By Dr. Edy Cohen and Dr. Frank Musmar, BESA September 16, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The US-brokered Israel-UAE normalization agreement was swiftly followed by a similar agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, as well as an Israel-Bahrain agreement. The Trump administration has momentum as it continues to work toward a reformulation of formerly combative relationships. The Israel vs. Arab perception is rapidly changing to an Israel-Arab vs. Iran perception, and that dynamic will create further new alliances on both sides.
On September 4, 2020, President Donald Trump hosted Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo PM Avdullah Hoti at the White House to sign an economic normalization agreement that will lead to the establishment of air, rail, and motorway links between Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, and Kosovo’s capital, Pristina. Twenty-one years ago, Serbia and Kosovo engaged in a bloody war after Serbia cracked down on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a conflict that ended in NATO action against Serbia and Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008.
The Trump administration is gathering remarkable momentum on the foreign policy and diplomacy fronts. Washington announced the Serbia-Kosovo normalization agreement only 22 days after it announced the groundbreaking Israel-UAE normalization agreement, and an Israel-Bahrain normalization agreement was announced shortly after the Serbia-Kosovo news.
Belgrade and Pristina have both vowed to establish relationships with Israel. They plan to open embassies in Jerusalem by 2021, which will make them the first European countries to do so (rather than in Tel Aviv). This step could ultimately lead to international recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Significantly, Pristina’s will be the first embassy of a Muslim-majority state in Israel. The EU is now reconsidering the possibility that Kosovo might join the Union, and Serbia and its Russian and Chinese allies will likely recognize Kosovo’s independence.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the agreement, commenting, “I thank my friend the president of Serbia for the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to transfer his embassy there,” and he thanked President Trump for his contribution to achieving the agreement. He added, “Kosovo is the first country with a Muslim majority to open an embassy in Jerusalem. As I have said in recent days, the circle of peace and recognition of Israel is widening, and other nations are expected to join it.”
Kosovo’s normalization with Israel makes it the fifth Muslim country to normalize or sign a peace agreement with Israel following the peace agreements with Egypt in 1977, Jordan in 1994, Lebanon in 1983 after the Israeli invasion the previous year, and the UAE in 2020—and since the announcement they have been joined by a sixth, the Gulf State of Bahrain. Oman, Sudan, and Morocco are expected to follow suit.
A major shift is swiftly occurring in the Middle East as former enemies reconstitute their relationships and join together to create a front against common foes. The Israel vs. Arab perception is changing to an Israeli-Arab vs. Iran perception, and other new alliances are cropping up according to that new formulation (such as Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Qatar). More countries are likely to join both sides of this emerging new polarity.
Dr. Edy Cohen (Ph.D. Bar-Ilan University) is fluent in Arabic and specializes in inter-Arab relations, the Arab-Israeli conflict, terrorism, Jewish communities in the Arab world. He is a researcher at the BESA Center and author of the book The Holocaust in the Eyes of Mahmoud Abbas (Hebrew).
Dr. Frank Musmar is a financial and performance management specialist and a non-resident research associate at the BESA Center.
@ ketzel2:
Yes, Ketzel2, the comment
was more than a bit deceptive. A more honest statement would require the replacement of the word “integrity” with the phrase “CCP directive”. Also the name “Serbia” should be replaced with a more accurate synonym such as “CCP client state”. But, then, Serbia is just one of many states throughout Europe, Asia and Africa whose autonomy has been replaced with subservience to the CCP. The acceptance of Chinese “aid” in the form of disproportionate financing relative to these states’ abilities to make repayment of such loans formed the basis of a financial gambit called the Brick-and-Road-Initative. When these states fail to be able to make the financial repayment, the ownership of these projects(and the state, itself) become irrevocably captured by the CCP. The consequences of this is to allow the state in question to increase their productivity and employment of its populace while, simultaneously, granting control of the infrastructure, mineral rights and security apparatus’ of a given nation to be handed to the Chinese. The loans are often of such significance that is quite clear to all parties that these states will never be able to repay the debt, and, so, China uses bribery of key gov’t officials to sweeten the deal so the financial trap may be set. Following such duplicitous tactics, the state officials become propaganda spokesmen for the CCP to such a point that the populace of these as much conquered states believe the state is receiving vast financial aid from China well above that from other nations. So, for instance, in Serbia, most Serbians believe that China is their top source of financial aid when in fact, the EU, Germany, the US and the UN all subsidize Serbia with far greater aid packages than China. So, this effective tactic of capturing the support of the gov’t, key infrastructure and the goodwill of the state’s public has been employed throughout the globe to great effect, but a specific target of this duplicitous scheme has been countries long recognized as US allies, especially in Asia. Many countries have moved their support from being long-term historic allies of the US to their newly adopted ally China due to the consequences of these “financial aid” schemes. The result of this policy by China was reflected in China’s ability to defeat the US on several key votes in the UN including the US-backed Australian proposal to appoint an independent body to investigate the origin of the Covid outbreak. This vote was defeated, or more politically termed, revised, and, instead, the investigation was handed over to the world-acknowledged Chinese puppet organization – the WHO – to prove to the world that China was innocent of any blame regarding the initiation or propagation of the “China-plague”. The Chinese ability to so approach a calculated position of dominance among the nations of the world has seriously hampered several US international initiatives.
What integrity? Serbia has a close relationship with the CCP and also facilitates illegal immigration into Hungary. Don’t ask me for a link, I saw it in person when I spent 3 months in Serbia last year.
https://exit.al/en/2021/05/12/israel-recognized-kosovo-under-us-pressure-says-israeli-ambassador-to-serbia/