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White House theatrics, Trump’s delusions and Gulf regime collusion cannot ‘end’ the Arab-Israeli conflict

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The missiles fired at Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip while the UAE and Bahraini foreign ministers were signing ‘peace treaties’ with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House were an affirmation: these agreements are worthless, and the only people capable of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, by peace or by war, are the people of Palestine — with the backing of their Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters and supporters of justice worldwide.

Gulf rulers are mistaken if they think signing up for Israeli ‘protection’ will make them any safer

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Among the thousands of US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks in 2006-7 was one reporting a meeting between the US ambassador in Manama, Adam Ereli, and the king of Bahrain, Hamad bin-Issa Al Khalifa. The envoy thanked the ruler for the efforts made by his son the crown prince to reach out to Israel by publishing an article under his name in an Israeli newspaper explaining the Arab Peace Initiative and urging Israelis to support it.

The UAE-Israel deal is ostensibly about peace but actually about war: against Iran — and maybe, later, Turkey

By Abdel Bari Atwan

It was no surprise to hear US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declare at the weekend that the UAE and Israel have agreed to form a security and military alliance against Iran to ‘protect’ US interests and the Middle East after normalising relations via their so-called ‘Abraham Accord’. The two states have never been in a state of war, and the UAE has never harmed a single Israeli either directly or indirectly since its establishment.

Why have the country’s ever-quarrelling political factions suddenly allowed France to become their arbiter?

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Emmanuel Macron’s second visit to Lebanon in a month showed how nostalgic most Lebanese and Arab officials and politicians are for a foreign colonial master to rule them – and how readily they submit to its dictates and commit to their immediate implementation, abandoning any considerations of national sovereignty.

On both of his trips, the French president played the role of big boss and head honcho.

The virus of fragmentation is spreading dangerously, not just between east and west but within both regions

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Libya is suffering an outbreak of fragmentation virus. This deadly scourge is no longer confined to West vs. East – with rival leaders, armies, parliaments and governments holding sway on either side of the country. It has spread to infect the two opposing camps themselves, both of which now have competing would-be rulers vying for control.

Eastern Libya – the Barqa (Cyrenaica) region and adjoining areas – is witnessing an intensifying struggle between Gen.

Gulf rulers think they’re buying protection against Iran and Turkey, just like the Palestinians bought into the fake promise of independence

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Shimon Peres, Israel’s shrewd former prime minister, once described the Oslo Accords as Israel’s ‘greatest invention.’ The UAE-Israel agreement due to be formally signed next month can be seen as an equally great and duplicitous ‘invention’ by its architect Jared Kushner and his mentor Benjamin Netanyahu.

The former agreement, signed in the White House Rose Garden on 13 September 1993, sold the Palestinians the illusion that they would get an independent state on the 1967 borders and the Gaza Strip would be turned into the ‘Singapore of the Middle East’.

Much work will be needed to turn the tentative cease-fire deal into a success on the ground

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Suddenly, with a military showdown looming on all fronts in Libya, the sound of beating war-drums was halted and replaced by paeans of peace. Both sides in the conflict announced a comprehensive cease-fire and began talking about power-sharing, fresh elections and designating the city of Sirte – birthplace, what irony, of the late Col. Muammar al-Qadhafi’ – as headquarters of an interim administration and a new national capital.

Can rival factions set differences aside in the face of the latest Arab betrayal?

By Abdel Bari Atwan

The delegation of Egyptian intelligence officials that that was sent to Ramallah on Tuesday to confer with President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of an all-party Palestinian leadership meeting had one specific aim: to tone down Palestinian political and media criticism of the UAE following the announcement of its normalisation agreement with Israel. It failed. The statement issued after the gathering and its sharply critical tone made that clear.

The US and its clients are trying to exploit the crisis to advance their plans to destroy Hezbollah. They should know better.

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Let us start at the end, without getting bogged down in the details and analyses that fill the Lebanese and Arab media these days: The current ferment in Lebanon, which resulted in the resignation of Hassan Diab’s government over the Beirut Port explosion, will eventually lead to the demise of Lebanon’s corrupt ruling elite and the 1989 Taif Agreement that brought it to power and established the sectarian carve-up system that sustains it.

Was it an accident caused by negligence and corruption or — as Trump said – a deliberate attack?

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Was the catastrophic explosion in Beirut on Tuesday that killed hundreds and inured thousands of people not a horrific accident but a deliberate attack as US President Donald Trump characterised it? If so, then the US and Israel were probably behind it and bear responsibility for it, either directly or through their clients in Lebanon. The conspiracy theory cannot be ruled out in this case: the same players have previously colluded in many proven conspiracies over the years, both in Lebanon itself and the wider Middle East, notably Iraq.