Welcome and Introduction:

GUDRUN KRAMER, Director of the ASPR

Panelists:

OFER ZALZBERG, Middle East Program Director, HKI

Moderation:

STEPHANIE FENKART, Director of the IIP



Content:

Since his first foreign visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in May 2017, then President Donald Trump repeatedly surprised international observers. The May 2018 withdrawal of the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran, and the consequent policy of “maximum pressure” towards Iran, created the context and pretext for a subsequent normalization of Israeli relations with some Arab states. During late 2020 four Arab states - the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco - have signed the so-called Abraham Accords with the US and Israel. They thus broke away from the logic of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which stipulated that broad normalization with Israel would only come after an agreement was reached to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines. These steps were preceded and accompanied by the introduction of an unorthodox plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace (“Deal of the Century”) and the moving of the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reflecting tight US-Israeli coordination, creating an unprecedented crisis in US-PLO relations and accentuating the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

With the election of Joe Biden as the new president of the US, inaugurated in January 2021, geopolitical considerations run high in the Middle East and different stakeholders are realigning their positions. The possibility of US return to the JCPOA, which Prime Minister Netanyahu always perceived as a threat to Israeli security, is tangible. Because the Trump administration incentivized Arab states to sign the Abraham Accords with unprecedented, norm-breaking promises, it is unclear whether the Biden administration will fulfil all of them, a reality which gives rise to concerns in Israel and the normalizing states regarding the fate of the agreements. Not least, the Biden administration will shelve President Trump’s plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace and advance instead its policies, fostering hopes among Palestinians for a reset of US-PLO relations and a more evenhanded approach toward the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Efforts by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey to improve their tense bi-lateral relations with the incoming administration further affect the regional balance of power and, consequently, Israel’s regional positioning.

Not least, given COVID-19 Israel, the Middle East and indeed the whole world faces the biggest health crisis since the end of World War Two. Additionally, Israel still finds itself in a protracted political crisis which results in the 4th election within two years, planned for March 23rd.

How does the incoming US administration affect the Middle East and consequently Israel’s regional positioning, notably with respect to Iran, the Abraham Accords and the conflict with the Palestinians? What policies can be expected from the incoming Biden administration and how would these developments affect Israeli polices and domestic politics?