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Showing posts with the label “Abraham Accords”

Core Aspects of Trumpism Have Been Institutionalised

“Over the last eight years, but especially during the Biden administration, core aspects of Trumpism have been institutionalised. Let’s take a look at the record. First, the ‘China problem’ identified by Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, became a bipartisan obsession. It is now hegemonic to the extent that Harris attacked Trump from the right on this issue during their debate, condemning him for having ‘sold us out’ by selling chips to China. (He, in fact, limited sales of chips to China.) Second, economic nationalism – including protectionism, stimulus and a domestic industrial policy – was embraced far more vigorously by Biden than Trump. Ironically, he was enabled in this by pressure from the Sanders left, just as Trump was inhibited by pressure from the Republican right. Third, the far right’s borders agenda has been adopted uncontested, and now forms a major plank in Harris’s platform. Fourth, in all essential ways, Biden adopted Trump’s foreign policy. The withdrawal from Afghanist...

US Wants Saudi Arabia and Israel to Get Cosy

Abraham Accords “were less peace deals than just straightforward trades. In some cases, they were ransoms: unelected Arab leaders would recognize Israel, a state they no longer had any ideological stake in opposing, in return for a significant diplomatic concession. Morocco would enter the accords in return for the United States recognizing their  occupation  of Western Sahara. Sudan would sign their name to the deal in  return  for the United States removing them from the state sponsors of terrorism list. Saudi Arabia, the geopolitical kingmaker of the Gulf Arab states, is gunning for the biggest payout of them all .”

The U.S. in the Middle East

“ In short, the political economy of the Abraham Accords may serve as the new anchor of a regional security arrangement that is US-stamped, but no longer necessarily directly backed militarily by a US presence on the ground. They facilitate a region-wide, Israeli-produced surveillance architecture; new flows of weaponry to repressive states known to target civilians; and trade and investment patterns that promise an authoritarian model of prosperity at the expense of the most vulnerable communities of the region. This is, of course, in addition to the violation of the most basic rights of Palestinian and Sahrawi communities.” The empire is changing its strategy Related Israel-Egypt-EU gas deal