What the UAE-Israel deal means for the Muslim world
Israel may have put off its planned annexation of the West Bank, but even the UAE’s closest ally Saudi Arabia has withheld its full backing for the deal.
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In August, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) shocked the world by suddenly announcing plans to normalise relations with Israel. The announcement was quickly followed up by talks to establish an Emirati embassy in Israel, albeit in Tel Aviv as opposed to Jerusalem. The deal also came within the context of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Middle East, spearheaded by his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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Naturally, the deal came with some strings attached. One of those strings was Israel’s suspension of plans to annex large swathes of Israeli-occupied territory in the Palestinian West Bank. Authorities in Abu Dhabi portrayed this as a success for the Muslim and Arab world, which has been watching Israeli moves closely since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went forward with his pre-election promise to officially incorporate illegal Jewish settlements all the way up to the Jordan Valley into the Jewish State. In return, Israeli tech companies are poised to start receiving big investments from the UAE.
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However, the Israeli government has reiterated that the suspension of annexation plans does not amount to the cancellation of them. It has also dismissed rumours that the deal includes the sale of US-made F-35 fighter jets to the UAE, which apparently created some confusion in Abu Dhabi, leading to the cancellation of an important meeting for the normalisation of ties. This has left many wondering what the UAE actually has to gain from the deal.
Nonetheless, the deal was hailed by a handful of Muslim countries — namely Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Oman and Bahrain — even though none of these countries themselves have diplomatic relations with Israel. Many have speculated that these countries may be next to normalise ties with the Jewish State. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain particularly have an interest in supporting Israel as a counter to Iranian expansion efforts towards the Mediterranean. Despite being inclined to support their Arab brethren in their struggle for Palestinian sovereignty, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are more concerned about Iran spreading its Shia influence across the region, even to the Sunni Muslim Palestinians.
Sudan, meanwhile, under the former regime of ousted leader Omar al-Bashir, was a sworn enemy of the Jewish State, and was placed on a US list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, since Bashir’s ouster, the new military council leading Sudan through its political transition has made efforts to comply more with American international interests and get itself removed from that list. One way of doing this has been to show a warming of ties with Israel. Earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Uganda to meet with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council.
Oman, being one of the countries to extend its congratulations, is also pipped to follow the UAE, which was only the third Arab country to officially establish ties with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan. While Egypt and Jordan agreed to recognise Israel after suffering defeats at the hands of the Israeli military, the UAE was the first Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties based on mutual interest alone.
Other Arab nations that have not been at war with Israel have thus far abstained from doing this, mostly because they have worried about how it would affect their standing, first and foremost with their own people, and secondly with Arabs and Muslims in general. The UAE has not had to be too concerned about that as the vast majority of its population is comprised of foreign workers who have no say in state matters. Oman is quite similar in that sense, and it is also known for being rather independent and keeping out of the affairs of its neighbours. Therefore it does not face the same internal pressure as other Arab countries.
On the other end of the Arab world is Morocco, which owing to its distance from the Middle East is also not involved in the region’s conflicts. Although Morocco has ruled out normalisation with Israel, the existence of unofficial ties are difficult to deny. Beyond the Arab world, Malaysia and Indonesia are two Muslim-majority countries that could also be lined up for normalisation. Just like Morocco, their distance from the Middle East means they are not directly affected by the problems between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Until now, such countries have largely abstained from establishing ties with Israel as a symbolic show of solidarity with the Palestinians, but from a purely secular and materialistic point of view, this gesture has presented little to no benefit for these countries. Instead, such posturing has only denied them the opportunity to have better relations with the US, which is still undoubtedly the most powerful country in the world.
Fed up with Palestinians
It has been 72 years since the state of Israel was established. Since 1948, the Muslim world, for the most part, has stood beside the Palestinians. Even Egypt and Jordan, despite recognising Israel, have frequently used their positions to amplify the Palestinian voice.
But in recent years, the Muslim world has grown somewhat impatient with the Palestinians, who are still dogged by infighting between its two main political factions Fattah and Hamas. Their inability to coordinate between themselves and unite in the name of the Palestinian struggle has understandably left many Muslim nations frustrated.
The lack of popular resistance coming from Palestinians against Israel leaves many Muslim countries, who are suffering economically due to their solidarity with them, wondering whether their sacrifices have been worth it. Many Palestinians themselves actually recognise Israel by taking up its citizenship, while others profit off the construction jobs created by the building of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Even Palestinian groups that do resist Israel are a huge question mark for other Arab states in the Middle East. While Hamas is closely linked with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which enjoys much support Turkey, the Islamic Jihad group is heavily backed by Iran. It may be that countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan would prefer to deal with Israel rather than see either Turkey or Iran spread their influence to Jerusalem.
Battle of ideology
When it comes to Saudi Arabia and its Arab Gulf allies UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, their reasons for opposing Turkish and Iranian moves in the region goes beyond geopolitical. There is also a religious element. The leaders of these Arab countries largely subscribe to the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, particularly its Madkhali Salafi branch. According to their ideology, the Twelver Shias of Iran are considered to be heretics.
The Madkhali Salafis are also at odds with the Muslim Brotherhood over an important matter of Islamic creed. Madkhali Salafis believe in three components of Tawheed, or the Oneness of God, which is at the core of the Islamic religion. These components are Tawheed al-Rububiya (Oneness of God’s Divinity), Tawheed al-Uluhiyya (Worship of One God), and Asma wa Sifaat (Names and Attributes of God). In accordance to this belief, anyone who believes in or worships another god, or anyone who denies God’s attributes or ascribes those attributes to others, cannot be a Muslim.
While all orthodox Muslims are agreed on these three components, some Muslims add a fourth category called Tawheed al-Hakimiya (Oneness of God’s Rule), which states that any leader who rules according to a law other than that of God’s law is not a believer. This basically provides Muslims with a mandate to remove any leader who implements a legal system that contradicts the Qur’an and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. This fourth category is found at the root of all Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated movements, including the Turkish National Vision movement from which Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged. The Madkhali Salafis see this as dangerous, as it opens the door for takfeer (the declaring of Muslims as disbelievers).
Many Arab monarchists and secularists particularly fear this ideology, especially considering their not-so-Islamic lifestyles. They fear it could lead to rebellions against their rule, and ultimately, their demise. It is therefore not in their interests to see either of these ideologies become dominant in the region. In the absence of a reliable Madkhali Salafi or secular Arab nationalist partner among the Palestinians, they’d prefer to see Israeli Zionism reign supreme.
UAE goes it alone
The Trump administration is aware of these divisions in the Muslim world, and therefore they sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a tour of the Middle East — which included stops in Sudan, Bahrain and Oman — to push for normalisation with Israel. Yet despite his efforts, there was still a general reluctance to follow in the UAE’s footsteps. Even Saudi Arabia insisted that it will not normalise ties with Israel until a peace deal is achieved with the Palestinians.
Riyadh’s attitude may have come as a surprise to Abu Dhabi. The foreign policies of both countries have been inseparable as of late. This has been witnessed in the wars in Syria and Yemen, in the fight against ISIS in Iraq, in their joint support for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt, in their siding with renegade commander Khalifa Haftar in Libya, and in their isolation of Qatar over its backing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
However, since Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammmad bin Salman became implicated in the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, Riyadh has found it increasingly difficult to get the international community to cooperate with it. This has presented Abu Dhabi with the opportunity to step up and fill in where Riyadh would have usually taken the lead. Perhaps by recognising Israel, the UAE thought its Arab Gulf counterparts would immediately follow suit, and thus establish itself as the leading pioneer of the Arabian peninsula. But by refusing to do the same, Saudi Arabia has reminded its ally, the UAE, who the real boss is.
Although one cannot rule out Saudi Arabia jumping on board eventually, it is possible that Riyadh is simply biding its time to observe the Muslim world’s reactions to the Israeli-Emirati rapproche. Despite Saudi Arabia’s track record of pursuing policies that are generally unpopular amongst most Muslims around the world, its reluctance to recognise Israel shows that Riyadh still acknowledges its status as a Muslim country and the importance it holds as the custodian of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina. No doubt if Saudi Arabia recognised Israel, it would also open the door to other Arab states such as Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman to do the same. But if doing so later proved to be a massive miscalculation of foreign policy, the backlash would be catastrophic for the ruling elites of these countries.
Losses vs Gains
So, it appears that the UAE will be alone in its recognition of Israel, at least for now, as other Arab Gulf states are not yet willing to take such a risk. The UAE also shouldn’t expect Israel to do it any favours to that end. It certainly hasn’t helped Abu Dhabi’s image that its deal with Israel was announced while Israeli airstrikes continued to pound the densely populated Palestinian Gaza Strip for days, in retaliation for what Israel says were cross-border “balloon attacks” by Hamas. Funnily enough, it may have been the UAE’s arch rival Qatar that helped Abu Dhabi save face, having stepped in to encourage Hamas to stop attacks on Israeli territory so as to bring an end to Israeli airstrikes.
The de-escalation also followed a visit by a Hamas delegation to Turkey. Although Turkey, under a previous government before President Erdogan’s time, recognised Israel, for the past decade Turkey’s relations with Israel have been poor. Erdogan’s government has instead had superb relations with Hamas, which in spite of its lack of support from Saudi Arabia and its allies and its being internationally black-listed as a terrorist organisation, is still considered by the majority of the Muslim world to be a legitimate resistance force against Israeli aggression.
Turkey’s hosting of the Hamas delegation, about a week after the UAE announced its normalisation of ties with Israel, sent an important message to the Muslim world. The visit portrayed a picture of sincerity on Turkey’s behalf, not only to the Palestinian cause, but also to the Islamic cause in general. The UAE, meanwhile, may have got a wink and a nod of approval from the US Trump administration, but it lost much prestige in the eyes of Muslims worldwide. If first assessments are anything to go by — without any promises on the transfer of F-35s, with no guarantees that Israel won’t annex the West Bank, and the lack of any solid backing for its decision to normalise ties — the UAE has already lost much more than it has gained.
Ertan Karpazli is the Editor-in-Chief of Radio EastMed.
Tweets @Ertan_Karpazli
All views expressed by the writer are solely his own.
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