Arab-Israel Relations: The Work of Trump or Outcome of Larger Structural Changes in ME Politics?

Introduction

President Trump oversaw the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 at the White House between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. With Morocco an Sudan quietly signing on to the Accords weeks later it appeared that a domino effect might take place with more and more of the Arab world reaching a normalization of relations agreement with Israel (Reuters, 2021). Trump hailed the agreement as the beginnings of a new Middle Easteven though within a year of the signing the signs of conflict and threats of war persist (Crowley, 2021). Trump had been looking for a sign of victory in the Middle East, ever since appointing his nephew Jared Kushner to a key position in Middle East negotiations. Kushners family is well-connected to Prime Minister Netanyahu (Kampeas, 2017). It was largely seen as an opportunity for a key ally of Netanyahu to negotiate on Israels behalf with willing Arab states. UAE, Bahrain, Moroccothey all had pre-existing relationships with Israel in terms of sharing intelligence and engaging in tradeso the agreement signed in 2020 should not have come as a surprise to anyone: indeed, as Harkov (2021) points out, the Moroccan government and Israel had secret ties, including intelligence sharing, for decades, and partial diplomatic relations in the 1990s. However, with respect to Sudan recognizing Israel, that is where Trump and Kushner likely exerted some pressure: Sudan had a new government and it wanted to get the state off the US list of nations that allegedly sponsor terrorism: the deal was that if Sudan wanted off that list it would have to normalize ties with Israel (Harkov, 2021). Thus, the shift in Arab-Israel relationsalthough in some ways nothing really historic or monumentalcan be characterized both as the outcome of larger structural developments (decades in the making) and also as the work of President Trump.

President Trumps Role

Trumps main role in the brokering of deals between Israel and the Arab states was to delegate authority to Kushner and to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (former CIA Director). Kushner was well-connected to Israeli leadership; and Pompeo (as former head of intelligence in the US) was well-connected to the major players who shared intelligence with Israel and who had done so for decades. Pompeo was also in a position to use leverage over Sudan to get the new Sudanese government to sign onto the Accords. Trumps role in comparison was minorbut his Administration played a major part in bringing the Accords together, even if the underlying infrastructure was already there in place. What the Trump Administration was able to do was assemble the pieces and smooth out the wrinkles. For instance, one particular hang-up between UAE and Israel was Israels avowed intention to annex the West Bank. The UAE wanted an assurance from Israel that it would not do this but would instead recognize the rights of the Palestinians there; Israel gave that assurance, thus opening the door to formal normalization of relations between UAE and Israel (Alterman, 2020; Baker, Kershner, Kirkpatrick & Bergman, 2020).

Trump had floated a peace plan between Israel and Palestine in 2020, but the plan favored Israeli talking points and Palestine rejected it because it did not guarantee full sovereignty to Palestine (Fayyad, 2020). Trumps peace plan clearly favored Israeli interests and that made it a non-starter for Palestinians. When it failed to gain momentum, Trump instead pivoted to the Sunni Arab world to try to normalize relations among some states that already had a history of working closely with Israel on various matters. This included UAE and Morocco. It was Trumps way of making good on a pledge to bring peace to the Middle Eastif he could not make that happen with respect to Palestine he could at least make it happen among states that were not against normalizing relations with Israel.

The problem is that the pivot made by Trump was largely a political gambit that did little to change the actual nexus of variables affecting the Middle East. The recent flare-up in tensions between Israel and Palestine prompted the UAE and Bahrain to criticize Israel for its role in the violence aimed at Palestinians (Crowley, 2021). The Trump Administration set the stage for this uneasy alliance between the Sunni Arab world and Israel by changing a long-held US policy with respect to the West Bank: Trumps Administration rejected the idea that Israel was illegally occupying and settling the West Bank (Jakes & Halbfinger, 2019). The normalization of relationships with the UAE hinged upon Israel affirming that it would not annex the West Bank as it had threatened to do, which shows that the UAE still, as a matter of policy, wants to express some form of solidarity with Palestine. The UAEs recent condemnation of violence against Palestine has shown that this is still the case.

The...

The only real issue here is that the states that have signed onto the Accords were never really at war with Israel in the first place (Krauss, 2020). From this perspective, Trump may be seen as taking credit for something that has not actually occurred: he has not established peace in the Middle East but rather simply created a normalization of relationshipsrelationships that by and large were already in place if not formally recognized.

Still, as Krauss (2020) explains, the prize in these negotiations is Saudi Arabia, and that prize still remains at large. Bahrain has strong ties with the KSA, as both are Sunni strongholds. With Israel looking to cultivate ties with the Sunni Arab world in an alliance against the Shia Arab world (Iran, Syria, Iraq), it appears that a larger game plan is at play. This plan has been in the works for some time and Trump has simply helped it to pick up speed. There have been larger structural changes in the Arab world, however, that Trump has not had much to do with.

Larger Structural Changes Predicating Trumps Involvement in ME Politics

The larger structural changes that predicated the shift in Arab-Israeli relations was the Sunni-Shia divide in the Arab world. Rather than ease tensions between Palestine and Israel, Trum focused on normalizing relations between Israel and the Sunni Arab states that view the Shia Arab states as opposition. This view is nationalistic, however, and not necessarily solely a religious or cultural view (Taspinar, 2018). Taspinar (2018) states that religion only is a small part of a much bigger and complex geostrategic and political picture. The bleeding in Syria or Yemen would not stop if Sunnis and Shiites would suddenly agree on who was the rightful successor of Muhammad. Looking at the sectarianized conflicts of the Middle East through the lens of a 7th century conflict is therefore both simplistic and misleading. The issue of politics in the Middle East today is one of modern nationalism. The main actors are Iran and the KSA: each has a policy for power in the Middle East, and the two states are in opposition. The various skirmishes, like the war in Yemen, are proxy wars between Iran and the KSA. This is a regional rivalry and not an historical one (Taspinar, 2018). In the 1970s, the KSA and Iran were united against Nasser in Egypt. Today, the KSA and Iran are locked in a bid for power for control of Syria and Iraq, where destabilization has threatened collapse of authority in these regions. Iran has supported Assad in Syria. Israel and the KSA have been united in their view that Assad should be overthrownbut now with Assads power secured thanks to interventions by Russia and Iran, the KSA is looking to work with Assad so as to shore up Saudi interests in the Levant (Alam, 2021). In Lebanon, Syria pursues its own interests; but Iran has a stake there as well, and the KSA wants to keep Iran from growing its power there. Therefore, it makes geopolitical sense for the KSA to try to woo Assad back to its side away from Iran.

The UAE has also voiced its opinion on the matter by arguing that Syria should be readmitted to the Arab League: Syria has been excluded from the Arab League for nearly a decade, but that may be about to change. Last week, theUnited Arab Emiratescalled for the war-torn country to be restored to the organisation it helped found in 1945, echoing similar calls byIraq in January (Phillips, 2021). Just ten years ago in 2011, nearly all of the 22 member states of the Arab League voted to remove Syria from the League; today, the calls to return Syria to the League show that the geopolitical nationalist concerns of states have shiftedparticularly now that it is clear that Syria is no longer vulnerable to attack: it has the support of Russia and Iran. Thus, the Arab world is now rethinking its approach to Syria in the larger power play that ultimately comes back to Iran vs. the KSA (Belbagi, 2021). It is no secret that the US favors the KSA over Iran; and having failed to topple Assad the US has shown that its prior gambit for control in the Middle East will not work if continued. The Arab world has thus adopted a new perspective. Some states, like the UAE and Bahrain, are now working a diplomatic angle to shore up an alliance of power with Israel; others are calling for better relations among the various Arab states. Even Russia and Saudi Arabia have had talks about returning Syria to the Arab League (Belbagi, 2021). This alone shows how ME politics have changed in the past decade: the ME is as fluid as ever in terms of political alliances and relationships. That is one reason the Accords are the outcome of structural changes that have long been in development and not so much the work of the Trump Administrationalthough with Trump pushing for them nothing formal likely would have come about.

There was leverage on all sides, of course. The UAE has wanted F-35 fighter jets for years. Although there has been some denial about the role that the acquisition of these jets played in the negotiation process,…