Will Arab countries become Israel's allies
The question from the subtitle could recently be classified as rhetorical with provocative or even ironic overtones, because the answer seemed obvious. How can states that have been at war with Israel since its re-establishment in 1948 be allies of Israel? Or they supported any anti-Israeli actions.
But the world does not stand still. As soon as Iran, a country with an ancient history, overthrew the power of the Shah and turned from a monarchy into a theocratic Islamic Republic claiming first positions in the region, the Arab world saw an ally in the Jewish state. And not potential, but quite concrete and effective.
Iran, ruled by Shiite imams, is increasingly feared by the leaders of Arab Sunni states. Tehran is pursuing an openly aggressive policy towards Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, first of all.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Israel relied on Egypt and Jordan in its regional policy, with which peace treaties were concluded after wars and decades of confrontation. But the pace of strategic rapprochement left much to be desired. Therefore, the Jews did not rely on neighboring Arab states, but on influential Arab regimes.
Neighbors near and far
Over the past quarter century, the UAE and Bahrain were the first Arab countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. It is important to emphasize that on September 15, 2020, the agreements were signed within the framework of the so-called "Abraham Agreements" ("AS", the name refers to the common origin of Christianity, Judaism and Islam from the monotheism of the Semitic patriarch Abraham).
Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, an expert on the politics of Israel and the Persian Gulf countries, believes that the Jewish state is actively implementing a strategy that he calls the "doctrine of the periphery of Israel." This doctrine links efforts to advance the peace process with the Palestinian Arabs not only with negotiations with Ramallah (the administrative center of the Palestinian National Authority), but also with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf and North Africa.
Interestingly, Israel relied on the geographical periphery, but not on the scale of the Arab world, until the end of the 1970s. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty in 1978. Even earlier, in the mid-1950s, official contacts between Israel and sub-Saharan Africa began - even before these colonies achieved independence. By the early 1970s, Israeli diplomats were working in 33 African countries.
Israel has always maintained friendly relations with the Shah's Iran. Turkey was the first Muslim country to establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in 1949. For many years, the Turks and Israelis have maintained a close economic and military partnership.
Yoel Guzansky believes that the "Abraham Agreements" will strengthen the military power and intelligence potential of Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. At the same time, these treaties demonstrate to other Arab countries the qualitative changes in the economy, technological development and diplomacy that accession promises them.
At an international online conference on normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel in early September 2020, one of the most influential women in the Arab world, Professor Ebtesam Al-Ketbi, founder and president of the Emirates Policy Center, drew attention to the fact that "the rapprochement between Israel and the UAE should be considered the driving force that changed the rules of the political game in the region." Professor Al-Ketbi is sure that "a new model of overcoming the chronic Palestinian-Israeli conflict has emerged, which has become a strategic shock for many regional players." She admits that other Arab countries will not immediately follow Abu Dhabi's example. But in this case, they will miss their chance to participate in the normalization of relations with Israel.
Interestingly, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi congratulated both sides on reaching the "Abraham Agreements". Although, according to Al-Ketbi, Cairo is not happy about this normalization. Egypt understands that they are losing their role as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which threatens to lose leadership throughout the Arab world.
Professor Al-Ketbi has no doubt that the announcement of the UAE and Bahrain on the normalization of relations with the Jewish state is based not on opportunistic considerations, but on a long-term strategy. She calls her country a "regional player" who is not going to wait "for other larger regional players to mature before making strategic decisions."
The current leaders of Arab countries seem to have forgotten about the embargo imposed on trade with the Jewish state in 1948 by the then rulers of the Arab world. Until relatively recently, any relations with Israel were maintained exclusively informally. Today, trade volumes have grown so much that it makes no sense to hide them. Under the veil of secrecy, only the contacts of military and intelligence agencies remain.
Saudi Arabia has so far refrained from joining these treaties. Professor Al-Ketbi explains this decision of Riyadh by the status of the kingdom as the guardian of the shrines of Islam. Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that it was the Saudis who initiated this process and stood behind the signatories of these documents. If Saudi Arabia joined the "AU", it would not be difficult to predict the reaction of non–Arab Muslim countries – and above all Iran, Turkey, Malaysia.
Sunni Arab countries are afraid not only of Shiite Iran, but also of Sunni Turkey, which is increasing its role in Libya. At the same time, Ankara, represented by President Erdogan, claims to restore the Resplendent Port, which has dominated the Arab world for centuries. In the First World War, Arab sheikhs took the side of Great Britain and fought against their fellow Turks. Nowadays, the AU partners Israel, the UAE and Bahrain are actively cooperating not only with Egypt and Jordan, but also with Greece, Cyprus and India.
In the UAE, in the first half of the 2000s, Israeli projects in the field of cybersecurity were considered. Abu Dhabi considered the Israeli "Project 8200" and "Digital Shield" as landmarks when building its own digital system. Since 2008, the unspoken comprehensive Emirati-Israeli cooperation in various technological fields has begun. In 2005-2015, Israelis participated in the modernization of surveillance systems at the country's oil and gas facilities.
After the signing of the "AU", Abu Dhabi and Manama ceased to keep their contacts with the Israelis secret, although the veil of fog over cooperation in the military and intelligence fields remains dense. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Yitzhak Herzog have already made their first historic visits to the UAE.
Meanwhile, military cooperation with the Jewish state received an official status on December 9, 2020, when Israel joined the International Security Alliance (IAB), founded in February 2017 by the UAE and France. The IAB unites the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Internal Security of the UAE, France, Bahrain, Morocco, Italy, Senegal, Singapore, Spain and Slovakia. Israel became the tenth State to join the alliance.
Digital Solidarity
Priority in cooperation between Arab countries and Israel is given to the development of applied elements of the collective cybersecurity system in the format of intelligence exchange and the development of common methods of responding to emergencies in cyberspace.
Old Jerusalem is a holy city for both Jewish and Arab populations. Photo by Reuters
It is noteworthy that in 2008-2015, one of the Israeli firms, together with an official Swiss contractor, participated in the modernization of observations at the Emirati oil and gas facilities. Today, Abu Dhabi cooperates with relevant Israeli structures on digital protection issues in various fields.
In April 2021, the UAE Radio Intelligence Agency, established in 2012 as the equivalent of the American National Security Agency, provided the relevant Israeli services with data on cyber espionage attempts against Israeli entrepreneurs by an international hacker group. Later, the General Intelligence Service of Saudi Arabia joined the search for the location of these hackers. All the information obtained by the Emirati and Saudi intelligence services was transferred to Israeli colleagues.
It turned out that the cybercriminals belonged to the international hacker group "Lebanese Cedar", associated with the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah, which Israel, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Japan and a number of other countries recognized as terrorist. Moscow considers Hezbollah a legitimate socio-political organization, although in 1985 Imad Mughniya, nicknamed "Hyena", participated in the abduction and murder of Russian diplomat Arkady Katkov. It is known that Mughniya personally shot a wounded employee of the Soviet embassy.
The League of Arab States (LAS) and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Persian Gulf (GCC) have officially recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Paris has declared terrorist only the armed wing of Hezbollah, and defines the political wing as a legitimate socio-political organization. China declares its "neutral" attitude towards Hezbollah, but hosts the leaders of this organization. For the sake of accuracy, it should be noted that neutrality is a legal status related to interstate relations, and in this case its use is illegal.
In 2011, Hezbollah established a strong base in Cuba. The presence of militants of this organization has been noted in Venezuela, Paraguay, Argentina and other Latin American countries.
As a result of the cyberattacks of the Lebanese "Cedars", not only Israeli, Saudi and Emirati entrepreneurs suffered, but also representatives of large businesses in the UK, USA, Egypt and Jordan.
In May 2021, several GCC countries at once proposed to the National Cyber Directorate of Israel to conduct joint exercises in the next few years. It is known that the relevant proposals came from the UAE, Qatar and SA. Again, we note that Riyadh hides the fact of cooperation with Jews.
The Saudis and Qataris are using the Israeli experience to counter terrorist threats. Saudi Arabia, thanks to contacts with one of the Israeli companies, uses artificial intelligence to obtain and process intelligence data based on monitoring closed channels in social networks.
In the early 2000s, a former Israeli intelligence officer, Shmuel Bar, actively worked with the Saudis, who created the Intuiew company to analyze social networks in order to detect potential terrorists. The Bar concluded that Islamist suicide bombers use a special language in their farewell videos. Thus, the expression "victory for the patient" was often found among Hamas terrorists. Suicide bombers of Al-Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation) prefer the phrase: "Allah, count them, kill them, do not leave a single one alive." Later, the Bar company received an order to study the attitude of the population to the royal family.
Moreover, in a number of cases, Riyadh was able to use Israeli hackers who were actively involved in hybrid conflicts. For example, in 2012, Israeli programmers repelled Iranian virus attacks on oil and gas facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It was Israeli specialists who managed to extinguish a significant part of the shock wave of the virus from Iran.
Oman and Bahrain are also involved in digital cooperation with Israelis, but most of all in the areas of financial activity, health and education. Although Bahrain, along with Israel, the UAE and the US Fifth Fleet, participated in five-day maneuvers in the Red Sea in November 2021.
Kuwait stands apart from cooperation with Jews. Without categorically opposing the establishment of relations with the Israelis, he believes that "we should not force this process."
Dangerous Iran and Disloyal America
Back in 2002, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (1924-2015), who took the throne of the kingdom three years later, put forward an initiative to reconcile Arab countries with the Jewish state.
This plan was seriously discussed by the Israeli leadership, although the requirements contained in it for the Jewish state were to a large extent radical and very risky. Moreover, Hamas and other terrorist organizations advocating the destruction of Israel rejected the Saudi initiative in the bud. Moreover, on March 27, 2002, the day before the Arab League adopted the Saudi initiative, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, Hamas, with the assistance of militants from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, carried out a terrorist attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya, as a result of which 30 people were killed and 140 injured. After the bloodbath staged by Palestinian radicals, both Israel and the Arab League refused to discuss the Saudi initiative.
There are different ways to treat the Saudi peace initiative. But in the plan of that time there was no hint of cooperation in the military and intelligence spheres between Arab countries and the Jewish state. And it is clear why. At that time, the danger from Iran was not clearly visible to the Arab world.
On the other hand, George W. Bush, who was relatively loyal to Israel, was in the White House across the ocean. And the victory in the next presidential election of the hater of the Jewish state, Barack Obama, was also far from obvious.
A prominent Israeli-Australian publicist, Belgian-born Izya Leibler, in one of his last articles published in 2019 in the Jerusalem Post, wrote: "Only evangelical Christians remain principled and consistent supporters of Israel in the United States, while the Jewish community is divided and refuses loyalty and obligations to Israel." Leibler believes that "the origins of the current trend began to actively manifest themselves during the cadence of Barack Obama, who during his presidency treated Israel as a rogue state, "fawned over the Iranians, put Islamist terrorists and the Israeli military on the same board." It is significant that Libler titled this publication, in fact, with a rhetorical question: "Where are you, American Jewish leaders?"
The movement for the rights of the black population "Black Lives Matter" (declares an undisguised anti-Israeli policy, emphasizes Leibler. At the same time, BLM "enjoys the support of the Anti-Defamation League, a non-governmental American human rights organization created to counter anti-Semitism."
In an article by the same Isi Leibler, "Bogged down in past wars," published a year earlier in the Jerusalem Post, it is said about the unfriendly attitude towards Israel from the "collective West". Israel "has no allies in the European Union, whose bias and double standards towards the Jewish state have become an integral part of politics in the Middle East."
A remarkable fact: before the collapse of the USSR, Israel was by default, but certainly ranked among the West. Although neither the United States nor any European NATO country has ever expressed readiness to send its troops to support the Jewish state in the confrontation with numerous enemies.
Amots Asa-El, one of the editors of the Jerusalem Post and at the same time an employee of the Shalom Hartman Research and Educational Institute, in an article "Not our war" published in October 2021, demands that the Israeli leadership "distance itself from the English-speaking powers", which cannot be attributed to the "best friends of Israel".
The senior editor of the Israeli newspaper is referring to the unequivocal message of the three English-speaking powers - the United States, Great Britain and Canada, along with Australia, which joined them - to focus on "containing China." Washington does not even dream of Israel's participation yet, but the ability of overseas politicians to twist their hands is widely known. Moreover, "Israel is too closely connected with America and feels to a certain extent indebted to it."
There is no need to talk about France's friendliness towards the Jewish state. Suffice it to recall the French embargo imposed on the supply of weapons to Israel on June 2, 1967. Three days later, the Six-Day War began, in which the Jews had to fight the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the expeditionary corps from Iraq and Algeria.
It is important to keep in mind that until 1967, the Americans did not supply Jews with any weapons. And in 1969, Paris once again betrayed Israel by refusing to sell submarines of the Cherbourg type, the purchase of which the Israelis paid in full before the embargo was announced.
Retired Colonel Yaniv Rokhov, who worked for many years in the analytical department of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, said in an interview with HBO: "In recent years, the Israeli leadership has often turned to Moscow in the most difficult situations arising in the region." The Jewish state, which pursues a policy of neutrality, refused to join the anti-Russian sanctions during the Obama presidency, although the American leader exerted pressure on then Prime Minister Netanyahu. Nevertheless, the Israelis will avoid any unilateral support.
The deep tectonic shifts taking place in the Middle East should also include plans to evacuate almost all American troops from the region. British-Israeli analyst Jonathan Speier, in an article "The Middle East: Trends of 2022" published at the end of January in the same Jerusalem Post, describing the current situation in the region, writes: "The UAE and other Gulf countries could not help but notice the growing inability of the United States in recent years to support friendly governments in Egypt and Tunisia... Washington does not want to assume further obligations to its allies in the region and bear responsibility for the events taking place here."
Therefore, the "AU" and other alliances that can form a Jewish state and individual Arab countries are beneficial to both sides. H
Jerusalem
Zakhar Gelman
Zakhar Gelman is a journalist.
