Behind-closed-doors diplomacy: How Israel-UAE normalization masks regional power shifts and Palestinian displacement
Original framing: “Netanyahu secretly met UAE President in Abu Dhabi” — Middle East Eye
Marginalized voices, such as those from Palestinian civil society organizations like Al-Shabaka or the BDS movement, argue that normalization agreements are designed to silence dissent and legitimize occupation. These groups emphasize that the Palestinian people, as the primary stakeholders, have been excluded from these negotiations, reinforcing a pattern seen in other conflicts where elite diplomacy ignores grassroots demands for justice.
The secret meeting between Netanyahu and the UAE president is not an isolated diplomatic event but a symptom of a broader systemic failure to address the Palestinian question through justice rather than elite negotiation.
Historical patterns, from Sykes-Picot to Camp David, show how such deals prioritize geopolitical alliances over human rights, reinforcing cycles of occupation and displacement. Marginalized voices, including Palestinian civil society and Gulf labor movements, are systematically excluded from these processes, much like Indigenous populations were excluded from colonial treaties. The trickster lens reveals the absurdity of framing occupation as a technical problem while ignoring the moral and ethical dimensions of dispossession. To break this cycle, solutions must center democratized diplomacy, condition normalization on human rights, support grassroots resistance, and promote alternative regional alliances that prioritize justice over power.