According to a number of American journalists writing for respectable publications, the latest flareup of the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel proves that the peace agreements negotiated between Jerusalem and four Arab states during the Trump administration were a failure or worse. As one of the more intelligent versions of this argument went, these treaties were a “worthy project that skirted a smoldering Palestinian dilemma that has again erupted.” Not so, writes Noah Rothman:
[The Abraham] Accords deliberately “skirted” the Palestinian question. That was the whole point of this diplomatic project, and that is why the Abraham Accords remain a historic success. [They succeeded] not despite but because of the administration’s realization that the priority for the region’s Sunni states was containing Iran, not resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The fact that Hamas was already an Iranian proxy and factions in the West Bank were gravitating toward Iran only made the Sunni Arab states’ revelation easier to reach.
And while many of these states have condemned Israel’s actions—both its policing of domestic unrest and its retaliatory strikes against Hamas military targets buried within civilian infrastructure in Gaza—theirs has been a lethargic response. Not all that long ago, many of these Sunni states, in coordination with the Arab Bank, supported the provision of lavish monetary rewards to the families of Palestinian “martyrs” who killed or were killed by Israeli forces. The restoration of that awful status quo ante is all but unthinkable today. It certainly bears no resemblance to the passionless (and, more importantly, toothless) condemnations of Israeli behavior you’re hearing from Arab capitals today.
That is the genius of the Abraham Accords. By decoupling these Sunni Arab state’s relations with Israel from the state of its intractable conflict with the Palestinian territories, the accords paved the way for a more stable, predictable, and peaceful region. . . . An epochal concord is being tested, but it is emerging intact. That is a near-miraculous event that is difficult to overlook. It seems that only a foreign-policy professional could miss it.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/noah-rothman/an-exercise-in-missing-the-point/