Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a believer in the strategy first described in the s of an "Iron Wall" between the Jewish state and the Arabs. The idea is that Israeli strength will in the end make the Arabs realise that their only choice is to acknowledge its existence. Israelis do not like being isolated in the Middle East.
Peace with Egypt and Jordan has never been warm. They might be more hopeful about future relations with Gulf countries a long way from the cockpit of Jerusalem and the occupied territories.
Strengthening the alliance against Iran is another big plus. Mr Netanyahu sees Iran as Israel's number one enemy, at times comparing its leaders to the Nazis. He has muted his original complaints about the UAE's possible arms deal. Mr Netanyahu is also beleaguered, facing a trial for corruption that might land him in jail.
His handling of the coronavirus pandemic started well and has gone badly wrong. Opponents stage weekly rallies outside his residence in Jerusalem.
A ceremony at the White House could not come at a better time. The deal works on a number of levels for the US president. It is a big boost for his strategy of "maximum pressure" on Iran. It is also useful ammunition, especially in an election year, to back his boast that he is the world's best dealmaker.
Anything he does that benefits Israel, or more specifically the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, goes down well with American Christian Evangelical voters, an important part of his electoral base.
The "friends of America" alliance against Iran should work more smoothly if the Gulf Arabs can be open, rather than secretive, about their relations with Israel.
President Trump's so-called "Deal of the Century" to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians is a non-starter. But the "Abraham Accords", as the Israel-UAE agreement is known, is a significant shift in the balance of power in the Middle East and is being presented by the Trump White House as a major foreign policy coup.
Arab identification with the Palestinians and antagonism with Israel are deeply woven into the cultural and political fabric of society. The Arab states cannot simply abandon this decades-old position without undermining their credibility.
Moreover, doing so empowers their regional rivals, Iran and Hezbollah—the very forces they are trying to counter by allying with Israel—as well as domestic opponents, especially radical Sunni Islamists, and even many liberals and pan-Arabists.
While the regional turmoil is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, the stagnation of the Palestinian situation is not. If circumstances change, say in the event of another intifada, and Arab public support for the Palestinians is reinvigorated, the Arab states with ties to Israel risk being caught on the wrong side of a red line they thought had softened and blurred.
Consolidating support at home is not just the prerogative of Netanyahu; in the wake of the Arab uprisings of , it is the primary focus of the Gulf states, as well. That is not to say that a greater degree of regional integration for Israel could not have beneficial side effects, including for the Palestinians.
But the possibilities are limitless and hard to predict. What are more certain are the short- to medium-term consequences, which do not augur well for the Arabs. Netanyahu gains something for nothing while reinforcing the notion that he does not need to settle the conflict with the Palestinians to have better relations with the Arab world. And the Gulf Arab states gain a risky alliance with Israel, without necessarily clinching too much in return that they do not have already by default.
Even closer ties with the United States—the most crucial pillar in this relationship—are far from being a certain outcome. Indeed, in mid-December, on the eve of a U. Israel has pushed for years to come under the purview of U. In short, they despise Israel because it has succeeded in areas where they have failed. But why should they hate the Palestinian Arabs? Surely they are deserving of unreserved support? The answer to this question is complex. It is a function of Middle Eastern culture that neither Israelis nor most Westerners fully understand or recognize.
One of the worst things to experience, in Arab eyes, is to be cheated, fooled, or taken advantage of. When someone attempts to cheat an Arab—and even more so, if that person succeeds—the Arab is overcome by furious anger, even if the person who did the cheating was his own cousin. Regarding the Palestinian Arabs, the first point to make is that many of them are not originally Palestinians at all.
They are immigrants who came to the Land of Israel from all over the Arab world during the British Mandate in order to find employment in the cities and on the farms the Jews had built. These immigrants still have names like Hourani from Houran in southern Syria , Tzurani from Tyre in southern Lebanon , Zrakawi from Mazraka in Jordan , Masri the Egyptian , Hijazi from the Hijaz province of the Arabian peninsula , Mughrabi from the Maghreb , and many other names that point to their true geographical origins.
Why, ask the other Arabs, should they get preferential treatment over those who remained in their original countries? Residents in the refugee camps do not pay municipal taxes. Leaked US cables showed the Israelis mounted a diplomatic campaign to stop weapons being delivered. When that failed, they launched long-distance raids across the Red Sea into Sudan in early , but crucially gave prior notification to the Saudis, according to informed sources.
Israeli businessmen using foreign passports fly regularly to the UAE, usually on commercial flights via Amman. Emirati officials described this as a non-political decision motivated by national security interests. In Haaretz made headlines when it first spotted a mysterious weekly private flight from Tel Aviv, via Amman, to Dubai.
Nowadays direct flights between the Gulf and Israel, though still unexplained publicly, are frequently reported on social media. Israeli businesses operate in the UAE via companies registered in Europe. Bills of lading are produced from an intermediary country, often Jordan or Cyprus. Like the Emiratis, the Saudis have quietly engaged Israeli companies, especially in the security sphere.
In , when hackers breached the computer system of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, Israeli businesses were called in. In Israeli media were allowed by military censors to report that the Israeli and Saudi chiefs of staff had met at a Washington conference for commanders of US-allied armies. The Saudis denied the story. Intelligence cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states is even more secretive — although Israeli politicians and officials do refer to it occasionally.
Western sources confirm the existence of such cooperation. Unofficial Saudi spokesmen say cooperation with Israel is confined to the subjects of Iran and counter-terrorism — and complain that the Israelis exaggerate its extent for propaganda purposes. There are practical things that need to be sorted out, so you end up with a routine relationship which can create more senior contact and a more strategic outlook on both sides.
It is a fairly open secret. On the Saudi side, however, there are complaints that the relationship is an unequal one. Israel, it is said, has not always responded to requests for intelligence, even when submitted via the US. And there are indeed indications of an internal debate in Israel about the value of links with the kingdom.
There is also still a lack of trust between the two sides. They have very different intelligence cultures. The Israelis are world-class and the Gulfies are not. The Israelis would not go into a relationship unless they get some proper dividend. But the trend was already clear under Obama. Subsequent leaks pointed to a key role for the Saudis in pressuring the Palestinians. Unusually, MBS was then reined in by his father.
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