Blinken to Meet Israeli, UAE Counterparts Next Week

On the first anniversary of a pair of landmark diplomatic agreements, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged on Friday to push additional Arab countries to improve relations with Israel while hosting a virtual meeting with Israeli and Arab counterparts.

The meeting, which included Blinken's counterparts as well as senior officials from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco, was the Biden administration's most high-profile endorsement of the so-called Abraham Accords, which were widely regarded as a diplomatic success for Republican former President Donald Trump.

Since entering office in January, Democratic President Joe Biden has welcomed the agreements, and senior advisers have stated that they want additional Arab countries to improve relations with Israel after decades of hostility. However, until today, the Obama administration had been averse to marking the 25th anniversary of the US-brokered accords.

Blinken, on the other hand, praised its diplomatic and economic gains on Friday, saying: “This administration will continue to build on the successful efforts of the last administration to keep normalization marching forward.”

He said the Biden administration would work to strengthen Israel's ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco – as well as Sudan, which had a breakthrough with Israel last year – and would work to strengthen Israel's ties with Egypt and Jordan, which have long-standing peace agreements.

Washington, according to Blinken, will encourage more countries to follow suit. He stated, "We want to widen the circle of peaceful diplomacy."

“This Abraham Accords club is open to new members as well,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid agreed. The normalisation accords, he estimated, had created $650 million in direct trade.

Last September, the leaders of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain signed the agreements at the White House. After Biden defeated Trump in the election, Israel and Sudan declared they would normalise relations the next month, while Morocco established diplomatic ties with Israel in December.

Officials from the Palestinian Authority said they felt deceived by their Arab brothers and sisters for signing agreements with Israel without first demanding progress toward the building of a Palestinian state.

Some critics claimed Trump pushed Arab-Israeli reconciliation while neglecting Palestinian statehood aspirations.

“We all must build on these relationships and growing normalization to make tangible improvements in the lives of Palestinians, and to make progress toward the long-standing goal of advancing a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” Blinken, who has sought to repair ties with the Palestinians that were badly damaged under Trump, said.

In a taped message, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al-Zayani urged for a drive for "a just and comprehensive resolution" to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

The conditions are not ripe, according to US officials, to advocate for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which broke down in 2014. They do, however, hope to see the groundwork for future negotiations created.