Has the route to peace in the Middle East already been mapped out?
Having been in a declared state of war with Israel since 1948, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel on the White House lawn this week in 1979. Egypt became the first Arab country to normalise relations with Israel and established full diplomatic relations in 1982. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as a result and the peace has lasted to this day despite the assassination of Sadat and regional turmoil, including the Arab spring. With Jordan’s normalised relations with Israel following in 1994, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty began a process which demonstrated to the world that peace and stability in the region can be realised by normalised diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel. What can we learn from this as we start to think about the politics of the region post-Gaza?
With the crisis in Ukraine and fears about an ever more belligerent China taking centre stage, the Middle East has been less the focus of Western attention than in the recent past.
Indeed, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was so certain that the Middle East would be a secondary concern to the Biden Administration he argued that ‘the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.’
That was a week before 7th October.
That day was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas terrorists flew hang-gliders into a music festival in southern Israel, killing 1200 innocent people and taking around 200 hostages.
Since then, while the world’s gaze has been on the Israeli military response to 7 October and the humanitarian conditions in Gaza ,too little attention has been given to the central, long-term driver of instability in the Middle East- the fascistic, terrorist regime in Iran.
The Iranian regime is the most pernicious threat to the security of Israel and the interests of the UK and our allies in the region. Through the Axis of Resistance- the sprawling network of violent, antisemitic proxy groups- Iran has the capacity to export chaos, destruction and death throughout the Middle East whilst maintaining deniability. Hamas have long enjoyed the financial, material, intelligence, and political support of the Iranian regime and would not have been able to conduct the October 7th attack without it.
Simply put, Iran does not want peace.
Political instability and sectarian divisions are the oxygen of the regime’s regional influence, and the fomenting of these are hardwired into the regime's grand strategy. Furthermore, Iran do not want Arab countries to make peace with Israel because they believe Israel should not exist. Therein lies the importance of the Abraham Accords.
When the Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA, it sought a new path. The result was the Abraham Accords which brought Arab countries- Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain- with no previous history of diplomatic relations with Israel to the White House to sign a series of normalisation agreements. The result has been an explosion in trade, business, and tourism.
Even while some of its opponents claim that the Abraham Accords come at the expense of the Palestinian issue, the reality presents a different conclusion. The recent delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza from Morocco, in the depths of the darkness of the Gaza conflict, provides a vivid example. Whilst most aid is delivered into Gaza through Egypt, Morocco's close relationship with Israel meant that the Kerem Shalom land crossing on the border between Israel and Gaza was opened for six aid trucks with the approval of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Enough food was subsequently delivered for 25,000 people.
Cultural exchanges and people-to-people relations have prospered between the signatory nations of the Accords yet the real underlying glue in the agreement is the ever-present common security threat posed by Iran.
Iran’s strategy to dominate the regime through destabilisation and division can therefore be combatted by diplomatic normalisation with Isael by Arab countries, who have a shared interest in deterring Iran’s regional ambitions.
It is for these reason that I welcome US Secretary of State Blinken’s commitment to normalised relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and his declaration last week that progress has been made.
Before the 7th October attack, Saudi normalisation appeared imminent. Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman spoke in a Fox News interview of his desire to get the deal done, arguing that a deal was closer with each passing day. Following the attack on Israel, and Israel's military response, progress stalled, with some commentators arguing that the effort was dead in the water. Yet, the Accords signatory nations have signalled their continued support for the process.
Could the Abraham Accords prove that a path to peace is possible by following the example of Israel and Egypt in 1979? Iran is one of the leading state sponsors of international terrorism, threatening the security of the United Kingdom, as well as our allies in the region. For this reason, it is imperative that the regime do not realise their ambition to dominate the region militarily and politically. An agreement to establish full diplomatic relations between two military heavyweights in the region with a shared interest in balancing against Irans ambitions must surely be a positive step.
The peacemakers of 1979 set a precedent that was followed by Jordan in 1994, and by the UAE, Morocco, and Bahrain in 2020 through the Abraham Accords. This may be the moment for the leaders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to seize the moment and shape the future of a region all too mired in its history. Such a courageous act would represent momentous progress in the quest for Middle East peace. It would weaken malevolent, destabilising Iranian influence in the region which threatens the state of Israel and UK interests. Egypt set the precedent with foresight and wisdom. Are we now ready, once again, to see history made?
