Welcome back to This Week in Peace, our weekly summary of events in global peacebuilding.
This week, Israel’s offensive on Rafah risks harming a crucial treaty with Egypt, but there were some positives in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia seems poised to re-engage in peace talks, and Bahrain’s call for an international peace conference shows that peace in the Middle East remains a priority for many regional actors.
Israel’s offensive in Rafah puts crucial peace treaty at risk
As Israel continues its offensive on Rafah, where more than a million Palestinian refugees are sheltering, its decades-long peace treaty with Egypt has come under threat. The agreement, which came out of the Camp David Accords, has been tested during Israel’s war on Gaza. The ongoing Israeli attack on Rafah, located on the Egyptian border, has significantly escalated those tensions. Israel recently took over the Rafah border crossing, and both sides have blamed each other for the resulting drop in aid. Egypt has called for the crossing to be in Palestinian hands, and warned that it may downgrade relations. Israeli troops are operating in what is known as the Philadelphi Corridor, which under the treaty – which limits the military presence both states can have on the border – is a demilitarized area. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel is crucial for a number of reasons – it ended decades of war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and serves as a powerful example of how former sworn enemies can reconcile if leaders are willing to take risks for peace. Any threat to the treaty would be dangerous for regional peace, tarnish a prominent example of what peace processes can accomplish, and make a negotiated end to the ongoing war less likely, given Egypt’s prominent role in ceasefire talks. Reopening the crossing, and maintaining formal peace between the two states, are crucial both for the continuation of regional peace, and for ensuring that much-needed humanitarian aid is delivered to Gaza, where millions of Palestinians face famine, and hundreds of thousands have now fled Rafah.
New hopes for peace talks in Yemen
There are renewed prospects for an eventual peace treaty in Yemen, as Saudi Arabia appears ready to restart peace talks with the Houthi rebels who control much of the country. While direct fighting between the two sides has now ebbed, a peace process would still be beneficial for the region, as the Iranian-backed Houthis have been attacking shipping heading in the direction of Israel since the war in Gaza began, and have faced American and British airstrikes in return. Saudi Arabia and a regional coalition fought them for years in a war that killed thousands and led to a humanitarian crisis in the region. Peace talks were interrupted when the Houthi attacks began, but there had been growing optimism that a formal deal, which would involve power-sharing in Yemen, humanitarian aid, and perhaps even an end to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia has the potential to emerge as an unexpected regional peace actor, considering Washington’s desire to broker a normalization between the kingdom and Israel, as part of a deal to end the war in Gaza.
Bahrain calls for a peace conference for the Middle East
At the first Arab League summit held since November, the host, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain called for an international peace summit in the Middle East, which would include Palestinian representatives. Speakers included the head of the Palestinian Authority and the UN Secretary General, who emphasized the need for a two-state solution to end the war in Gaza and the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bahrain was one of the first Arab countries to normalize ties with Israel, but its actions in Gaza, and refusal to entertain near-unanimous global calls for a two-state solution, have led to increased frustration. The summit could potentially end with “binding” measures against Israel, which would be noteworthy considering the recent normalization of ties between some members and Tel Aviv. The summit will also discuss how to end other regional conflicts, including Houthi attacks on shipping, and the civil war in Sudan. In a sign of the difficult path ahead to achieving total peace in the region, the list of attendees includes Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, responsible for some of the worst war crimes of the 21st century, including the use of chemical weapons against civilians, but has been accepted by many of his former adversaries.
