‘There can be Arab Spring 2.0’

The issue of Palestine cannot be ignored by having deals

The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) organised a webinar on Saturday on ‘US-brokered agreement between UAE, Bahrain and Israel’. Dr Seyed Mohammed Kazem Sajjadpour, president of the Institute for Political and International Studies, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the accord or deal could be analysed as ABC — A (American problematic); B (betrayal); and C (composition of forces). It’s an American project mostly oriented towards American election, a psychological ploy. There has been no achievement for Trump in the last four years in foreign policy. The accord is addressed for a special American constituency based on religious reading.

“Why are they calling it Abraham [Accords]?” They look at Israel with a Biblical sense. There’s a link between, Pompeo, Jared Kushner and that constituency. American policy in the Middle East was in limbo and the agreement is reflective of a very deep crisis of America in the region, he added. On the second point, he said there were contacts between smaller states and Zionist entity in the past, it’s nothing new. But now Palestinians have been betrayed. “Who can ignore the Palestinian plight?” He asked and highlighted that in the last 70 years, there have been 60 American and European plans to fix the Palestinian issue but they haven’t been successful because there is a real problem called Palestine. You can’t ignore it by having deals. Whoever is ignoring their plight is not seeing the reality. “Now there’s a third generation of refugees. Can they ignore their origin? The Palestinians have been betrayed.”