My instinct may turn out to be wrong, but I believe that the events of 7 October 2023 were not so much intended as an act of resistance, which is the universally recognised right of a people under occupation, but to derail the so-called “Abraham Accords” in the Middle East.

Intended to accelerate normalisation between the Arab states and Israel, integrating it as a geopolitical component of the Middle East, these emerged suddenly some years ago. Since Muslims, Jews, and Christians are all descendants of the Prophet Abraham, “why don’t we all reconcile with each other?”

It is an extension of an idea laid out by former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres in the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat in the 1990s under the headline “The New Middle East”. The idea drew little attention at the time, as it seemed like the thinking of a single person. However, it has since turned into a political plan adopted by Israel and pursued in collaboration with Washington, starting with the first administration of US President Donald Trump.

For decades, the people of Gaza have been trapped in a huge prison, deprived of the proper means of subsistence. Their only option has been to educate their children in UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA schools, enable them to work abroad, and wait for their remittances so that they can build their homes, make ends meet, and wait for the annual visits of the children.

Thanks to the good education they have received in UNRWA schools and opportunities for further study abroad, many of these children have gone on to become ambassadors, engineers, doctors, and lawyers. More importantly, they have clung to their Palestinian identity.

Israel has monitored these developments in the Palestinian prison it created with dismay. It had deprived the inmates of all the means of livelihood through agriculture and industry to keep them at a bare subsistence level, only for them to succeed where it had least expected, namely in the education and human development of their children.

As I have pointed out in other articles, this helps to explain the intense venom the Israeli forces have unleashed against schools, hospitals, and other buildings affiliated with UNRWA, the UN organisation responsible for relief and social services for Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.

It also helps to explain why Israel is now targeting Gaza and its people like a colonial invader, bent on occupying the territory directly, pursuing a scorched earth policy to rid the land of its people, and preparing it to receive Zionist settlers who will cultivate it with trees and crops other than olive trees, sage, and thyme.

Shielded by the US military presence and political backing, the Israeli occupier is indifferent to worldwide appeals for an end to the war on Gaza as it continues to massacre civilians – mostly women and children – and to demolish schools, hospitals, and other institutions crucial to Palestinian human development.

The Palestinians, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank, do not figure in Israeli calculations for the Abraham Accords. Israel does not regard them as among the Muslims, Christians, or Jews that should be included, even though the Palestinians are an integral part of the Arab national fabric.

The Egyptian saying “we don’t know the mosque unless we know the church” underscores the country’s long history of the peaceful coexistence of faiths. One of the reforms introduced by the Khedive Said, who reigned from 1854 to 1863, was to open the military up to Copts and Egyptian Jews so they could serve alongside Muslims in the Egyptian Army.

That was one of the hallmarks of the process of building the modern Egyptian state, which we cherish and uphold today. A modern state does not discriminate between its citizens based on race, religion, or gender, and it fights the forces that threaten it, such as terrorism.

Despite the foregoing, Israel has made considerable progress in implementing the Shimon Peres plan. The name has changed from the New Middle East to the Abraham Accords, but the substance is the same. It calls for combining Israeli technological sophistication with Arab labour, excluding the Palestinians because to include them would be to recognise their national rights.

It reflects a mentality that divides the world between countries with brains and others that merely provide cheap labour. The first mistake the Arabs made – and this is a generalisation – was in not distinguishing between Jews as belonging to a particular faith and Zionism as a modern, racist colonialist ideology. The Zionists capitalised on this.

If Israel truly sought to reconcile Christians, Muslims, and Jews through the Abraham Accords, it should have started with the inclusion of the Palestinian people. That, however, would have entailed recognising a Palestinian state and Palestinian national rights. Therefore, it chose to skirt around the Palestinian people, who include Muslims, Christians, and, before 1948, a Jewish minority opposed to Zionism, and head straight to the Arab countries with their large reservoirs of money and manpower.

This ruse to exclude the Palestinians from the New Middle East/Abraham Accords confirms the Israeli intention to pursue a policy of genocide to clear the way for further colonial expansion.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 December, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly