The speed with which the Sunday-Monday “Negev Summit” was put together, the historic location and the growing list of participants underscore the importance of this unprecedented gathering of foreign ministers in Israel.
The meeting hosted by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in Sde Boker, the Negev homeland and burial place of Israel’s founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, in such a resonant location is another dramatic symbolic affirmation of Israel’s legitimacy and regional importance by the Abraham Accords partners in Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Their foreign ministers, by their mere presence, will improve relations with the country Ben-Gurion was so instrumental in building. There is even talk of a photo opportunity at the tomb of Ben-Gurion.
Along with the visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israel’s new regional allies will join the foreign minister of the country’s first peace partner, Egypt, for formal and informal meetings, consultations and meals. These talks come just a week after Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi invited Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to a very warm and high-profile summit. Attempts to include the Jordanian foreign minister in the list are ongoing – since Saturday evening in vain.
In fact, the Negev summit coincides with a planned visit to Ramallah by Jordan’s King Abdullah to help find ways to ease Israeli-Palestinian tensions ahead of the tense Ramadan period. Blinken, who will hold talks with Israeli leaders and with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday before heading south to Sde Boker, would no doubt have been pleased to meet not only Jordan but Abbas at the Negev summit see.
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But Bennett, opposed to negotiations with the PA President, would have resisted. Abbas’ already low standing among the Palestinians would hardly have been boosted by his participation in a diplomatic festival that in a way honors Israel’s founding prime minister. And in any case, the Palestinian leader is largely irrelevant to the agenda bringing these ministers together.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the grave of former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in Sde Boker on November 10, 2021. (Haim Zach/GPO)
For Israel’s strengthened regional legitimacy is central not only to the location of this summit, but also to its focus – efforts to forge an effective alliance against the common threat, Iran.
As with the Abraham Accords themselves, regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia will not be present at the Sunday-Monday negotiations, but will be present in spirit and powerful behind the scenes. Although Jerusalem and Riyadh are not formally allied, they are working to bolster regional unity against Tehran — not rhetorically, but practically, through intelligence sharing, development of regional missile warning and defense systems, and more.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (R), Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi (C) and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett meet in Sharm el-Sheikh March 22, 2022. (Egyptian Presidency Spokesman)
Behind the handshake and the smile, it is the US Secretary of State who might find herself an awkward guest at this extraordinary gathering. He will bring news of progress towards a revived P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, aimed at curbing the ayatollahs’ rogue nuclear weapons program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and possibly the removal of Iran’s globally troubled Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity.
Bennett is a staunch opponent of a revived deal; Lapid has said he would prefer the US to pull out of the talks than strike a bad deal. The other participants in the Negev summit and the Saudis watching from home share a deep concern that Iran will be both empowered, encouraged and enriched by the agreement taking shape, as well as the recognition that the US too many have other global challenges to contend with.
It was, of course, the US, and the Trump administration in particular, that brought the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco together with Israel in the Abraham Accords, a process that has helped modern-day Israel gain more recognition in that region than ever before .
The Negev summit signals that these new partners are now working more closely than ever simply because they have to — in part because they know the US now has other concerns and priorities, and fear they are underestimating the dangers Iran poses .
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