European States – Spain, Ireland, Norway – are reactivating diplomacy. They argue that Palestine, even after Hamas’s unimaginable brutality, needs to be recognized. It needs to be recognized as a first step to serious negotiations to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict. Is this diplomatic moment going to be seized? Have the lessons of past opportunistic diplomacy by the major powers been learned?
What was hoped to be a new era of the Middle East diplomacy has crumbled fast due to the shaky foundations on which the big powers acted. Iran has been the main beneficiary of the diplomacy of United States, China, and the Gulf Arab States and has wrestled the Palestinian cause away from the Arab States. Iran’s stance of denying the right of Israel to exist has acquired new enthusiastic support among Palestinians. The United States and China may be dismayed at this, but they have both facilitated the process. The Palestine issue had not gone away.
The Abraham Accords were built around former president Donald Trump’s “Vision for Peace” in The Middle East. Trump wanted a “peace win” before the 2020 election. Perhaps the Nobel prize. Yet, the motives for the Accords were unrelated to what used to be the main point of contention between Israel and the Arab States – the existence and recognition of a Palestinian State.
What of the UAE’s motives in the Accords? Then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the sale of US F-35s to the UAE were critical to the Accords – not Palestine. In any case, the UAE and Bahrain already had de facto close relations with Israel, with direct phone calls between leaders and intelligence and trade exchanges during the Obama Administration. Another signatory of the Accords, Morocco, received US recognition of their claims to Western Sahara as an inducement to sign. Again, Palestine was far from their thoughts.
The Abraham Accords made a couple of non-legally binding references to continuing to “work together to end the Israel-Palestine conflict“ but no commitments on either side to recognizing a Palestinian State or even setting a date for new negotiations. The United States had already moved its embassy to Jerusalem, which had always been a contentious point in any peace discussions.
How has Iran benefitted from Middle East diplomacy?
Iran pounced. Iran had already got what it wanted most from the Trump Administration – the scrapping of the Iran Joint Nuclear Agreement. Iran knew that Trump’s move would be opposed by the partners of the US in the nuclear deal – China, Russia, the UK, and France. China and Russia would then be free to align more closely with Iran.
What of China? China had been a partner in the Iran nuclear deal but now wanted Iran to be free to participate fully in the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) and the BRICS organization. China also wanted the Palestine issue not to divide the Gulf States and Iran. They therefore brokered the Iran/Saudi Arabia rapprochement of June 2023. They wanted the UAE and Saudi Arabia as well as Iran to join BRICS. Saudi Arabia, and Qatar had refused to sign an Abraham Accord but were ready to align with Iran on BRI. China also wanted to prevent Saudi Arabia signing a defense agreement with the United States.
SO IRAN had a series of gifts from 2020 – 2023 when the Hamas attacks occurred. The careful diplomacy that produced the Abraham Accords and the China’s Saudi-Iran rapprochement were washed away with torrents of social media most in the highly digitalized region. Iran was much more proficient at the use of social media with the Arabs street than either the US or China. Iran was telling the world the Arab states were betraying Palestine.
Since the October 7 events, diplomacy of the big powers has begun to unravel the mistakes, which has led to the greatest instability in the region for decades. Palestine is formally back on the agenda with the Arab States. Both UAE and Bahrain refused to follow the Trump Administration lead by locating embassies in Jerusalem. Saudi Arabia has postponed any decision in joining BRICS, alarmed at what Iran’s activities did to destabilize the Arab world. Even Russia has called on Iran to cool its aggressive actions.
The King of Bahrain has just visited Moscow and wants to host a Middle East Peace Conference, which would be attended by all parties. But despite its brokerage of the Iran/Saudi Arabian deal, China has not shown it has any meaningful influence over Iran’s actions.
Both China and the US have learned from their recent diplomatic opportunism. The Biden Administration is now prioritizing new moves on Palestine as Saudi Arabia is insisting on such progress for signing a Defense Pact. And three Arab states – Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan – shared intelligence with Israel before Iran’s recent massive missile attack . China has meanwhile seen the disruption to the regional economies in the Middle East provoked by its BRICS ally Iran. Iran’s proxies in Yemen, the Houthis, have been causing disruption to world trade through the Red Sea, many vessels carrying Chinese exports and using Egypt’s port installations – another BRICS ally. China is already having to deal with BRI consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was a strong BRI partner of China. China is realizing that taking sides in the Middle East is not easy but trying to be all things to everyone simply doesn’t work.
When states engage in peace-making diplomacy their motives had better be sincere for peace rather than their own nations’ or leaders’ interests. The Palestine/Israel issue has long been on the diplomatic to-do list. Too often the can has been kicked down the road. The United States’ and China’s diplomacy did not intend to cause the devastating conflict between Israel and Hamas. Hopefully the conflict will eventually lead to more productive diplomacy over Palestine which does not again give Iran upper hand.
The writer was a UK diplomat for 30 years, and is now master lecturer in international affairs at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.