Abraham Accords were 'not the answer' to solve conflict, former UK minister says

The Abraham Accords were “not the answer” to bring about a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a former British Middle East Minister told MPs on Tuesday.

Testifying before the UK Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Alistair Burt said he had warned Jason Greenblatt, the Trump administration’s Middle East peace envoy, on a number of occasions to ensure that the "Deal of the Century", as it was called, would not “humiliate the Palestinians”.

Burt also said he told Greenblatt: “Don’t think this can all be solved by a check. It’s not all about money”.

In the end, however, he said the accords, while giving a useful projection of how the Middle East could work differently in the future, ignored the Palestinian issue at their own peril.

“It gave a sense that the future of the region could be sorted without dealing with the Palestinian issue,” Burt said.

“That did a couple of things. In Israel, it reinforced a view amongst some certain Israeli politicians that they had been right all along: the Palestinian issue was marginal. It could be put to one side, it could be managed and controlled and they could have a good relationship with Arabs states regardless.

“For Palestinians, it looked as though this was another abandonment and this was an abandonment by those immediately around them.”

The normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia “could be fundamental” moving forward, Burt said, but it is now clear the Palestinian issue “has to be part of the resolution and that is a good thing”.