On Sunday afternoon, foreign ministers from Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates arrived at the Israeli oasis in the Sde Boker desert for a summit with Israeli and US foreign ministers. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke on the morning of a “day of celebration” and praised the strength of Israel’s foreign relations: The country is now “a major player on the global and regional stage,” Bennett said at the start of the cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Christian Meier
Political correspondent for the Middle East and Northeast Africa.
“We maintain old relationships and build new bridges.” Samih Schukri, Egypt’s foreign minister, who made peace with Israel 43 years ago, is responsible for the old relationships. The other three Arab foreign ministers defend the new bridges: Aal-Latif bin Rashid al-Zayani of Bahrain, Nasser Bourita of Morocco and Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the Emirates.
Intended or not by Bennett and Secretary of State Jair Lapid – who planned the summit – the time and place of the meeting were steeped in symbolism. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Zionist founder and long-time prime minister, is buried in Sde Boker in the Negev desert. Until recently, it would not have been so easy for most Arab politicians to so openly pay homage to the history of their former archenemy. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday afternoon, before leaving for the Negev, that the summit there was “something that, in my opinion, would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.”
Palestinians shouldn’t matter
A look at the date also shows how much times have changed since the signing of the “Abraham Accords” in 2020. Exactly twenty years earlier, on March 27, 2002, the Arab League had approved the so-called “Arab Peace Initiative”. Israel was offered normalization of relations if it withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories. It didn’t come to that.
However, Jerusalem now maintains full diplomatic relations with several Arab countries – with no progress made in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians are also unlikely to play a major role in the meeting, which began on Sunday and will continue into Monday. However, Blinken made a detour to Ramallah before heading to the summit site for dinner.
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There are enough topics that the Americans and representatives of the Middle and Near East countries need to discuss – and also enough irritations to be eliminated. Even though Bennett did not name the country by name, it was already clear in his statements that the meeting would end up being to demonstrate the existence of a common front against Iran. “There is an actor in the Middle East that is creating violence and obstacles, and there is one that is pushing for cooperation, prosperity and peace,” Bennett said. He added that Arabs are increasingly understanding that Israel is the second player.
Bennett also reiterated his opposition to a new nuclear deal with Iran on Sunday. What he calls “moderate” Arab countries share Israel’s concerns about Iran. The United States, on the other hand, wants to revive the nuclear deal as quickly as possible. At the moment, the fight for individual points continues. US special envoy to Iran Robert Malley told the Doha forum in the Qatari capital on Sunday that he could not express any confidence that a new deal was imminent.
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Iranian Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, had previously said the opposite in the same place: “It is imminent,” Kharrazi said. “It depends on the political will of the United States.” Among other things, the question is whether the Americans will reverse the classification of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in 2019. Israel vehemently rejects such a step – and that should also apply to the other representatives in Sde Boker.
Criticism of the “agreement” between Abu Dhabi and Moscow
In addition, the focus will be on UAE relations. They were undergoing a “stress test”, the Emirati ambassador to Washington Yousef Otaiba said earlier this month. It was an unusually frank admission. Relations have not improved since then. Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was recently a guest in the Emirates. Images of warm greetings traveled the world at the same time as the terrifying images of Mariupol, which recall the devastation caused by Russian and Syrian bombers in cities like Aleppo.
In Abu Dhabi, the main source of irritation is Washington’s rather lukewarm response to the January rocket and drone attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. In general, there is frustration in many Gulf states that Washington is not adequately protecting its security interests because its interest in the region has waned.
The Emirates expressed their anger in a way that Gulf observers called “reckless”. When the Washington government presented a draft resolution to the UN Security Council condemning Putin’s attack on Ukraine, the Emirates abstained. Days later, Moscow voted to extend the arms embargo against the Houthis. Western diplomats have criticized a “deal” between Abu Dhabi and Moscow. Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the strongman in the Emirates, has been hard for Joe Biden to catch up to recently. He wants to meet Blinken when he stops in Morocco at the end of his Middle East trip.