dr. Alba Iulia Catrinel POPESCU, PhD^

Abstract. On August 13, 2020, the Donald Trump administration announced that in a few weeks, in early September, at the White House, the peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates will be signed, a moment of utmost importance in the evolution of the peace process in the Middle East. What is the geopolitical impact of this event and what geopolitical processes can it announce?

Keywords: Israel, United Arab Emirates, peace agreement, Donald Trump, Muslim Brotherhood, Iran

After almost 2,000 years of exile, in 1948, the Jewish people regained their country. But the birth of the new Israel – Eretz was not welcomed by its neighbors. The reasons for this hostility were many, from the confessional dichotomy between the followers of the biblical patriarch Abraham, to economic, political and geopolitical reasons. And yet, the agenda of reconciliation between the two great Semitic tribes has stalled on the “Palestinian cause” of the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories conquered by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israel’s renaissance coincided with the Cold War, when the Jewish state was perceived as a bridgehead to American interests in the Middle East, a geopolitical area largely dominated by the communist bloc.

The ideological divergences between the powers of the moment and the geopolitical game in the region first created the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamic, Islamist, radical organization that, since 1938, when it set up the Jerusalem branch, also assumed the “Palestinian cause”¹. An assumption, either direct, through political and opinion leaders affiliated with the organization, or indirect, through terrorist organizations (HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim al-Jihad, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jamaat al-Islamiyya and many others), which emerged starting with the 1950s, from its armed division, called al-Nizam al-Khass – the Special Apparatus².

During, and even after, bipolarity, the Muslim Brotherhood came under the dome of American influence (through Central Intelligence Agency)³, being used by its new protectors as a vector of containment of Soviet / Russian influence in the region. Later, Soviet-affiliated Palestinian organizations, such as Fatah or Black September⁴, emerged in the 1960s. The confrontation by proxies between the two systems has transformed the Middle East into a “belt of ruins”, a space dominated by tensions and conflicts, instability and insecurity.