The agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, although touted as a ‘peace’ deal, is no such thing. For one thing, the UAE and Israel were never at war. The UAE agreed to ‘full normalisation of relations’ with Israel in exchange for its ‘suspending’ annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank awarded to it by the US President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan. The agreement can be seen in part as an attempt to bolster Trump’s chances of re-election in November because he can sell it to the American public as his major foreign policy achievement.
For those familiar with the development of Israel–UAE relations over the past few years, the agreement is more like a coming-out party than a radical departure from the status quo. It may have symbolic importance but doesn’t add much to the substance of relations between the two countries. After all, Israel–UAE collaboration, especially in the security and technology sectors, has been an open secret for the past several years.
The UAE’s action opens the door for the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Israel and other Gulf Cooperation Council states. Oman and Bahrain, which have openly welcomed the deal, are likely to lead the way. Saudi Arabia may not follow the UAE’s lead immediately for fear that it could erode its credibility as the keeper of the two holiest Muslim shrines, but it is clearly headed in that direction. Given the UAE’s very close relations with Saudi Arabia, as witnessed in their joint military operations in Yemen and in support of Syrian rebels, it’s clear the deal would not have been done without Riyadh’s blessings.
The fundamental shift in Saudi policy on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been evident since the coming to power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In April 2019 he endorsed the pro-Israel Trump peace plan, declaring, ‘The Palestinians need to accept [Trump’s] proposal or stop complaining.’ This was a radical departure from the Arab League peace initiative of 2002 authored by Saudi Arabia. That plan had declared that the Arab countries were willing to normalise relations with Israel if it agreed to withdraw to its 1967 borders.
Read the article by Mohammed Ayoob in The Strategist.