Members of the Joint Arab List, which consists mostly of Israeli-Arab Members of Knesset, announced they will vote against the ratification of the peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain in the Knesset.
The Joint List announced Thursday that it will oppose the Abraham Accords when it is put to the Knesset for a vote later in the day.
“We emphasize the right of the Arab public in Israel to develop and maintain relations with the Arab world, but we oppose President Trump’s Deal of the Century, which is mentioned in the introduction to the agreement brought to a vote in the Knesset,” the political faction stated.
The Joint List alleged that the US-formulated Deal of the Century peace plan is “part of a clear plan to eliminate the rights of the Palestinian people. The purpose of this plan is to perpetuate the occupation and the settlements, and most importantly – to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 67 borders with its capital, east Jerusalem.”
They further claimed that President Donald Trump’s plan includes an exchange of territories and population and a transfer of hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens.
“We support a just, genuine and comprehensive peace as reflected in the Arab Peace Initiative, which is based on peace and normalization in exchange for an end to the occupation and a solution to the Palestinian question and not the other way around,” the Joint List stated.
“Replacing the principle of peace for territories with Netanyahu’s deceptive vision of peace for peace will bring disaster to the country and all its inhabitants. This approach ensures the continuation of conflict, suffering and bloodshed,” the Joint List claimed.
Speaking on Monday during the government session in which the peace treaty was presented, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored that the agreement with the UAE differs from its predecessors in that “Israel is not giving up any territory.”
The agreement is “based on peace out of power. Not peace out of concessions that will weaken Israel and endanger it. We need to achieve peace and can achieve peace out of the Arabs’ conviction that we are here as an existing fact, out of our power which is unshakable,” he added.
MK Yousef Jabareen, of the Joint List, stated that the Abraham Accords “distances true peace” and “serves the right-wing and racist ideology of Netanyahu and Trump that seeks to violate the rights of the Palestinian people,” he asserted.
Israel, the UAE and Bahrain signed a historic peace agreement at the White House last month, the first agreement to be signed between Israel and an Arab country in 25 years.
The UAE is the first major Arab state to recognize Israel since the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty was signed in October 1994.
Announced on August 13, the Abraham Accords is the first between a Gulf state and Israel and is expected to lead to similar agreements with other Arab countries, possibly Oman or Saudi Arabia.