{"id":222874,"date":"2022-10-31T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=222874"},"modified":"2022-10-28T05:36:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T04:36:26","slug":"palestine-israel-australia-hammers-final-nail-in-us-deal-of-the-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/10\/palestine-israel-australia-hammers-final-nail-in-us-deal-of-the-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestine\/Israel: Australia Hammers Final Nail in US \u2018Deal of the Century\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Ally to Enemy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Abraham Accord signing ceremony in Washington. (Photo: Wikimedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

26 Oct 2022 – <\/em>US President Donald Trump\u2019s so-called \u2018Deal of the Century\u2019 was meant to represent a finality of sorts, an event reminiscent of Francis Fukuyama\u2019s premature\u00a0declaration<\/a>\u00a0of the \u2018End of History\u2019 and the uncontested supremacy of western capitalism. In effect, it was a declaration that \u2018we\u2019 \u2013 the US, Israel and a few allies \u2013 have won, and \u2018you\u2019, isolated and marginalized Palestinians, lost.<\/p>\n

The same way Fukuyama failed to consider the unceasing evolution of history, the US and Israeli governments also failed to understand that the Middle East, in fact, the world, is not governed by Israeli expectations and American diktats.<\/p>\n

The above is a verifiable assertion. On October 17, the Australian government\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that it is revoking its 2018 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Expectedly, the new decision, officially made by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, was strongly\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0by Israel, celebrated by Palestinians and\u00a0welcomed<\/a>\u00a0by Arab countries who praised the responsible diplomacy of Canberra.<\/p>\n

Any serious analysis of the Australian move, however, must not be confined to Australia\u2019s own political shifts but must be extended to include the dramatic changes underway in Palestine, the Middle East and, indeed, the world.<\/p>\n

For many years, but especially since the US\u00a0invasion<\/a>\u00a0of Iraq as part of the politically-motivated \u2018war on terror\u2019, Washington perceived itself as the main, if not the only, power that is able to shape political outcomes in the Middle East. Yet, as its Iraq quagmire began destabilizing the entire region, with revolts, social upheavals and wars breaking out, Washington began losing its grip.<\/p>\n

It was then rightly understood that, while the US may succeed in waging wars, as it did in Iraq and Libya, it is unable to restore even a small degree of peace and stability. Though Trump seemed disinterested in engaging in major military conflicts, he converted that energy to facilitate the rise of Israel as a regional power, which is incorporated into the Middle East\u2019s political and economic grids through a process of political \u2018normalization\u2019, which is wholly delinked from the struggle in Palestine or the freedom of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The Americans were so confident in their power to orchestrate such a major political transformation to the extent that Jared Kushner \u2013 Trump\u2019s Middle East advisor and son-in-law \u2013 was\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0to have attempted to cancel the very status of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, an attempt that was met with a decisive Jordanian rejection.<\/p>\n

Kushner\u2019s arrogance reached the point that, in January 2020, he\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that his father-in-law\u2019s plan was such a \u201cgreat deal\u201d which, if rejected by Palestinians, \u201cthey\u2019re going to screw up another opportunity, like they\u2019ve screwed up every other opportunity that they\u2019ve ever had in their existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of this hubris was joined with many American concessions to Israel, whereby Washington virtually fulfilled all Israeli wishes. The\u00a0relocation<\/a>\u00a0of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem was merely the icing on the cake of a much larger political scheme that included the financial boycott of Palestinians, the\u00a0cancellation<\/a>\u00a0of funds that benefited Palestinian refugees, the recognition of the illegally occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel and the support of Tel Aviv\u2019s decision to annex much of the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

The then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies had hoped that, as soon as Washington carried out such moves, many other countries would follow, and that, in no time, Palestinians would find themselves friendless, broke and irrelevant.<\/p>\n

This was hardly the case, and what started with a bang ended with a whimper. Though the Biden Administration still refuses to commit to any new \u2018peace process\u2019, it has largely avoided engaging in Trump\u2019s provocative politics. Not just that, the Palestinians are anything but isolated, and Arab countries remain united, at least officially, in the centrality of Palestine to their collective political priorities.<\/p>\n

In April 2021, Washington\u00a0restored<\/a>\u00a0funding to the Palestinians, including money allocated to the UN refugees\u2019 agency, UNRWA. It did not do so for charitable reasons, of course, but because it wanted to ensure the allegiance of the Palestinian Authority, and to remain a relevant political party in the region. Even then, the PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, still\u00a0declared<\/a>, during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazakhstan on October 12, that \u201cwe (Palestinians) don\u2019t trust America\u201d.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the annexation scheme, at least officially, did not go through. The rejection of any Israeli steps that could change the legal status of the occupied Palestinian territories proved unpopular with most UN members, including most of Israel\u2019s western allies.<\/p>\n

Australia remained the exception, but not for long. Unsurprisingly, Canberra\u2019s reversal of its earlier decision regarding the status of Jerusalem earned it much criticism in Tel Aviv. Four years following its initial policy shift, Australia shifted yet once more, as it found it more beneficial to realign itself with the position of most world capitals than to that of Washington and Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s \u2018Deal of the Century\u2019 has failed simply because neither Washington nor Tel Aviv had enough political cards to shape a whole new reality in the Middle East. Most parties involved \u2013 Trump, Netanyahu, Scott Morrison in Australia, and a few others \u2013 were simply playing a political game linked to their own interests at home. Similarly, the currently embattled British Prime Minister Liz Truss is now\u00a0jumping<\/a>\u00a0on the bandwagon of relocating the British embassy to Jerusalem so that she may win the approval of pro-Israel politicians. The move further demonstrates her lack of political experience and, regardless of what Westminster decides to do next, it will unlikely greatly affect the political reality in Palestine and the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In the final analysis, it has become clear that the \u2018Deal of the Century\u2019 was not an irreversible historical event, but an opportunistic and thoughtless political process that lacked a deep understanding of history and the political balances that continue to control the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Another important lesson to be gleaned from all of this is that, as long as the Palestinian people continue to resist and fight for their freedom and as long as international solidarity continues to grow around them, the Palestinian cause will remain central to all Arabs and to all conscientious people around the world.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of <\/em>The Palestine Chronicle. His last book is <\/em>The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is <\/em>These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is <\/em>www.ramzybaroud.net<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ramzybaroud.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 17 Oct 2022, the Australian government\u00a0announced\u00a0it is revoking its 2018 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Expectedly, the new decision was strongly\u00a0criticized\u00a0by Israel, celebrated by Palestinians, and\u00a0welcomed\u00a0by Arab countries. As long as Palestinians continue to resist and fight for their freedom and international solidarity continues to grow around them, the Palestinian cause will remain central to all Arabs and to all conscientious people around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":217382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[928,532,101,100,2898,87,865,2414,2415,2416,767,771,427,85,2897,880,99,92,1025,886],"class_list":["post-222874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-bds-boycott-divestment-sanctions","tag-colonialism","tag-cultural-violence","tag-direct-violence","tag-ecocide","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israeli-apartheid","tag-israeli-army","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-middle-east","tag-nakba","tag-palestine","tag-palestine-israel","tag-sociocide","tag-state-terrorism","tag-structural-violence","tag-violent-conflict","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}