.
Israeli leaders, including the head of diplomacy Yaïr Lapid, have already visited the Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco since normalization began in September 2020. But among the representatives of these three countries, only the head of Bahraini diplomacy, Abdellatif al-Zayani, has already visited Israel in November 2020. This five-party meeting will therefore be a great first.
The Emirates and Bahrain were the first Gulf Arab countries to publicly normalize their relations with Israel in September 2020, at the instigation of Donald Trump, then President of the United States. The three countries had at the time signed the so-called agreements “of Abraham”. This agreement between three countries hitherto cold on the diplomatic level was justified by their common concern about Iran. Since then, Morocco and Sudan have established similar pacts. In November, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz traveled to Rabat to sign a memorandum with his Moroccan counterpart, Abdellatif Loudiyi, strengthening military cooperation between the two countries.
“Stab in the back”
On the Palestinian side, these agreements had been perceived as a “stab in the back” by Hamas, because they put an end to decades of Arab consensus excluding any peace with the Jewish state as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not resolved. During his visit, the head of American diplomacy plans to address the issue of this conflict. He will meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
The two men had already met in May 2021 during a first visit by Antony Blinken to the region. During this, the latter had assured that he wanted “rebuild” the relationship with the Palestinians damaged during the Donald Trump years, while acknowledging Israel’s “law” to defend themselves.