Trending towards diplomacy – Israel and the Arabs

By Engr. Edgar Mana-ay

 

Since the United Nations mandate in 1948 to provide a homeland for the Jewish people in diaspora around the world in “Palestine”, the new nation now called Israel have never found peace with its Arab neighbors.

The enmity between the Jews and the Arabs is biblical (Genesis chapter 32) and ancient that started during the time when Jacob (from where the Jews descended and which God has anointed as the “Chosen People”) tricked his aging and failing father Isaac into getting the blessing and birthright from the first born, Esau (from whom the Arabs came from) and that conflict between their descendants, Israeli versus the Arabs continues up to this day.

After so many wars with the Arabs such as the 1948-49 War of Independence, the 1967 Six-Days War, the 1973 Yom Kippur war with Egypt, the 1982 Lebanese invasion, and the continuous on and of war with Syria,  lately the “Arab-Israeli conflict” appears to be winding down. One of the major achievements of Donald Trump before reluctantly giving up the White House is a peace treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and a peace declaration between Israel and Bahrain last September, all peace agreements bypassing the thorny Palestinian home land issue, considered not possible decades ago.

Though the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved, the promise of a warm peace among Israeli, Emirati and Bahraini citizens and their business community has the potential to change the region in profound ways by demonstrating the tangible, real-world benefits of people-to-people ties and cooperation.

There are other Arab nations who have made peace with Israel after so many destructive wars suffered by all of them. Egypt made peace in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. But it was easier for UAE and Bahrain to make peace because there are no territorial exchanges required nor historical baggage to overcome. What made this unprecedented diplomatic trend possible during these present times? Although Trump, through his son-in-law Jared Kushner, played a critical role of facilitation, it was the presence of a rouge nation Iran in their midst that persuaded Israel and other Arab nations to cautiously bond together.  They knew Iran is slowly developing a nuclear bomb for use not only on Israel but on other Arab nations not friendly to Iran, plus Iran openly supporting terrorists in the region. Iran is Shiite while most Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq are Sunnis, thus there is mortal enmity between these two sects of the Islam religion.

Moderate, mostly oil-producing and very rich Arab countries with monarchial form of government also fear Islamism in both its violent extremist form such al-Qaida and ISIS, but also its social-political form most recently manifested in the Muslim Brotherhood as encouraged by Turkey, an ally of Iran. These clear and present regional threats opened opportunities for Israel and other Arab nations for discreet cooperation firstly on security and intelligence aspects. Next is an expanded engagement by oil-dependent Arab governments recognizing the urgent need for economic diversification to access Israel’s know-how in technology, alternative energy, irrigation and dessert agriculture, health care and science. In due time, this will be scaled up to civil aviation agreements, banking relations, preparing hotels and tourism sites for interchange of visitors, unheard of the last 100 years!

Among the Middle East Arab countries, rapprochement with Qatar (the richest country in the world by criterion of GDP per capita) is the most intriguing for Israel. This country is often mentioned as a worthy target for Israel’s effort to include in its normalization effort with the Arab world. Qatar hosts the biggest U.S. air force base in the Middle East, buys Americans fighter jets and aids the U.S. in its war against jihadist forces in the area. BUT it is also hosting a Turkish army base supporting wars in Syria and Libya against forces allied with the U.S.! As a small wealthy country that is neighbor to two powerful warring players (Iran and Saudi Arabia), Qatar has to protect its interest by playing both sides of the field – with the “good guys” (including U.S. and Israel) and with the “bad guys” (including Iran and Turkey). By cooperating with the “good guys”, Qatar skillfully white washes its cooperation with the “bad guys”!

Qatar is the only country providing $70 million per month to the terrorist Hamas government in the Gaza for salaries of all government personnel, fuel of its power plant and maintenance of its hospitals and medical care system, thus stabilizing the Gaza strip. It is Iran who funds Hamas on its unending war with Israel from the Gaza strip. It is almost unbelievable that when money from Qatar is delayed, a high level delegation from Israel secretly goes to Qatar to follow up release of funds to Hamas who has vowed to drive the Israelites to the sea! A few months ago when Hamas has no more money to run Gaza, it embarked on a massive suicidal attacks against Israel along the border. It was resuming the flow of Qatar money that significantly help calm the situation along the Gaza – Israel border. Such is the complexities in the Middle East political cauldron.

With what Qatar is presently doing, conventional wisdom dictates that Israel should not pursue normalization with that country for beneath Qatari’s honey is a hornet’s nest. However many also believe there are bilateral and geo strategic advantages that might be attainable in normalizing relations with Qatar. Unlike Saudi Arabia and UAE, Qatar exerts major influence on what happens in the West Bank and the Gaza strip because of the investments and subsidy it is pouring into the region. That’s influence that Israel could make better use of. If normalization is made with Qatar, it would also hasten the long wanted desire of Qatar to return to the fold of Middle East countries that have boycotted it since 2017 which forced Qatar to seek company with the “bad guys” Iran and Turkey. The Qataris ability to work with all players in the Middle East (bad or good guys), constitute an asset for both Israel and the U.S. which have already benefited from the critical mediation by Qatar with groups such as Hamas and Taliban.

Rapprochement and diplomacy is now the name of the game in the Middle East. While the Palestinian homeland/West Bank issue is still a very contentious subject, recent developments shows that the prospect of peace and alliances in the Middle East looms bright in the horizon. Despite historical and religious baggage’s, only a very few Middle East groups now that still advocate war, for according to Barbara Bush (1925-2015): “War is not nice”.