Arab World and Israel
Author: Meirav Solomon
Intro
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), power dynamics have shifted significantly since the Abraham Accords were signed in late 2020 between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Prior to the Accords, the Arab world at large maintained leverage over Israel in its near universal rejection of the Jewish State and support for the Palestinian cause. The Arab world’s unanimity led the charge to boycott all Israeli goods, delegitimize its right to exist in the court of public opinion, and counter Israel militarily whether by proxy or in direct conflict. Since then, most states that have not normalized relations with Israel have decreased the severity of their antagonistic economic policies towards the country due to the new dynamic they face in the post-Accords world. In decreasing their funding of Hamas and reopening avenues of trade, states such as Saudi Arabia and Oman have taken steps towards normalization even without international agreements. Furthermore, formal normalization agreements between Israel, Bahrain, and the UAE have fractured a consensus of over 75 years, effectively eliminating much of the Arab world’s economic and political leverage over Israel. These normalization movements have changed the dynamics of the region drastically, creating an environment defined less and less by a united Arab opposition to the Israeli state.
Terms
The leverage explored and analyzed in this article can best be defined as a tool with which one country can influence another country’s actions upon the basis that country A has the least to lose in their political situation. Leverage, by itself, is exemplified by a country’s ability to impose costs and award benefits to another country. In the status quo, the State of Israel maintains a place at the top of the food chain in the MENA region as it is backed by the United States, a global hegemon, unlike other countries in MENA. The country’s leverage, while partially dependent upon support from the U.S., is a significant factor in its survival and its continued existence as a Jewish state. At the same time, the possibility of a Saudi -Iranian relationship is now prompting scholars of the Middle East and pundits alike to ask the question: what country will rise to counterbalance Israel, if any? It is vital to understand that over the past 75 years, many MENA countries have attempted to become the Muslim regional hegemon to counter Israel’s dominance and power. Now, Saudi Arabia and Iran seem to be putting their competition for that title aside in order to adapt to the new power dynamic of the region. While Saudi Arabia continues to nurture a diplomatic and military relationship with the United States, it has also recently released Hamas prisoners and received a delegation of Hamas leaders. At the same time, Iran is building up its military arsenal and inching closer to its possible acquisition of a nuclear weapon, which leaves the MENA region in a state of flux. All in all, the question of who has the most leverage and who has the most to lose will determine regional hegemony, a pillar of the complex diplomatic system that is the interactions between the Arab world, Iran, and Israel. In this way, while nominal diplomatic relations may not have changed drastically post-Abraham Accords and other normalization agreements, the fluid dynamic of the MENA region has adapted as countries vie to counterbalance Israel’s hegemonic power in the region.
Historical Context: Israel and the Arab World
In reaction to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the Arab League, an international organization of 22 Middle Eastern and African countries, began a boycott of all Israeli companies and Israeli-made goods. This boycott, which 7 countries continue to enforce today, targets the Israeli economy in three tiers: ceasing direct economic engagement with Israeli citizens or the government, ceasing economic engagement with any entity that does business in Israel, and prohibiting any economic engagement between members of the Arab League and companies/entities that are on the “Black List”The “Black List”, established in the second tier of the boycott, consists of companies that engage in economic activity with Israeli citizens or the government.
The boycott has impacted public opinion of the State of Israel and its government; it has sowed doubt in the state’s legitimacy and further caused the Palestinian peace process to stall due to political divisions. The Arab League Boycott effectively created harmful schisms even among Palestinians as the boycott characterized cooperation with the Israeli government as unacceptable. This even extended to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority was itself blacklisted because of its attempts to work with the Israeli government to provide aid to Palestinians and further the peace process. Whether enforced at the primary level or at the tertiary level, the boycott served as a powerful symbol to all parties involved, as noted in a 2015 report from the United States Congressional Research Service. This report underscored the importance of the boycott in shaping the attitudes of both supporters and opponents, in the United States in particular. At the end of the day, the boycott does have negative effects on American public opinion of the State of Israel which not only puts at risk the United States’ support for Israel but also undermines the goals of a foreign policy achievement like the Abraham Accords or any normalization agreement for that matter. The consensus of the Arab League to boycott Israel and fight the state with a united economic front gave it a nominal amount of leverage over Israel as it maintained a quasi-moral high ground in the court of public opinion.
When Egypt entered into a peace treaty with the State of Israel in 1979, the Arab League’s consensus began to fracture. First, by sitting at the negotiation table with Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat broke with twenty years of precedent of never even considering sitting at that table. Even opening up the idea of negotiation implies that a country would be willing to give up something in order to gain something else and that threatened to severely harm the consensus of the Arab League as it attempted to stand united in opposition to Israel. Moreover, Egypt paid an incredibly high political price for this decision, as they were excommunicated from the Arab world for a long time afterward. Second, and more importantly, the signing of the treaty and the subsequent demilitarization of the Sinai truly dealt an emphatic blow to the Arab League’s boycott movement. The subsequent Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty had the same effect, in part due to the PLO’s recognition of the State of Israel in 1988. The reaction to these major developments from the general public was less than enthusiastic. Polling indicates that even after many decades, only around ten percent of Egyptians and Jordanians support cooperation and normalization with Israel even if the peace process stalls between Israelis and Palestinians. Nevertheless, losing Egypt and Jordan’s support and membership in the boycott movement permanently altered and destabilized the Arab League’s attempt to leverage itself and harm Israel and its existence. Egypt had to be the country to start this fracture; after all, it was the most powerful Arab country in the region at the time and one that directly abuts Israel. This loss signaled to the rest of the countries in the Arab League that they could leave the boycott movement if it was not benefitting them without severe consequences.
In 2020, the most recent era of fracturing began with the signing of the Abraham Accords which signified to the Arab League that its Gulf and North African members had weighed the costs and benefits to normalization with Israel and decided that the latter was more advantageous. With the Accords signed, and with non-signatory states following suit as they attempted to adjust to the new MENA power dynamic, the Arab League’s boycott is at best dying and at worst, non-existent in its ability to maintain Arab world leverage over Israel . This is exemplified by the current political environment of the MENA region under which economic cooperation and trade with Israel has become essential for and beneficial to its neighbors.
Loss of Leverage
The strength of the boycott and greater leverage against Israel by the Arab world was derived from consensus and unity among the Arab League; when that consensus fractured and major dynamics began to shift, the leverage that was lost could never be regained. Nonetheless, specific states such as Qatar and Iran still do leverage their financial support of Hamas to attempt to impact Israel’s actions toward Palestinians; Qatar, in particular, has transferred around 1.8 billion dollars to the terrorist organization as of 2021. This huge amount of money has allowed Hamas to continue its violent and destructive activities in the region, causing a massive amount of suffering and damage. Nevertheless, as of now, financial support to Hamas is the one of the few points of leverage any Arab state has over Israel. The only semblance of power signatories to the Abraham Accords still have is the political campaign for Palestinian liberation, consisting of public statements calling for fair treatment and the advancement of Palestinian rights, that has united certain Arab nations, Eurasian nations, advocacy groups in the US and around the world. But even this diplomatic leverage is shaky given its seeming dependence on when it is convenient for Arab states to care about the Palestinians in a meaningful way. Yet even when it is a priority for the Arab world, this high ground has not led to concrete political change for Palestinians, at least not yet. At this point, it is clear that the worst any Arab country can do to hurt or leverage Israel is use speech and social media campaigns or finance Hamas, an option taken off of the table for the many MENA countries that have signed normalization agreements.
Shifting Power Dynamics: Adapting to a New Normal
In a post-Abraham Accords world, the Arab League has significantly less economic and political leverage over Israel than it used to. It is imperative to understand that Israel’s security is tied to the security of its neighbors, whether the Arab world and Israel like it or not and that this supposition characterizes much of the current dynamic of the region. For this security dilemma to remain semi-stable, there must be a counter-regional hegemon to Israel which is backed by a global superpower: the United States. As Saudi Arabia engages with Syria and Iran, newspapers all over the Middle East have characterized the country as a rising political playmaker, preparing to take on the responsibility of counterbalancing Israel’s hegemonic power. When the UN held an international tourism event, Saudi Arabia effectively blocked Israeli Muslims from attending the event, denying them visas and entry into the country. Even more interesting is Saudi Arabia’s manipulation of America’s strong desire to broker a deal between themselves and Israel. Saudi Arabia is reported to have been in talks for several months now with the United States and Israel regarding security guarantees, nuclear aid as well as normalization. What has been left out of negotiation concessions has unsurprisingly been the Palestinian issue and their desire for an independent state. Previously, Saudi Arabian diplomats said that there could be no normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel without Israel’s support for or the existence of an independent Palestinian state. Now, the Saudi Arabian government seems to prioritize its own military dominance in the form of possible nuclear proliferation as well as security assurance from the U.S. as more important than the fight for Palestinian liberation. In this sense, Saudi Arabia is clear in illustrating its desire to be the regional Muslim hegemon of the Middle East, even if Israel, because of its ties to the West, maintains its position as a regional hegemon as well. Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of regional hegemony exemplifies the new dynamic of the MENA region as it adapts to the Arab League’s gradual loss of collective leverage over Israel and the actions of its government.
What does this mean moving forward?
Overall, there is no doubt that while the Abraham Accords have not solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they have fundamentally altered the balance of power in the MENA region. More specifically, they have drastically diminished much of the Arab League’s leverage over Israel as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and beyond. Importantly, these agreements have allowed Israel to gain legitimacy in the MENA region without advancing the peace process with Palestinians. Ultimately, the hope for the United States was that the Abraham Accords could serve as a stepping stone towards a more stable and peaceful Middle East. In reality, the Accords may have only served to construct a new hegemonic power dynamic that leaves Palestinians behind.
Links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/world/middleeast/israel-arab.html
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33961
https://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/iran-and-palestinians
https://jcpa.org/article/iran-the-regional-power-behind-the-hamas-war-effort/
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r10mlynyh
https://www.wiley.law/alert-Treasury-Publishes-Updated-List-of-Boycotting-Countries-Removes-the-UAE
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/understanding-moroccan-normalization-israel
