Deals between Israel, UAE and Bahrain shatter old barriers
by Colin RubensteinOn September 15, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed will meet at the White House for the first Middle East peace treaty signing ceremony in 26 years. Meanwhile, Bahrain at the weekend agreed to a full normalisation arrangement with Israel.
The UAE and Bahrain will become the third and fourth Arab countries to break ranks from the crumbling pan-Arab boycott against the Jewish state and open diplomatic relations, after Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994).
However, these new, historic deals, unlike those before them, have not grown out of the cold, transactional “land for peace” framework that followed the 1967 Six-Day War, but a new model of “peace for peace” and shared mutual interests. They are the organic product of both economic opportunity and common security concerns, particularly regarding the threat to all three countries from Iran – through conventional warfare, proxy militias and terror groups, and nuclear weapon ambitions.
But the agreements represent more than this.
Since 1967, generations of peace negotiators have built their careers around the principle that Arab acceptance of Israel could come only after the Palestinians made peace with Israel.
The shifts by the UAE and Bahrain reject this outdated approach, while simultaneously making a case for normalisation as a better way to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
The UAE insists the normalisation deal dissuaded Israel from unilaterally extending sovereignty to areas of the West Bank, and thus served the Palestinians’ best interests by helping safeguard the two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace paradigm. More importantly, enlightened Arab leaders now have the chance to counsel the Palestinians regarding their current stance, and, while advocating for Palestinian interests, also talk directly to their Israeli counterparts about what can realistically be done to meet Israel’s essential security needs in any two-state peace.
The Palestinian leadership’s very strong response to the UAE and Bahraini moves – and the anger this has generated in Persian Gulf states – only underscores how the traditional Palestinian approach of all or nothing has become a major obstacle to peace for the region. It is the reason the Palestinians turned down repeated Israeli offers of statehood that met almost all Palestinian aspirations, in 2000, 2001 and 2008.
Meanwhile, the UAE and Bahraini decisions to normalise relations with Israel almost certainly occurred with the blessing of Riyadh. Saudi Arabia may not quickly follow suit, but it is nonetheless very much a part of the new Middle East alignment.
The UAE and Bahrain normalisation deals with Israel are therefore the tip of a much wider regional iceberg of changing strategic thinking that signals a far-reaching re-alignment.
At a time when the US is committed to drawing down its troops from the region, Western-aligned Arab states are recognising the value of partnering more openly with Israel in their common goal of thwarting Iran’s expansionism and deterring aggression.
There is every reason to hope these deals will empower the Western-leaning Sunni Arab grouping through more open ties with Israel, boosting stability, expanding co-operation on defence and intelligence affairs, trade, investment and joint technological development, and the potential for increased cross-cultural dialogue. Meanwhile, it should weaken the rejectionist forces determined to destabilise the region, especially Tehran and its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon; the Assad regime; Turkey’s Islamist ruler Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
These normalisation agreements are a hugely positive watershed development. Australia, where Foreign Minister Marise Payne and opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong have welcomed both deals, should now lend its diplomatic weight to helping encourage other Western-leaning Arab and Muslim allies to follow suit.