{"id":59069,"date":"2020-09-15T11:08:44","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T01:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=59069"},"modified":"2020-09-15T11:08:44","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T01:08:44","slug":"the-consequences-of-the-israel-uae-peace-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-consequences-of-the-israel-uae-peace-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"The consequences of the Israel\u2013UAE peace deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the agreement<\/a> normalising relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates\u2014which the two countries will sign at a White House ceremony today\u2014as a historic step that equals Israel\u2019s previous peace deals with Egypt and Jordan. The Israeli leader also boasted that the agreement with the UAE vindicated his \u2018Netanyahu doctrine<\/a>\u2019 of peace for peace, rather than land for peace.<\/p>\n

But even peace with a country with which Israel doesn\u2019t share a border and has never fought a war required Netanyahu to give up his plans to annex large parts of the West Bank. So, there was a \u2018land for peace\u2019 aspect to the deal after all.<\/p>\n

More important, Netanyahu\u2019s \u2018doctrine\u2019 practically buries the concept underlying the 2002 Arab peace initiative<\/a>: that an Israeli\u2013Palestinian peace should be the precondition for normalisation of Arab states\u2019 relations with Israel. The Arab League itself has rejected<\/a> the Palestinians\u2019 request to condemn the Israel\u2013UAE deal, and the pact also signals the defeat of the Israeli left\u2019s vision of Palestine as the key to peace with the Arab world.<\/p>\n

Throughout the many decades of Arab\u2013Israeli antagonism, Arab states have betrayed the Palestinians no less than Israel has. In his 1979 peace agreement with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin made far-reaching commitments on the Palestinian question. But both leaders knew that theirs was a separate peace driven by vital strategic needs\u2014as shown by its survival despite Israel\u2019s ever deepening occupation and settlement of Palestinian lands.<\/p>\n

Why, then, has Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE\u2019s ruler, invited the rage of the betrayed Palestinians by normalising relations with the Jewish state? First, he proved to be a man with the courage to call things by their name. Gulf states including the UAE and Saudi Arabia have had discreet security relations with Israel for years. As a major military and technological power in the Middle East, Israel has become a necessary ally for conservative regimes shaken by the 2011 Arab Spring, the threat of Islamist radicalism and Iran\u2019s growing regional clout.<\/p>\n

But it is mainly the fear of a withdrawal from the region by the United States that is bringing Arab states closer to Israel. They saw how US President Donald Trump refrained from any direct military response to Iran\u2019s devastating September 2019 attack<\/a> on Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil installations. Moreover, Trump didn\u2019t even respond to Iran\u2019s downing<\/a> a few months earlier of a sophisticated US surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The idea that peace with Israel also means peace with America had always been a fundamental motive behind the Arabs\u2019 decision to consider reconciliation with the Jewish state. Sadat signed the 1979 peace agreement because he wanted to shift Egypt\u2019s strategic orientation from the Soviet Union to the US. The US$2 billion in annual military aid that Egypt still receives from the US is a direct product of that peace. And Syria, Israel\u2019s staunchest Arab enemy, became interested in peace only after the Soviet Union collapsed.<\/p>\n

The Emiratis don\u2019t need America\u2019s money, but they do need its continuous involvement in Middle Eastern affairs. Israel is the guarantee that America will always be around, and offers the UAE a path into the US Congress, where arms deals and financial packages are approved.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s apparent decision<\/a> to sell F-35 stealth fighter jets to the UAE has been an important objective in the Emirati peace strategy towards Israel. These advanced warplanes\u2014which only the US and Israel currently possess\u2014will secure America\u2019s engagement with the UAE, and add muscle to a small country that has global ambitions and many enemies.<\/p>\n

Chief among these foes are Qatar and Turkey. Both countries support the Muslim Brotherhood, a UAE nemesis, which explains Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s virulent reaction to the normalisation deal. In Libya, the UAE is fighting together with Egypt and Russia in support of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, while Turkey and Qatar are backing the internationally recognised government in Tripoli. The UAE has also sought to check Turkey\u2019s punitive incursions against Kurdish forces in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

Framing the Israel\u2013UAE agreement as part of the continuous effort to contain Iran, as Netanyahu and the Trump administration are doing, is a convenient way to make the F-35 arms deal palatable to increasingly isolationist US public opinion. The truth is that the UAE has been pursuing a prudent strategy vis-\u00e0-vis Iran. It recently abandoned the Saudi-led coalition in the war against Iran\u2019s Houthi proxies in Yemen, and has even disengaged from Trump\u2019s sanctions regime against Iran.<\/p>\n

Be that as it may, Netanyahu is right to say that the Palestinians are losing their most important strategic asset: their veto power over an all-Arab peace with Israel. Bahrain has already announced<\/a> that it will follow in the UAE\u2019s footsteps, and more Arab countries are likely to do so as well. The region is changing, and the Arabs are accepting that Israel is a legitimate strategic player. Palestine, the supposed epicentre of the region\u2019s worries, has become a disposable cause.<\/p>\n

The Palestinians must recognise that they have brought this situation on themselves by their serial rejection<\/a> of peace offers in the past. How could they assume that the Arab states would forever mortgage their national interests in a changing region to fulfil Palestine\u2019s implausible expectations? Should they not now shift strategy, stop their \u2018boycott\u2019 of the US and engage Israel in the search for a realistic peace plan?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the agreement normalising relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates\u2014which the two countries will sign at a White House ceremony today\u2014as a historic step that equals Israel\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":59073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[240,218,2850],"class_list":["post-59069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-uae"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe consequences of the Israel\u2013UAE peace deal | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-consequences-of-the-israel-uae-peace-deal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The consequences of the Israel\u2013UAE peace deal | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the agreement normalising relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates\u2014which the two countries will sign at a White House ceremony today\u2014as a historic step that equals Israel\u2019s ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-consequences-of-the-israel-uae-peace-deal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-09-15T01:08:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/GettyImages-1228283940.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"729\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shlomo Ben-Ami\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shlomo Ben-Ami\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-consequences-of-the-israel-uae-peace-deal\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/GettyImages-1228283940.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/GettyImages-1228283940.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":729,\"caption\":\"TOPSHOT - The Emirati, Israeli and US flags are picture attached to an air-plane of Israel's El Al, adorned with the word \\\"peace\\\" in Arabic, English and Hebrew, upon it's arrival at the Abu Dhabi airport in the first-ever commercial flight from Israel to the UAE, on August 31, 2020. - A US-Israeli delegation including White House advisor Jared Kushner took off on a historic first direct commercial flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi to mark the normalisation of ties between the Jewish state and the UAE. 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