Thread by @GershomG

UAE-Israel accord named after Biblical Abraham
What would Abraham, who walked before God and was pure, think of the sham of a "peace agreement" b/w countries that weren't at war?

Normalizing relations b/w Israel & other countries is a good thing. The benefits, however, are overshadowed by the tremendous hyping, aided by uncritical reporting.

Benefits are also thrown into question by lack of transparency - Netanyahu reaching agreements w/out any consultation w/cabinet, which in Israel holds collective responsibility for executive actions. Made worse by Netanyahu's outright lying on F-35 issue.

In historical perspective, these agreements are far less significant than agreements w/Egypt & Jordan, and forever-uncompleted process w/Palestinians. May be less significant than normalization w/India and China were.

Put in proper perspective, sans hype, they do very little to soften Netanyahu's catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic and of the economy. Israelis who can't pay rent aren't going shopping in Dubai anytime soon.

Domestic failure & Netanyahu's approaching trial only partly explain hype, though. He wants to be on level of Begin & Rabin, who reached real peace accords.
Trump, of course, is eager for any achievement whatsoever.

In historical perspective, Israeli accords with UAE and Bahrain fit the old "peripheral strategy." In this case the peripheral allies are distant Arabic-speaking countries, rather than Muslim non-Arab countries - such as Iran pre-1979