Just a quick one this week. I found this short Washington Post piece to be interesting as we consider Israel’s recent peace deals with Bahrain and UAE and other deals looming on the horizon (e.g. Sudan and Saudi Arabia, likely after U.S. elections). The piece looks at Arab public opinion of normalizing relations with Israel and concludes, somewhat predictably, that even though the deals are historic steps, they do not enjoy widespread public support in the Arab states. Lack of public buy-in could be a serious obstacle to peace in the long term.
The article explains that based on survey data, much of the Arab Street feels the move is “aimed at pressuring Palestinians to accept a state without sovereignty, while granting authoritarian Arab Persian Gulf nations international legitimacy and greater access to new technologies for repression.” It also describes how UAE and Bahrain rolled out their new Israel policies alongside reminders that it is illegal to publicly disagree with policies of the ruling families there.
While I believe that normalization of relations between Israel and its neighbors is deeply important, it has to go much further than trade, technology, and military cooperation. There has to be a parallel effort to strengthen people-to-people ties or these peace deals may just be pieces of paper that do not result in a warmer feeling between Arabs and Israelis on the ground – especially if Israeli technology is used to further target dissidents and curb free speech in the Gulf states.