Middle East Monitor / December 11, 2020
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that his country will not recognise the state of Israel but it would not have a problem if Palestinians and Israelis reach an agreement, according to Russia Today.
The American news website Axios had reported that US President-Elect Joe Biden supports and plans to expand the so-called Abraham Accords, a series of individual normalisation agreements that the Trump Administration has brokered between Israel and individual Arab countries.
Endorsing the agreements could help Biden “build positive relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders in the Persian Gulf,” Axios reported.
“Biden could use additional deals to induce Netanyahu to take steps toward preserving the option of a two-state solution — the way Trump got Bibi [Netanyahu] to kill the annexation of the West Bank in return for his agreement with the UAE,” it added.
On 13 August, US President Donald Trump announced a peace deal between the UAE and Israel brokered by Washington.
Abu Dhabi said the deal was an effort to stave off Tel Aviv’s planned annexation of the occupied West Bank, however, opponents believe normalisation efforts have been in the offing for many years as Israeli officials have made official visits to the UAE and attended conferences in the country which had no diplomatic or other ties with the occupation state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu however denied the UAE’s claims, saying annexation is not off the table, but has simply been delayed.
Bahrain was the second Gulf country to normalise relations with the occupation and Abu Dhabi and Manama signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in September.
Trump later announced Sudan had also agreed to normalise relations with Tel Aviv, while yesterday it was announced Morocco had become the fourth Arab state to do so since August.
