Palestine cause limits Israel's reach

Backing for warmer relations between Israel and some Arab countries appears to be waning in the region amid popular support for the Palestinian cause, according to experts.

Haydar Oruc, a Palestine-Israel analyst and former researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Turkiye, said it was unrealistic to expect that the normalization of ties with Israel by some states would spread across the Arab world without support from the people.

In September 2020, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco signed the Abraham Accords that normalized relations with Israel.

On Wednesday, two years into the agreements, the Emirates News Agency reported that trade between Israel and the UAE amounted to $1.21 billion during the first half of 2022－a 117 percent increase compared with the first six months of 2021.

Amir Hayek, the Israeli ambassador to the UAE, was quoted as saying that in the next two to three years, the UAE could be one of Israel's top 10 trading partners.

However, a survey conducted by US think tank The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, published in July, found that public support for the normalization of ties with Israeli has declined sharply in three Gulf states.

The institute said that the survey, which was carried out in March, demonstrated that the percentage of those who view normalization favorably in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE "has dropped over the past year to a minority view".

Hardened attitudes

Likewise, it said, attitudes have hardened in countries where the Abraham Accords were initially unpopular.

Furthermore, the percentage of those in Lebanon who see the accords in a "very negative" light has increased from 41 percent in November 2020 to 66 percent in March, while support in Egypt has dropped from about a quarter to 13 percent.

"The most important reason for the decrease in the support given to the normalization process with Israel in the research conducted among the Arab peoples is that Israel does not include the Palestinians in this process," said Oruc.

"In order for Israel to fully normalize with the Arab world, first of all, the disagreements with the Palestinians must be eliminated. To reach this target, the Palestinians must attain their internationally recognized, equal, and independent state."

Belal Alakhras, a political analyst and Palestinian researcher at the University of Malaya in Malaysia, said that most Arabs have consistently considered the Palestinian cause an Arab issue. Israel will continue its expansionist ambitions regardless, he added.

In March, Michael Lynk, the UN special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, called on the international community to adopt the recent findings in his report that apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.

On Aug 31, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye called on the US not to block Palestine's bid for full UN membership.

In 2012, the UN General Assembly granted Palestine the status of a nonmember observer state. Ishtaye's remarks came after media reported in Israel that if Palestine's bid was brought to the UN Security Council, the United States would use its veto.

Xinhua contributed to this story.