Palestinian women and children are packing up their belongings and fleeing to safer areas in Gaza City, the central city of the Gaza Strip, on the 13th (local time). Gaza City AFP/Yonhap News
Has the Middle East gone back to the past? Rather, was the reality that was hidden and wanted to be revealed? Is it a thing of the past or a hidden reality that the Palestine conflict is the core of the Middle East conflict and that the Middle East cannot be peaceful without its resolution? The Israel-Hamas war, which began with an all-out attack by Palestinian Hamas on the 7th, is asking us this. This incident showed how fragile the new regional order in the Middle East was, which became visible when Israel established diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain through the mediation of the United States on September 15, 2020. The Treaty of Abraham, named after Abraham, the common ancestor of Jews and Arabs, was an ambitious project to create a new order in the Middle East by completely normalizing relations between Israel and Arab countries. Diplomatic ties were established between Israel and Morocco in December 2020, and between Israel and Sudan in January 2021.
Israel-Saudi diplomatic ties ‘sudden brake’
The highlight of the Treaty of Abraham is the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which claim to be the suzerain of the Islamic world, and this has recently made rapid progress. Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said in an interview with Fox News in the U.S. on September 20, “(The two countries) are getting closer every day. “It seems serious for the first time,” he said. “It is the largest historic transaction since the end of the Cold War.” The Abraham Treaty, promoted by the former US administration of Donald Trump, was initially aimed at establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and this is a large-scale event that will change the geopolitics of the Middle East. The Treaty of Abraham emerged from the context of the Middle East conflict, which began with Iran’s Islamic Revolution (1979) and was completely changed by the US Iraq War (2003-2011). Since then, the structure of the Middle East conflict has changed into a confrontation between Saudi-centered Sunni Arab forces and Iran-led Shiite solidarity. Initially, the main axis of the post-war conflict in the Middle East was the Palestine conflict, which arose when Israel was established on the land of Palestine in 1948. Arab countries, including Israel and Egypt, fought four wars until 1973. After that, Israel and Egypt, which had no choice but to recognize each other, established diplomatic relations in 1979. At that time, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran. Iran, which transformed into a Shia Islamic republic, withdrew from the US alliance and threatened Sunni conservative monarchies, including Saudi Arabia. Also, Islamism swept the Arab public instead of Arab nationalism. When Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, which had been keeping Iran in check, fell due to the U.S. war on Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni conservative monarchies had no choice but to deal directly with Iran. The Middle East has been reorganized into a confrontation between the Shiite solidarity of Iran, Syria’s Bashar Assad regime, Lebanon’s Shiite armed faction Hezbollah, and Palestine’s Hamas versus the Sunni Arab countries centered on Saudi Arabia. The reason why the Sunni Palestinian Hamas joined the Shia alliance is because of Palestine’s isolation and division. After the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt and the Iranian revolution, Palestine was forgotten. In 1987, the Intifada (popular uprising) broke out in Palestine, leading to the rise of Hamas, an Islamist force. The international community resumed peace negotiations in Palestine, and in September 1993, the Oslo Agreement, which promised an independent state for Palestine, was signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) through the mediation of the United States. However, the Oslo Agreement to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank became a piece of paper. The Palestine Liberation Organization, which negotiated with Israel, formed a superficial autonomous government in the West Bank, and Hamas, which denied Israel, established a nest in Gaza.
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The Palestine conflict is forgotten and only used as a bargaining chip.
Smoke is rising from the Gaza Strip due to an Israeli airstrike on the 12th (local time). AFP Yonhap News
In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and shifted its policy to blockading Gaza. It is a policy that confines the Palestinian conflict to Gaza. Arab countries, including Egypt, also did not recognize Hamas. Israel’s main enemies, Iran and solidarity forces, reached out to Hamas in Gaza. Since 2006, conflict has continued in Gaza for 17 years, including four wars during which Israel invaded. 3,500 people died and 15,000 were injured. Gaza, half the size of Seoul and with 2.2 million people living under lockdown, was a prison without bars, an open-air prison, the largest prison in the world. Yet the West, Arab countries, and Israel acted as if there was no conflict in Palestine. This was also because conflict and war did not escape Gaza during the blockade. The Trump administration, which took office in 2018, again abolished the international nuclear agreement with Iran and strengthened its alliance with Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has also now considered joining hands with Israel to keep Iran in check. This was promoted through the Treaty of Abraham. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad proposed resolving the Palestinian issue as a condition for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, but used it as a card to win something else from the United States and Israel. Iran restored diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia last March through China’s mediation, but the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia was a threat to its security. The United States promises security guarantees to Saudi Arabia, and once diplomatic relations are established, Israel will be able to threaten Iran without hesitation. In April, a Hamas delegation met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon, and discussed bilateral cooperation as an “axis of resistance” against Israel. At the end of August, Salih Aruri, Hamas’ second-in-command, pointed out Israel’s provocations against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem since the inauguration of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Israeli regime in an interview with the Lebanese media, saying, “We are preparing for an all-out war.” “We are discussing the prospects for this war closely with all parties involved,” he said. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said in a broadcast on the 7th attacking Israel, “An entity that cannot even protect itself in the face of resistance cannot provide any security guarantee. “All the normalization agreements you (Arab countries) signed with them do not resolve the (Palestinian) conflict,” he said. This means that even if diplomatic relations are established with Israel, which is under attack by Hamas, the conflict in the Middle East will not end. Efforts for peace in the Middle East that exclude Palestine are bound to be futile. Israel announced on the 12th that it would completely cut off electricity, gas, and water to Gaza until the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas are released. Furthermore, Israel must swallow Gaza, which is ‘a stone heated by fire.’ The cost of ignoring Palestine so far will not only be felt by Israel, but also by the Middle East and the world as a whole. Senior Reporter Jeong Eui-gil [email protected] writes in the international field for the Hankyoreh. While he was writing for newspapers, he also published books such as ‘The Birth of an Islamic Warrior’ and ‘Prisoners of Geopolitics’.
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2023-10-14 01:00:25
