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 10thanniversary.
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 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
