UAE Normalization isn’t part of the “Deal of the Century”, but a Search for an Equivalent to it

Mrs. Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, commented on the announcement, saying: “Israel received a prize from the UAE via normalizing relations with it through secret negotiations.”

The existence of secret and semi-public negotiations, and even many normalization steps between the UAE and the Entity’s state, are hardly hidden to anyone, but the timing going public with it is what requires pondering.

Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton mourned the “Deal of the Century” a few days ago during an interview with the “Makor Rishon” newspaper, saying that the Deal of the Century “will lead to nothing” and “no one will take it seriously.”

More important than what Bolton said, is the reality of lack of opportunities to implement this deal, not because of the difficulties some Arab governments face in fully submitting themselves to the deal – which are not little difficulties regardless of the desire to submit thereto, as normalizing governments is one thing and the choices of the peoples is another – but because of the Palestinian people’s resistance, which has been reignited by the announcement of the deal that has also pushed for the restructuring of the political configuration of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), a process whose effects we will see in the near future.

In parallel, frenzied movements on the US and Zionist sides are going these days into an attempt to devote a regional equivalent to the proposals of the Deal of the Century. If the implementation of the Deal is impossible, then creating the ultimate atmosphere required of it, meaning securing the Zionist presence in the region through a set of regional deals, is still a primary goal of US policy in the region.

Today, this approach acquires an existential necessity, due to the new international balance that counters the interests of both Washington and the Entity, and because the imminent US withdrawal from the region will place the Entity’s state at a historically unprecedented weakness peak, and this is a compound threat to the Entity itself and to the US that aspires to leave behind the Zionist bully after withdrawal, in order to keep its influence in the Middle East.

In this context, the UAE move could fall within the framework of searching for an equivalent for the collapsed Deal of the Century. However, the speed of the US transition from Plan A to plan B and then to plan C allows us to predict that the supposed “equivalent” will collapse faster than the collapse of the Deal of the Century, and the letters of alternative plans will expire sooner than many expect.