by Philip Gordon
Ultimately, the road to normalization with the Arab states still runs through the Palestinian issue, and not the other way around.
The
prospect of Israel normalizing its relations with Arab states is an
enticing idea that anyone who cares about Israel or the region should
want to see realized. Arab strategic interests are aligning with
Israel’s; some Arab leaders’ attitudes toward Israel are changing; and
the Arab desire to see an Israeli-Palestinian deal remains strong.
Nevertheless, the vision of Israel normalizing its relations with Arab
states without the agreement of the Palestinians is fanciful, and even
modest steps toward normalization will require Israel to do much more
than many Israelis seem to realize. Ultimately, the road to
normalization with the Arab states still runs through the Palestinian
issue, and not the other way around.
In the absence of progress in direct
negotiations with the Palestinians – or any real prospects for progress,
for that matter – many in Israel are now focusing greater attention on
cultivating relations with the wider Arab world. From Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Isaac Herzog,
many Israeli leaders believe that a growing confluence of interests
between Israel and the region’s Sunni Arab states – primarily around the
goals of containing Iran and fighting Islamist extremism – could
provide a basis for Arab-Israeli normalization and contribute to
progress on the long-stalled Palestinian issue. Netanyahu specifically argues
that after years of hoping a breakthrough with the Palestinians would
lead to better relations with Arab countries, he now thinks “this
process could also run in the opposite direction: the normalization of
advancing relations with the Arab world could help to advance peace - a
more sober, stable and better-backed peace - between us and the
Palestinians.”
The Trump administration also appears to be pinning its hopes
on the approach known as “outside-in” – negotiating directly with Arab
states and hoping they will use their influence with the Palestinians to
advance agreement on Middle East peace. Arriving in Israel directly
from Riyadh after a May 2017 summit there with more than 50 Muslim
leaders, Trump said
he was “deeply encouraged” by his meetings, and insisted that Saudi
Arabia’s King Salman would “love to see peace between Israelis and
Palestinians.” Trump told
the Israelis there was a “growing realization among your Arab neighbors
that they have common cause with you on this threat posed by
Iran.” According to longtime Middle East analyst and negotiator Dennis
Ross, “the logic of outside in is that because the Palestinians are so
weak and divided – and because there’s a new tacit relationship between
the Sunni Arabs and Israel – there’s the hope the Arabs would be
prepared to do more.”
The strategic rapprochement between
Israel and some Arab states is undeniable, and behind-the-scenes
cooperation between them is now greater than ever. But having spent much
of the past several months in both Israel and Arab capitals discussing
the issue with political leaders, officials, diplomats, business people,
and others, I believe that many of the hopes placed on normalization in
advance of a deal with the Palestinians are misplaced. While modest
steps toward normalization by some countries may be possible if Israel
also acts, genuine normalization between Arab states and Israel will
only happen in the context of comprehensive peace supported by the
Palestinians. Moreover, even the more modest steps under consideration
will require more significant gestures from Israel than many Israelis
seem to realize. Israel should certainly continue to pursue better
relations with the Arab states for a number of political, strategic, and
economic reasons. But those looking to the Arabs for a shortcut on the
Palestinian issue – or who think they can establish closer relations
with the Arabs without addressing that issue – are likely to be
disappointed.
Why Normalization Remains Unlikely
The growing confluence of interests,
strategic rapprochement, and quiet cooperation between Israel and many
Arab states is genuine. Israel is now far from the primary security
priority of most Arab leaders, who share Israel’s deep concerns about
Iran, Islamist extremism, and regional instability. In private, these
leaders recognize that Israel does not threaten them and that there are
strategic and economic benefits to quiet cooperation with Israel. As one
senior Gulf official put it to me, “We and Israel now see the region in
much the same way. Israelis are not killing our people; Iran and ISIS
are.” Even King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which does not formally
recognize Israel’s existence, acknowledges that Israel is a “fact.”
That said, there are still major
political obstacles to a public Arab rapprochement with Israel. Leading
Arab governments, particularly in Riyadh, face a vast array of threats
to their security or even existence. They see security threats from
Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Islamist extremist groups, including the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB), al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State. And they see threats
to political stability from restive, growing populations that must cope
with rapid social and technogical change and economic austerity driven
by low oil prices. Under these circumstances, the region’s leaders
cannot afford to spend valuable political capital defending a public
rapprochement with Israel that most of their citizens would consider a
betrayal of the still-popular Palestinian cause. Previous Arab leaders
who agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel – Egypt’s Anwar
Sadat and Jordan’s King Hussein – were strong, autocratic leaders who
felt able (wrongly, in Sadat’s case) to run the political risk of
normalization without threatening their rule. Today’s Arab leaders do
not, for the most part, see themselves in a position to take such
political risks, absent a valuable and certain payoff.
On top of that is an important regional
dimension: at a time of intense geopolitical competition with Iran,
Saudi Arabia in particular will not want to cede the Palestinian issue
to its rivals in Tehran, who would be sure to denounce Riyadh for any
public rapprochement with Israel. The Iranians in that case would claim
to be the true defenders of Muslim rights in Jerusalem and seek to
portray Saudi Arabia – even in the eyes of its own population – as
“stooges” of the United States and Israel. This is a risk that Saudi
leaders cannot afford to run.
Clearly the scope of what may or may not
be possible varies considerably among the different Arab states. Egypt
and Jordan already have diplomatic and security relations with Israel
that are in many ways closer than ever (even if still unpopular
domestically). Mauritania recognized Israel in 1999, though later froze
relations. Qatar, Oman, and Morocco have in the past exchanged
senior-level visits with Israeli counterparts and allowed Israel to open
trade representative offices in their countries – though those offices
were forced to close when security crises broke out (Oman closed its
office in 2000 after the second intifada, and Qatar did the same after
Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2009). The UAE hosts an Israeli
mission to the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency and
could probably get away with a modest expansion of ties with Israel,
but will not want to risk criticism from its enemies in Hamas and the
MB. Saudi Arabia has less room for maneuver because of its special place
in the Islamic world, the relative fragility of its political order,
and the intensity of its regional competition with Iran. And certainly
the governments of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen are so heavily
influenced by Iran that any rapprochement with Israel is out of the
question. What unites all these diverse countries is a reluctance to pay
the political cost of drawing publicly closer to Israel in the absence
of something significant to show for it.
Even much-discussed partial steps toward
normalization – such as the establishment of Arab-Israel
telecommunications links; granting Israel overflight rights; issuing
permits to Israeli businesses to operate in the Gulf; sports or cultural
exchanges; or engaging Israeli diplomats at international meetings –
will likely require more far-reaching moves by Israel than many Israelis
seem to acknowledge. Even these modest steps would be costly to Arab
leaders if they seemed to be done against the objections of the
Palestinians, who continue to fear that economic and diplomatic
normalization will come at the expense of their political aspirations,
and believe that time is on their side. For example, the economic gestures
Israel announced during President Trump’s May 2017 visit to Israel –
including easing the passage for Palestinian workers into Israel,
extending the opening hours of the Allenby crossing with Jordan;
permitting the expansion of the industrial zone at Tarqumiya into Area
C; and providing permits for thousands of Palestinian homes in parts of
Area C – made little impact. While highly controversial and contested
within the Israeli cabinet, they were seen by the Arabs as warmed-over
versions of what has been promised many times before. Not surprisingly,
press reports that suggested the Arab Gulf states had finalized an offer and were close to a normalization deal with Israel on the eve of Trump’s trip to the region proved premature.
Cautioned by the Palestinians, the Arabs
remain wary of making “permanent” or “de jure” steps toward Israel in
exchange for “de facto” Israeli steps that could easily be reversed. For
example, they are unwilling to formally recognize Israel as a Jewish
state, or accept the legitimacy of Israelis remaining in the major
settlement blocs, in exchange for expanded freedom of movement or
autonomy for Palestinians that could easily be taken away in the future.
Indeed, the Arab League’s most recent reiteration
of its commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative (API), which offers
recognition of Israel in exchange for comprehensive peace with the
Palestinians, commits Arab leaders to normalization only after
the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian territories is
complete. The fear is that any other sequence could lead to their
recognition of Israel in exchange for a withdrawal that never actually
takes place.
The bottom line is that there is a major
structural difference in the way Israel and the Arabs view steps toward
normalization. For Israel there are big advantages to making public
intelligence, military, and economic cooperation with Arabs in that it
would further Israel’s acceptance in the region, undercut international
efforts to isolate Israel, and relieve some of the pressure to offer
more concessions to the Palestinians. Israel would derive significant
legitimacy from the establishment of formal ties with major Arab
countries, and Israeli businesses would find new opportunities in Arab
markets if they could openly operate there. For the Arabs, however, the
dynamic is the opposite: making private cooperation public incurs a
cost. Since the Arab states already receive most of what they need from
Israel quietly, they have little incentive in expanding overt ties with
Israel without something significant to show for it. Even Egypt and
Jordan, which have diplomatic relations with Israel and extensive
behind-the-scenes security and intelligence cooperation with Israel,
remain reluctant to appear to be too conciliatory in public so long as
their populations judge Israel’s treatment of Palestinians so
negatively.
New Dynamics and Potential Wildcards
Attempts to involve the wider Arab
region in efforts to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace are not new. The
United States managed to bring most of the Arabs to the table at the
1991 Madrid Peace Conference and the 2008 Annapolis Summit, but in
neither case was this sufficient to bridge the gaps between Israelis and
Palestinians, or have the Arabs to do much more with Israel than attend
the meetings. In 2009, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell pursued
many of the same normalization steps currently on the table between
Israel and the Arabs, and President Obama explored Saudi involvement on
the basis of an Israeli settlement freeze, but again the price for their
engagement was much greater than what Israel was willing to pay.
Perhaps most relevant, in 2016 Secretary of State John Kerry made
exhaustive efforts to have the Arab regimes negotiate with Israel on the
basis of the principles he had developed during the previous years of
negotiations with the Israelis and Palestinians, but once again the gaps
among the parties were too wide to bridge, and the Arab states were
unwilling to pressure or break with the Palestinians. Even when Kerry
thought he had persuaded the Arabs to accept certain principles such as
recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, they were never willing
to do so in public without Palestinian agreement. The Saudis and other
key players were not even prepared to show up at an international
conference – let alone take further steps toward normalization with
Israel – without at least an Israeli commitment to a negotiating framework the Palestinians would accept (which Israel would not do).
To be sure, the regional situation has
changed considerably, even since last year, and there are new variables
in play – including some wildcards that could potentially lead to major
breaks with the past. One of the most important is President Donald
Trump, who has made progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue a foreign
policy priority, seems determined to try to negotiate “the ultimate
deal,” and is highly unpredictable. Transactional by nature and
increasingly frustrated by a lack of progress on other issues on his
agenda, Trump could try to leverage his strong support for the Arab Gulf
states to win gestures from them that might advance normalization with
Israel and Middle East peace. Key Arab leaders in the region are
inclined to be helpful to Trump, who has wholeheartedly embraced their
agenda on Iran, Qatar, and Yemen; is ready to do business and make
armaments deals with no strings attached; and unlike his predecessors
will not pressure them on democracy and human rights. For this reason,
Trump may be better placed to succeed with the Arabs where Kerry and
Obama failed. But Trump’s leverage will still be limited by the Arab
domestic political factors mentioned above, and even Trump is unlikely
to make his support for the Gulf states conditional on normalization. In
fact he already granted that support unconditionally in exchange for
the warm welcome in Riyadh and the announcement of major arms sales and
investment agreements – higher priorities for him and more easily
achievable than Arab normalization with Israel.
Another wildcard is Saudi Crown Prince
Muhammad bin Salman, the driving force behind Saudi foreign policy.
While the general Saudi inclination (including that of King Salman) on
the issue of Israel is one of extreme caution, Prince Muhammad has
already demonstrated his willingness to take bold steps and risks on
issues critical to Saudi Arabia’s future. He is shaking up the Saudi
economic system by diversifying it away from oil, cutting longstanding
subsidies, raising taxes, and planning to privatize part of Aramco. He
is likewise shaking up Saudi society by involving more women in
education and the workforce, reducing the powers of the religious
police, loosening male guardianship rules, and seeking to boost tourism
and entertainment in the Kingdom. He has launched a war in Yemen and a
diplomatic assault on Qatar that show a strong propensity to take major
risks. Finally, the 31-year-old Crown Prince did not personally
experience the emergence of the Palestinian tragedy and numerous
Arab-Israeli wars as did his father’s generation; his formative years
have instead been dominated by the Saudi rivalry with Iran, the Arab
Spring, wars in Syria and Yemen, and relative Arab-Israeli peace. With
the new situation in the Saudi hierarchy, new options with Saudi Arabia
might conceivably open.
A third important variable concerns the
future Palestinian leadership and likely upcoming leadership transition.
Eighty-two-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is
not uniformly popular among Arab leaders, some of whom – such as those
in the UAE – openly and actively support his rivals. As other
Palestinian actors jockey to succeed Abbas, the Arab states will thus
consider any steps toward normalization with Israel in the context of
how it might help or hurt their preferred candidates for succession. If
Hamas were to take power in the West Bank, for example, Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, and the UAE might be willing to work even more closely and
perhaps openly with Israel on efforts to contain and punish the
organization, especially if Hamas were aligned with Qatar and Iran. On
the other hand, if a new Palestinian leader preferred by the Gulf Arabs
emerged, their willingness to work openly with Israel without the
Palestinians’ blessing might even diminish, lest that cooperation
undermine the new leader’s legitimacy. The rise of a new Palestinian
leader whom the Arabs were eager to see in power might encourage Arab
leaders to cooperate with Israel on measures to improve the daily lives
of Palestinians, but again only if the Palestinians themselves signed
off on such cooperation.
Perhaps the most important factor will
be what takes place in Israel. The current Netanyahu government – in
which a majority of cabinet ministers favor settlement expansion and
oppose a two-state solution – seems highly unlikely to take the sort of
steps presumably required to advance an agreement with Palestinians or
normalization with the Arabs. Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman speaks
for many others in the government when he insists
that Israel “must not accept a situation in which normalization with
the Arab countries will be held hostage to [resolution of] the
Palestinian issue.” Thus without political change in Jerusalem it seems
highly unlikely that even modest steps toward normalization will take
place. But the current government will not last forever, and a different
prime minister or coalition could conceivably take steps that affect
Arab and Palestinian calculations.
An Israeli proposal to go further than
it has in previous peace negotiations – for example, along the lines of
the principles that Secretary Kerry articulated in
his December 2016 speech – would make it easier for the pragmatic Arabs
to engage with Israel. Indeed, although Kerry’s principles included a
number of controversial elements such as Arab recognition of Israel as a
Jewish state, the speech received a positive public
welcome throughout the Arab world, including from Egypt, Jordan, the
UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and even Saudi Arabia. With such principles
genuinely on the table, the Arabs would have more political cover for
contact with Israel, and even Saudi Arabia might endorse international
negotiations on this basis. Nonethless, Arabs’ formalizing security
cooperation or establishing open political or economic ties with Israel
would likely be contingent on the conclusion of the
negotiations with the Palestinians, not on just a reasonable offer.
Having seen too many rounds of peace talks fail, the Arabs are unlikely
to take politically costly steps with Israel based merely on an
agreement to a framework for talks. And no matter how generous the
Israeli proposals, and no matter how much fault for lack of progress
might lie with the Palestinians, any expectation that the Arabs will
blame the Palestinians and side with Israel is misplaced.
In the absence of credible,
comprehensive peace negotiations, Israeli proposals for partial,
unilateral, or interim steps would command the Arabs’ attention. For
example, a unilateral move by a new Israeli government to limit
settlement activity to the major blocs, end the “legalization” of
outposts, transfer significant amounts of territory to Palestinian
control, and genuinely ease freedom of movement would significantly
improve the atmosphere and increase the prospects for meaningful talks
with Palestinians and cooperation with Arab states. But even under these
conditions the Arabs will hesitate to give a public blessing to the
Israeli moves, let alone make any down payments on normalization, in the
absence of Palestinian suppport. Israelis might rightly feel that steps
such as these were unprecedented and politically difficult, but from
the Arab point of view they would still leave the most controversial
issues of refugees, occupation, and Jerusalem unaddressed. Palestinians
in turn would complain that by compensating Israel for partial steps,
the Arabs were reducing the leverage needed to address the core issues. A
more realistic objective of an Israeli unilateral or interim initiative
might be quiet Arab financial and political support designed to make
that initiative succeed. That more achievable aim would at least improve
the atmosphere for talks, the lives of Palestinians, and Arab attitudes
toward Israel, potentially creating the conditions for more substantial
progress down the road.
Finally, it is worth noting that while
Arab leaders emphasize how difficult it would be for them to take steps
toward normalization with Israel in the absence of progress with the
Palestinians, they also firmly stand by their commitment to the 2002
Arab Peace Initiative and insist they have made a “strategic choice” for
peace with Israel. While they continue to maintain that the terms of
the initiative are not negotiable, they point out that the API was
written in a way to provide maximum flexibility, and stand by previous
statements that they can accept adjustments to the 1967 borders as a
territorial basis for peace. Arab leaders, including in Riyadh, told me
they stand by the 2013 statement
made by then-Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani on behalf
of the Arab League API Follow-Up Committee that a “comparable and
mutually agreed minor swap of the land” between Israel and Palestine was
consistent with the API’s call for a return to 1967 borders.[14]
They cannot deviate from the official API position that the Golan
Heights must be returned to Syria, but they realize that it is currently
not an option, and would likely not let the issue of returning
territory to the Iran-backed Assad regime stand in the way of a peace
agreement with Israel. Similarly, on refugees, they insist on the API’s
requirement of a “just” solution to the refugee problem “to be agreed
upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194,” but
understand – as evidenced by the words “to be agreed upon” – that Israel
will never accept a solution that allows large numbers of Palestinian
refugees to return. The Arabs complain that Israel has not been more
proactive in putting forward specific ideas for them to react to –
during the entire Kerry initiative, for example, the Israelis were never
even willing to look at a map – and that the United States has not
involved them significantly enough in its efforts to negotiate with
Israelis and Palestinians. An Israel genuinely willing to negotiate on
the basis of the API would find Arab partners ready to engage with it.
Conclusion
The prospect of Israel normalizing its
relations with Arab states is an enticing idea that anyone who cares
about Israel or the region should want to see realized. Arab strategic
interests are aligning with Israel’s; some Arab leaders’ attitudes
toward Israel are changing; and the Arab desire to see an
Israeli-Palestinian deal remains strong. Arab leaders, moreover, have
many other pressing issues on their plates, have not been forced to
decide where their true bottom lines on normalization lie, and will not
do so unless and until specific ideas are on the table – so those bottom
lines are worth exploring.
Nevertheless, the vision of Israel
normalizing its relations with Arab states without the agreement of the
Palestinians is fanciful, and even modest steps toward normalization
will require Israel to do much more than many Israelis seem to realize.
Ultimately, the road to normalization with the Arab states still runs
through the Palestinian issue, and not the other way around.
Philip Gordon
Source: http://www.inss.org.il/publication/israel-arab-states-illusions-normalization/
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Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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