Kanye West isn't one to shy away from making his political convictions known, and this week was no different. He applauded Jared Kushner's Middle East treaty for establishing peace in the region, but despite Kanye's co-sign, the plan has a serious flaw: its exclusion of Palestine.
The deal was brokered by Trump's senior adviser/son-in-law, and is dubbed the "Abraham Accords." In the deal, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel. Ye responded to the news, tweeting: "Jared Kushner will have done more for peace in the Middle East than anyone in 30 years."
While the deal is indeed historic, it cannot comprehensively stand for "peace in the Middle East" when it has dealt a substantial blow to Palestinians, who have been in a longstanding conflict with Israel. Kanye's claim, assuming he is aware of the conflict, is dismissive of the peace plans that came before Kushner, the diplomatic history, and of Palestinian history, nationalism, and dignity.
More than anything, Kanye's tweet highlights the need to spread awareness about this crucial cornerstone of the Middle East. So, here's everything you need to know about the Abraham Accords and what it means for Palestine.
What are the Abraham Accords?
In the US-brokered deal, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have agreed to normalize relations with Israel, including opening embassies in and allowing air traffic between each other's territory. It marks the third Israeli-Arab peace treaty in the Middle East (the first involving a Gulf state), and arrives during what both sides regard as a growing threat from Iran.
Israel and Arab states in the Middle East and North Africa have historically been in conflict with Israel since its creation in 1948, largely because of its occupation of Palestinian lands, resulting in the ongoing struggle for Palestinian self-determination.
The Trump-Kushner deal is a big step towards more countries in the region — including Saudi Arabia — recognizing Israel. However, it also marks the failure, thus far, of the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.
The Abraham Accords come in the wake of Trump's original Israel-Palestine "peace plan." The plan, which was drafted with no input from Palestinian leaders, failed to address Palestinian aspirations for nationhood while granting a near-full slate of concessions to Israel.
For instance, the plan stipulated that Israel keeps the vast majority of Jerusalem as its sovereign capital; Palestinians get no right of return; it redraws borders in the West Bank to favor Israel; and it denies Palestine any form of militarization.
Why was Palestine not involved?
The biggest contestation about the deal is over those who took no part: Palestinians.
Speaking to CNN, Kushner confirmed that Palestinian leadership wanted no part of the deal. "When we put out our vision for peace, you saw the Palestinian leadership reject it before it even came out — before they knew what was in it." Trump's son-in-law waved off the rejection as uninformed, but many experts have said that the deal was a non-starter for Palestinians.
Palestinians formally severed ties with the Trump administration and refused to engage in negotiations after Trump unilaterally declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel in 2018. This is just one of several pro-Israel steps Trump has taken, which has abandoned traditional US neutrality.
The Trump administration's move to conservative pro-Israel causes in the region has unsurprisingly been met with Palestinian rebuttal of any technocratic deals brokered between Israel and Arab nations in the region.
On his part, Kushner has been caustically dismissive of the diplomatic history causing Palestine to reject the deal. “Look, they played the victimhood card. Now, it’s like they want their rights. They want a state,” Kushner said on PBS earlier this year. “Basically what we’re saying to the Palestinians is put up or shut up.”
What does the new treaty mean for the Palestinians?
The normalization of Israel-Emirates and Israel-Bahrain relations affirms and gives international blessings to much of the Israeli government's status quo, which is fundamentally at odds with the Palestinian experience.
Particularly, the deal fails to acknowledge the Nakba ("catastrophe") that Palestinians suffered following the 1948 Arab/Israeli War and the realities of ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, occupation, siege, and systemic police brutality by the Israeli state.
Kushner's peace endeavor with the Israeli government doesn't address this apartheid system and makes no mention of any kind of two-state solution with the Palestinians. Just last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed once again to "extend Israeli sovereignty" over some 30 percent of the West Bank — land claimed by the Palestinians for a future independent state — in line with President Trump's original peace plan and so-called Vision for Peace.
Israeli journalist Amir Tibon mused that Jared Kushner's Middle Eastern diplomacy could revive "Netanyahu’s hopes of gaining US support for widespread Israeli annexation in the West Bank." While this is for now just speculation, the deal's silence on the issue and exclusion of Palestine suggests that the US is unwilling to make any concessions for the benefit of the Palestinians.
It's fair to say the Abraham Accords are heavily biased towards Israel. Political scientist Ian Bremmer questioned whether “the United States is not an honest broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but is an honest broker between Israel and, say, the Gulf allies.”
How has the region responded to the deal?
On the Israeli-Palestinian side of the ledger, the Trump-Kushner peace plan has been hailed as "a very big victory" by Trump.
The Palestinians, however, reacted angrily, calling the peace treaty a "betrayal." Senior members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) condemned the accords and said Kushner’s statement “is incitement against the Palestinian leadership and an indicator for more exertion of pressure on it.”
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called on the UAE to withdraw from what he called a "disgraceful" agreement, while the Palestinian ambassador to the UAE was recalled. Meanwhile, Turkey — a strong supporter of the Palestinians — said history would never forgive the "hypocritical behavior" of the UAE, and announced it was considering suspending diplomatic ties with the country.
With perceptions so severely rifted within the region in response to the deal, it seems "peace in the Middle East" is a sweeping concept to equate it to.
