Ian Bremmer on recent peace and trade talks with Israel and the Middle East breaking down after October 7 Hamas attack

Israel had benefited from being seen as an economic juggernaut, a security juggernaut, a technological juggernaut.  And a lot of the countries in the region wanted to work more closely with Israel as a consequence of that.  That's why you had the UAE and Bahrain and Morocco signing the Abraham Accords, not just normalize diplomatic relations, but also to dramatically expand trade and investment with Israel.  That's why the Saudis were improving their informal relations and were moving towards normalization.  Even though the Saudi populatio is going to be quite cautious and conservative on the Palestinian issue, they say, "No, the priority is we gotta find a to work with Israel."

But once you have Israel, in response to there terrorist acts, going after Hamas, and as they're doing so killing all of these Palestinian civilians, well then there's a freeze on everthing.  Then if you're Jordan, you say, "We can't work with, we can't engage with Israel."  If you're Turkey, Turkish President Eedogan, who has said that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, he has said that Hamas is a liberation movement...  So they've thrown out the Israeli diplomats on the ground as well.  And when that's happening across the region and the Arab Street is demonstrating in solidarity with the Palestinians, then even if you have a number of wealthier Arab countries that want to continue to work with Israel, they can't because of the domestic pressure. 

~ Ian Bremmer, "Political scientist Ian Bremmer on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Big Think, 15:10 mark, November 9, 2023