Secret Interactions between Israel and Arab Governments

Secret Interactions between Israel and Arab Governments

Introduction

United States and Israeli officials seem convinced that a regional peace agreement between Israel and the Arab world may be in the offing. On his recent trip to the Middle East, President Trump said that a “new level of partnership is possible and will happen — one that will bring greater safety to this region, greater security to the United States and greater prosperity to the world.” The main stumbling block remains the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an emotive issue that still carries strategic weight in Arab capitals. Yet the president isn’t completely wrong. Across the Middle East these days, often away from the headlines, Israel finds itself deeply involved in Arab wars.

The clearest manifestation of what is frequently called “the new Middle East” can be found in Syria. Mr. Trump himself infamously alluded to Israel’s strategic reach when he told visiting Russian diplomats about information obtained by covert Israeli intelligence operations against the Islamic State. According to subsequent reports, Israeli military intelligence had hacked into the computer networks of Islamic State bomb makers in Syria. A few weeks later, the that Israel was intensifying its security and intelligence cooperation with Jordan in southern Syria to stave off Iranian gains in the area.

Israeli-Jordanian cooperation was not, in itself, news. Israel shipped Cobra attack helicopters to Jordan in 2015. And the Israeli government has had a policy, dating back to 1970, of buttressing Jordan’s stability. Yet there is a major United States-led coalition operation being run out of Jordan to support the various Syrian rebels groups. An open question is whether, or more likely how, Israel is now involved.

From its southern border, Israel has assisted Egypt in its protracted counterinsurgency campaign against Sinai Province, the Islamic State’s local affiliate they already know. High-level military coordination and intelligence sharing are givens. Yet according to a former senior Israeli official quoted by Bloomberg News, Israeli drones have over the past several years directly attacked militants in the Sinai Peninsula — with Egypt’s consent.

It's clear also that Palestine is not the all-encompassing, emotive issue it once was. The Times published reports of secret calls between Egyptian military intelligence officials and prominent broadcasters that took place in the wake of President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a move Egypt had publicly warned against.

In the phone calls, an Egyptian officer urges the journalists to not stir outrage over Trump's decision and even advises them to find a way to convince the Egyptian public that the Palestinians should let goes of their claim to East Jerusalem.

“How is Jerusalem different from Ramallah, really?” the officer says on the taped call, referring to the West Bank town where the beleaguered Palestinian Authority is headquartered. Moreover, according to the Times, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pressed Palestinian officials to accept an extremely curtailed version of statehood with a capital in East Jerusalem. (Though sourced to Western and Palestinian officials, the Saudis deny these reports.)

Arab leaders, of course, still voice their disquiet over Israel's expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territories. At an interview at the World Economic Forum last month, King Abdullah II of Jordan said Palestinians no longer see the United States as an honest broker in the moribund peace process. He also made a polite attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."I reserve my judgment," he said, when asked whether Netanyahu is committed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. "I have my skepticism."  

“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not as important for them as it was before, but they are afraid of making official relations with Israel without any major movement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue,” said Israeli Brig. Gen. Udi Dekel, referring to other Sunni Arab states in the region. He was speaking at a recent security conference in Jerusalem where he also described Israel's "strategic situation" as "almost the best" since the founding of the state.

"Without that movement, the people on the street will ask them, ‘for so many years you told us that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most important problem," Dekel said."How can you accept that Israel is controlling the West Bank and is not giving Palestinians any rights?’

Social Media

Israeli  Twitter and Facebook pages are among several mushrooming social media accounts in Arabic by Israeli military and government officials that target Arab citizens.According to Fidaa Zaanin, an outspoken Palestinian critic of these accounts, they have one unified objective, which is to penetrate the ranks of Arabic-speaking world.

"By conversing with them in their mother tongue, these Israeli officials are opening communication channels, and disseminate lies and propaganda with the aim to normalise the Israeli occupation and to whitewash the image of the Zionist entity," Zaanin, who is from Gaza but now lives in Berlin, told Al Jazeera.

"Israel is portrayed as the only democracy in the Middle East, a progressive humane state, and the victim of violence and terrorism," she continued, "thus censoring a whole history of colonization, murder and forced displacement."One example is of Adraee tweeting about the Land Day protests that took place near the Gaza Strip's eastern border last week, in which 17 Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces."Sending 30,000 troublemakers to fight at the security fence only points to Hamas's terrorism and their attempt to exploit the citizens of Gaza," he said.

Nadim Nashif, the executive director of 7amleh, the Arab Centre for Social Media Advancement, said that the Israeli accounts in Arabic have become more popular among Palestinian social media users in the last year."This constitutes the first time Palestinian citizens have direct online contact with high ranking Israeli officials, given that [most] Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip don't speak or read Hebrew," he told Al Jazeera.

The accounts also provide practical information to Palestinians, such as the opening and closing hours of checkpoints and how to obtain military-issued permits for travel or medical purposes."The Israelis are therefore capitalising on the needs of Palestinians to attract attention and engagement in order to serve the purpose of their political agenda," Nashif said.

Following the Arab uprisings in 2011, Arab usage of social media platforms increased, representing an alternative to traditional media outlets that are mostly seen as mouthpieces of Arab regimes. It is not a coincidence, Zaanin said, that the social media accounts of Adraee and Ofir Gendelman, the spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were set up in the same year."It is not surprising that the Israeli army added new units of Arabic-speaking pages to its arsenal of various weapons," she said.

In 2016, an account was also set up for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank. Other pages on Facebook include Israel Speaks in Arabic, which has 1.4 million followers, and pages belonging to Israeli embassies in Egypt and Jordan.

According to Zaanin, the open communication channel is set up to extract information from Palestinians and other Arabs, intimidate Palestinians from carrying out individual attacks against Israelis, and to vilify any form of Palestinian resistance.

"COGAT also exploits the bad situation in the Gaza Strip by blackmailing residents by promising them medical or travel permits or financial help to poor families, in exchange for providing them with information required by intelligence agents," she explained. "They then drop them and extort them as a form of recruitment."Nashif calls this phenomenon "digital occupation" through which Israel is expanding its control, surveillance and oppression of Palestinians from reality to the virtual sphere.

One page, called Bidna Na'eesh in Arabic (We want to live), provides a telephone number for Palestinians to report information on wanted individuals and "perpetrators of attacks" against Israelis."Inform us, and you will benefit," the banner's page says, showing a picture of a wad of 100 dollar bills above a cartoon of a hand shake with an Israeli flag."This is extremely dangerous as it forms part of Israel's militarization of the digital sphere, as there are tens of pages that have been created by military forces and secret services," Nashif said.

Zaanin believes that the increase of Arab interaction with these Israeli accounts largely stems from ignorance and an underestimation of the effect that these interactions have in the short and long term.

Far from using firebrand rhetoric, Israeli accounts in Arabic cushion their propaganda in inoffensive, seemingly reasonable language, peppered with Arab proverbs and Quranic verses. They also present themselves as being concerned with the wellbeing of the Arab citizen, and the dangers of being led astray by "terrorists" or any resistance to the Israeli state and occupation.

"There's also the possibility that a large number of followers of the accounts, whether on Facebook or Twitter, are Israelis aiming to trick Arab citizen to interact positively with them to break the barrier of fear," Zaanin said, adding that there are no official statistics about the followers' details.

According to Zaanin, Arab interaction with the accounts falls into two categories; those who know what they represent and respond by taunts, curses, or arguing the case for Palestinian rights, and those who see no problem in normalising relations with Israel and seek to satisfy their curiosity.

"One important point to me is that the appearance of Israeli officials on Arab television news channels has contributed to the Arab citizen's acceptance of them [on social media]," Zaanin said.

Both Nashif and Zaanin agree that the proliferation of Arabic-language Israeli accounts is testament to the absence of any form of grassroot tactics, including raising awareness about the dangers these pages pose to Arab social media users, such as potential extortion.One way is to boycott the pages, and to raise awareness about their real motives, they said.

"Arabs are providing Israelis with a free service," Zaanin said. "They unwittingly provide Israeli intelligence officers with information, which is then used to infiltrate the accounts of Arab users."It's like handing over the keys to your home to your enemy," she added.

"More awareness should be raised around the issue," Nashif agreed. "Especially on a local, for Palestinians, who should be advised to dissociate with these pages for their own personal safety and security." Another way to confront the Israeli accounts in Arabic is by setting up Palestinian and Arab accounts that refute Israeli propaganda."Unfortunately, social networking sites such as Facebook actively fight Palestinian content and delete such accounts," Zaanin said.

The collaboration between Israeli surveillance and Facebook is not new. According to 7amleh's annual Palestinian Digital Activism Report published on Tuesday, the cyber unit of the Israeli government officially stated that Facebook accepted 85 percent of the government's requests to delete content, accounts and pages of Palestinians in the year 2017.

"This kind of Israeli monitoring and control of Palestinian digital content on social media has become a tool for mass arrests and gross human rights and digital rights violations," the report stated. In fact, more than 300 Palestinians from the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, were arrested by Israeli forces and tried in military courts because of social media posts, 7amleh said."These accounts are nothing more than a different combat unit," Zaanin said, "which is why it is very dangerous to interact with them at all."

Palestinian Israeli contacts

Closer to home, there are intimate security ties between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. With the United States’ support, this coordination has evolved into a pillar of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and perhaps the most successful facet of the entire peace process. On a daily basis, Israeli and Palestinian officers discuss shared threats “to the stable security situation on both sides,” as a Palestinian security official once told me. At the top of the list is the militant Hamas — a clear terrorist threat for Israel, but also a major internal threat to the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, Israeli intelligence thwarted a Hamas assassination plot in 2014 against President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel has peace and diplomatic agreements with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, so military ties with them may not come as a complete surprise. Less well known, however, is the increasingly close relationship with the Arab Gulf states, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Such ties are often referenced only obliquely by Israeli government ministers as “shared interests” in the security and intelligence realms against the common Iranian threat. Yet in recent years, reports have surfaced about clandestine meetings between Israeli intelligence chiefs and their Gulf counterparts. Meir Dagan, the former Mossad chief, allegedly traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2010 for secret talks about Iran’s nuclear program. Public encounters with retired Saudi Arabian officials are now commonplace, whether in Washington, Munich or even Jerusalem. Business ties are growing, too, including the sale of Israeli agriculture but also cyber, intelligence and homeland security technology to the Gulf (usually through third parties).

Taken as a whole, Israeli activities in Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, Egypt and the Gulf can no longer be viewed in isolation from one another. Rather, Israel is now involved in the Arab world’s military campaigns — against both Iran and its proxies, as well as against the Islamic State. It remains to be seen whether this is merely a temporary marriage of convenience against common foes or the start of an enduring strategic realignment.

Regardless, it is likely to last for some time. The region’s wars show no sign of abating in the near future. At the very least, Israel is no longer viewed as the central problem plaguing the Middle East. For this reason, Mr. Trump urged the Arab states to “recognize the vital role of the state of Israel” in the region’s affairs. Absent significant movement on the Palestinian front, this new Israeli role isn’t likely to bring a full and public normalization of relations or an end to the region’s conflict. But it may help win the current wars, and with it, a semblance of Middle East peace.

Arab Israeli contacts

Secretive interactions between Israeli and Arab officials, such as a group of Emirati military officials reportedly traveling to Israel to observe its operations of American-made F-35 fighter jets in July 2018, are small indications of the depth of the covert relationships developing between Israel and the Arab World. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that Israel’s cooperation with Arab countries—though mostly taking place behind closed doors—is at an all-time high, but it is not without controversy due to high levels of public support in Arab countries for the Palestinians.

The emphasis on security engagement between Israel and Arab countries today demonstrates a marked contrast from the post-Gulf War peace process. During this time, multilateral forums were organized to begin the process of regional integration that would come with the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israeli and Arab technocrats and government officials would come together with their counterparts for discussions of areas of common concern, including scientific issues. The issues that are the focus of these organizations are to varying degrees “common goods,” meaning that they are shared issues that require all parties to act or risk exacerbation that harms all. Concurrently, Israeli and Arab government officials met publicly, demonstrating optimism that the peace process would achieve its ultimate goal.

In the new era of Israeli-Arab engagement, which began with the United States’ efforts to peacefully engage with Iran during the Obama administration, scientific cooperation continues, but the aforementioned security engagement to counter Iran and its regional proxies has been the primary motivating factor bringing together Israel and “moderate” Sunni Arab countries. These include Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has diplomatic relations, as well as others with which Israel does not, such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). With the Israeli-Palestinian peace process appearing lifeless, the atmosphere of this engagement is much less jovial than the earlier period of Arab-Israeli engagement; Israeli and Arab government officials are meeting, but popular support for the Palestinian cause keeps these meetings behind closed doors.

 Water Resources

Among Israel and the members of the League of Arab States (LAS), water scarcity is a critical issue; as of 2016, only the Comoros, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa, exceeded 25% of the global average for renewable freshwater resources per capita. In the American-led post-Persian Gulf War peace process, the issue was prioritized in regional integration. Delegations representing Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation came together for their first meeting in Madrid in November 1991. Observers representing every LAS member except Iraq also attended. The initial meeting was considered confrontational, but marked an important first step towards normalization. The January 1992 follow-up meeting in Moscow was attended by delegations representing Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia, and featured the establishment of five multilateral working groups on issues of mutual concern, including water.

The United States was the preeminent world power at this time, following its successful leadership of a 34-country coalition in defeating Iraq—and the Soviet Union having collapsed. It would chair the Working Group on Water Resources (WGWR)with the European Union and Japan as deputy chairs. WGWR’s initial goals were “enhancement of water data availability; water management practices, including conservation; enhancement of water supply; and concepts of regional water management and cooperation.” The first WGWR meeting took place in April 1992, with the U.S. Department of State leading with technical advice from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, setting a precedent for delegations to include policy and technical experts in WGWR’s future deliberations. An example of successful collaboration between Israel and Arab countries within the WGWR was the creation of a regional water databank led by Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian experts.

Through its participation in the WGWR, Oman became the first Arab country outside of Israel’s neighbors to increase engagement with the latter. In April 1994, Oman hosted an Israeli delegation to a WGWR meeting led by then-Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin. Beilin returned in November for a visit that completed preparation for Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s surprise visit to Muscat the next month. Shimon Peres succeeded Rabin after the latter’s assassination in November 1995—Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi would represent Oman at Rabin’s funeral—and would lead a business delegation to Muscat in April 1996. Israel and Oman would open reciprocal trade offices in Muscat in May 1996 and in Tel Aviv in August 1996, despite Omani concerns regarding newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s willingness to continue the peace process.

Emerging from cooperation initiated by the WGWR, the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC), with Oman serving as its host and Israel as one of its executive council member states, was established in December 1996 and seemed to signal that institutions promoting Arab-Israeli normalization would survive the Netanyahu premiership. Among the other MEDRC Executive Council founding members were the United States, Jordan, and the nascent Palestinian Authority. MEDRC aims to research and develop more efficient desalination technology,train engineers to use the latest desalination technology, and facilitate greater cooperation in the region on water issues. Of the ten countries that are members of MEDRC’s Executive Council, eight have chosen to include one diplomat in their representation, implying that sideline discussions would be more likely to touch on political issues.

Oman and Israel continued their public engagement until October 2000 after Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount at the start of the Second Intifada. Oman closed their trade office in Tel Aviv and demanded the Israelis do the same. Since then, Israeli delegations have continued to participate in biannual MEDRC Executive Committee meetings, where clandestine sideline meetings between Israeli and Omani officials regarding other issues have taken place. Some public interaction has continued, such as then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi, Secretary General of the Omani Foreign Ministry and Executive Chair of MEDRC, addressing a September 2007 celebration of MEDRC’s 10^thanniversary. Less than a year later, Livni would meet with bin Alawi on the sidelines of the 2008 Doha Forum.

Israel and Qatar had already begun to develop their bilateral relationship before the latter joined MEDRC’s Executive Committee in 2007, with a similar trajectory to the Israeli-Omani relationship. Immediately following his April 1996 visit to Muscat, Peres and the business delegation accompanying him went to Doha to sign a trade agreement. Qatar also pulled back from its relationship with Israel following Netanyahu’s 1996 electoral victory, but they still went ahead with opening reciprocal trade offices that year. The trade offices were closed in October 2000, though the Israeli outpost in Doha would secretly remain open to maintain a line of communication between Israel and Qatar.

High-level contact between foreign ministers and others was frequent. Qatar even requested Israel support its UN Security Council candidacy in 2005, which Israel obliged. Qatar’s voting record would prove to be a wasted investment for Israel as the former used its Security Council seat to vocally condemn Israel’s conduct in its conflict with Hezbollah. Qatar’s January 2007 entry into MEDRC coincided with a period of improvement in the bilateral relationship. That month, a group of Israeli students participated in a regional Model United Nations simulation at Georgetown University’s Doha campus. In September, Livni met with Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and would do so again while participating in the Doha Forum in April 2008. But Israel’s 2008-09 conflict with Hamas would again disrupt the relationship, as Qatar finally shut down the Israeli trade office in Doha. Israeli-Qatari ties would further deteriorate as the latter prioritized its relations with Hamas, allowing the terror organization’s leadership to be based in Doha and Emir Hamad making the first trip by a head of state to Hamas-governed Gaza in 2012.

In the cases of both Oman and Qatar, cooperation on water resources and desalination are integral components of their respective pursuits of relations with Israel. However, disruptions in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Israeli military campaigns targeting Hezbollah and Hamas would harm these burgeoning relationships. Regular interactions at MEDRC Executive Council meetings in Muscat continue to provide pretext for Omani and Qatari officials’ discussions with Israeli counterparts that go beyond water issues.

 International Renewable Energy Agency

Fears of energy sources disappearing represent another key concern for both Israel and Arab countries. While Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Arab countries have decreased their economic dependence on oil rents, this revenue remains a significant portion of many Arab countries’ economies. However, there are concerns in these countries regarding the finitude of these resources. Israel has been geographically unlucky in its dearth of oil resources, pushing it to seek energy sources that would decrease dependence on non-friendly states.

In January 2009, Germany and the UAE were lobbying other countries to vote in support of their respective candidacies to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). IRENA was established “to support countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future, and serves as the principal platform for international cooperation, a centre of excellence, and a repository of policy, technology, resource and financial knowledge on renewable energy.” It advocates for countries to increase usage of sustainable, renewable forms of energy such as “bio-energy, geothermal, hydropower, ocean, solar, and wind.”

Germany and Israel have maintained a very close bilateral relationship, with Chancellor Angela Merkel having called it, “part of our national ethos, our raison d’etre.” But the whipping of votes occurred concurrently with new developments in Israeli-Emirati relations. Emirati Ambassador to the United States Yousef Al Otaiba and his Israeli counterpart, Sallai Meridor, met together with President Obama’s Middle East advisor, Dennis Ross, to share concerns regarding Obama’s “willingness to talk to the Iranian leadership.” At the time, both had a history of confrontation with Iran. Iran has occupied three Persian Gulf islands that the UAE claims since 1971. Iran has been a major funder for the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas and the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. Hamas frequently carried out terror attacks in Israel throughout the 1990s and during the Second Intifada. By 2009, it had controlled the Gaza Strip for almost two years, and for 22 days had fought Israel in December 2008 and January 2009. Hezbollah began targeting Israel during the Lebanese Civil War, carrying out attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets in the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, and won the acclaim of the Arab public for its successes in its summer 2006 conflict with Israel.

Instead of longtime friend Germany, Israel voted for the UAE, which won the vote. Israel’s support for the UAE’s candidacy was based on the condition that the former could “open an official, publicly acknowledged diplomatic office there.” The basing of IRENA in the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi, was made permanent in August 2011.

Unlike MEDRC, a regional organization meant to promote regional cooperation, IRENA is a global organization with 158 member countries, including many Muslim countries with which Israel does not have relations. Because of the size and scope of IRENA, national delegations participating in its meetings are larger than those attending MEDRC Executive Council meetings and could more easily hold sideline meetings away from the public eye. The basing of IRENA in a country with which Israel does not have relations has not hindered Israeli participation in the organization. In 2015, Israel was elected to a two-year term on the IRENA Council, a 21-member body which plans meetings of the organization’s full membership and formulates IRENA’s strategy for achieving its goals.

Cabinet-level participation in IRENA meetings is a regular occurrence, even for Israel. As Minister of National Infrastructure, Uzi Landau made the first public visit by an Israeli cabinet official to the UAE to attend a January 2010 IRENA meeting. However, the alleged involvement of Mossad in the assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai angered the Emiratis, and is probably the main reason Landau’s successor, Silvan Shalom, did not participate in an IRENA meeting until January 2014. In between Landau and Shalom’s visits to Abu Dhabi, Netanyahu met with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the foreign minister of the UAE, during the high-level segment of the 2012 UN General Assembly. The two had a great deal to discuss. Iran—and at its direction, Hezbollah—had intervened in support of the Bashar al-Assad regime in the Syrian Civil War and helped it push back against rebel forces. In 2011, worried that Iran would add Shia-majority Bahrain into its sphere of influence, UAE forces joined the Saudis to intervene and stop anti-regime protests.

By March 2015, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (P5+1) were closing in on an agreement with Iran regarding the latter’s nuclear program. Two weeks before Israelis headed to the polls that month, Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed a joint session of U.S. Congress regarding the danger Iran would continue to pose even with such an agreement. Netanyahu and his Likud party would garner the most votes in the election and form a governing coalition. With shared Emirati and Israeli fears of Iran—but contradicting views on Palestine—Netanyahu appointed Yuval Steinitz, considered a key figure in Israel’s policy towards Iran, to succeed Shalom.

The P5+1 and Iran announced their agreement on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in July 2015. While Netanyahu disparaged the agreement, the UAE initially welcomed the JCPOA—despite lingering concerns regarding Iran’s regional behavior. Four months later Israel announced the opening of a diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi. The Israeli foreign ministry would clarify that the mission was solely for dealings with IRENA, but Steinitz’s centrality to Iran policy made his sideline meetings the main focus of reporting on his participation in the January 2016 IRENA Assembly. Steinitzagain attended the IRENA Assembly in January 2017, though without the same media attention as a year earlier.

Even with so many participants, the main focus of press coverage of the January 2016 IRENA Assembly meeting was Israel’s participation and its possible regional implications. The clarification regarding the nature of Israel’s mission to IRENA was meant to assuage doubts regarding the UAE’s commitment to the Palestinian cause, but cannot dispel the notion of Israeli-Emirati collaboration taking place while both consider Iran an existential threat. As evidenced by Al Mabhouh’s assassination, this relationship—like the aforementioned Israeli relationships with Oman and Qatar—is fragile and can be upset by certain actions.

Israel’s engagement with Oman and Qatar through the WGWR and MEDRC took place during a time when such engagement seemed integral to progress towards the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and eventual regional integration. It continues today through regular interaction in MEDRC, but has taken on similar characteristics to Israel’s engagement with the UAE. With no progress in the peace process and high levels of support for the Palestinian cause, Omani and Qatari officials continue to interact with Israeli officials—but must do so covertly. The UAE has similar restrictions in its engagement—even during the early, more optimistic period of the peace process. But engagement with Israel is necessary for the UAE in its primary goal: countering Iran. IRENA provides a plausible way for Emirati and Israeli officials to continue their meetings on this issue without bringing on popular opposition.

Concluding Remarks

These and other efforts are designed to ensure the success of the so called zero Palestine solution. That would award pieces of the West Bank to Jordan and Israel and the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Palestine would vanish. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pressed Palestinian officials to accept an extremely curtailed version of statehood with a capital in East Jerusalem. (Though sourced to Western and Palestinian officials, the Saudis deny these reports.)

 Muslims should be careful, bedsides eliminating a whole people of their identity it will also allow Israel to control the Christian and Muslim holy places, Israel has already made its intent regarding Al Aqsa mosque very apparent. Attention shifts even further away from the Palestinian plight. This gives hope to the Israelis that the Egyptians, Saudis and others finding new ways to live with that status quo.

This needs attention as a whole people with ancient history, culture derived from the desert and religion will be wiped out. The Palestinians are true sons of the soil they are the desert people who own the land, the environment and are closely in touch with the conditions. The Zionist imports are really urban European  And have created an environment that is a replica of their origin , they have no connect with the desert of the land. It will be gross injustice if the Israelis and the US have their way and eliminate a whole people.

Arab Israeli ties: June, 6, 2019: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said that Gulf States no longer see Israel as the "enemy", praising the normalization of ties in the region."They don't see Israel any longer as their enemy, but as their indispensable ally in standing up to Iranian aggression and even, I would say, beyond that, to joining to achieve technological progress in their respective countries," Netanyahu 

"In many ways, the Arab countries have moved faster than the Palestinians," he said. "The Palestinians try to prevent this normalization process that can ultimately lead to a formal peace." Netanyahu has had a longstanding position that the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories is not an impediment to Israel developing ties in the region. Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967, in violation of international law.

Israel only has diplomatic relations with two Arab states, neighbouring Egypt and Jordan. But various Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman, have upscaled their normalization with Israel in recent months. Netanyahu conducted a surprise visit to Oman last year which was followed by a high-profile tour by senior Israeli ministers to the UAE.

Israel and Saudi Arabia began drawing closer in the twilight of the Obama administration, sharing mutual antipathy towards Iran and the 2015 nuclear deal. Saudi outreach to Israel grew further following the election of Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman's nomination as Crown Prince shortly afterwards. The US is to lay out an economic component of the long-awaited Trump administration's Israel-Palestine peace plan on June 25 and 26 in Bahrain. Gulf Arab states are expected to make pledges to boost the Palestinian economy, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE already confirming their attendance at the summit. 

Saudi help for Israel: Aug., 15, 2019: Netanyahu has already crowned Israel a “world power.” His minions, such as journalist Akiva Bigman from the freebie Israel Hayom, are even taking this modest title a step further. “How Netanyahu Turned Israel into an Empire    On Aug. 18, Netanyahu will take time out from his affairs of state for a photo-op with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a visit to the memorial of the World War II Babi Yar massacre. Unable to bear his separation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi any longer, Israel’s caretaker leader will jet off to New Delhi in September Heading this foreign legion that assists Netanyahu to market himself to Israeli voters is Iran — that horrible monster that Netanyahu is busy defending Israel from. Iran is also responsible for the emerging alliance between the Israeli ruler and Arab states. Netanyahu’s policy, Bigman writes, “turned Iran from the White House’s best friend (under President Barack Obama) into an isolated state verging on collapse.” Just last month on July 21, Netanyahu associate and security Cabinet member Tzachi Hanegbi boasted of Israel’s prowess. “For two years now, Israel has been the only country in the world killing Iranians,” he said in an interview, to which Iran’s Press TV responded, “This is how Israelis are freely and proudly talking about killing Iranians; just imagine what would happen if it was the other way around!” Salah al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, visited Iran in July and met with senior officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and al-Quds force. Israeli security officials reportedly believe that Iran and Hamas agreed to open a southern front with Israel from Gaza in case war breaks out with Hezbollah and other Iranian-led forces on Israel’s northern border. Faced with this threatening front, Israel presents delightful ties with other Arab countries, headed by the Gulf States. Last month, Saudi blogger Mohammed Saud paid a widely covered visit to Israel, together with other Arab journalists from Jordan and Iraq. The delegation was even accorded a meeting with Netanyahu. In an Aug. 7 interview with Channel 13 News after returning home, Saud had an emotional message for Netanyahu, “Thank you, I love you.” We can assume that Saud would not have continued walking freely in Riyadh had he visited Israel and praised its leader without prior approval by the Saudi rulers