Israel and the Arab world:The enemy of my enemies
Jul 23rd 2016 | CAIRO AND JERUSALEM | From the print edition
EGYPT’S ambassador to Israel was in Tel Aviv for less than a month before he was called back to Cairo in November 2012. His government, then led by Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, was incensed over Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas, a Brotherhood affiliate. MrMorsi also summoned Israel’s ambassador in Cairo, where a year earlier protesters had stormed the Israeli embassy.
What a difference a few years make. In February Egypt’s current president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who toppled MrMorsi in a coup, sent a new ambassador to Israel, the first since 2012. MrSisi has closed Egypt’s border with Gaza, to great Palestinian dismay, and vilified Hamas. To complete the turnabout, there are now rumours that Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, will soon visit MrSisi in Egypt.
Israel’s warmer relations with Egypt are a sign of a broader rapprochement with the Arab world. Mr Netanyahu may be stretching things when he says that Arab leaders now see the Jewish state as an ally, but their priorities, such as countering Iran and combating Islamic terrorism, are increasingly aligned. The shift has left the Palestinians, whose fate once topped the Arab agenda, feeling abandoned.
A different sense of betrayal has helped to bring the Israelis and Arabs closer. Barack Obama’s eagerness to pull America back from the Middle East, and his dealings with Iran, resulting in a nuclear accord signed last year, alarmed Israel and the Arab states in equal measure. Both sides fear Iran will cheat on the deal and use the economic benefits to support proxies fomenting chaos in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. So, quietly, Israel and the Gulf states have begun to co-operate over security. “We have the same understanding of the region,” said TzipiLivni, a former Israeli foreign minister, in January.
According to the Israeli officials, co-operation with Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has signed peace treaties, is even better. In April the Israeli army’s deputy chief of staff spoke of an “unprecedented” level of intelligence-sharing between the countries. Israeli drones have been allowed to fire on insurgents in Sinai, where fighters loyal to Islamic State (IS) have tormented the Egyptian army. Since taking office in 2014, not only has MrSisi closed Egypt’s border with Gaza, he has flooded the smuggling tunnels beneath it in order to stop the flow of weapons. “The Egyptians now are more anti-Hamas than even we are,” says a senior Israeli officer. “They’re actually pressing too hard now on Gaza.”
Yet Egypt, hoping to re-establish its influence in the region, is trying to revive moribund peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. To that end MrSisi sent his foreign minister to Israel on July 10th, the first such visit in nearly a decade. Mr Netanyahu has hailed the effort, if only to head off a French-led peace initiative that he fears will attempt to force an agreement on Israel. A senior Israeli diplomat says there is little actual hope for a renewal of serious talks.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which rules the West Bank under Israel’s eye, has also welcomed Egypt’s efforts. Hamas, which is left out of Egypt’s plans, has stayed mostly silent for fear of aggravating MrSisi. But some Palestinians worry that Arab states are letting Israel upend the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for it to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and agree to a “just settlement” for Palestinian refugees in return for recognition of Israel. “Israel wants normalisation and political ties with the Arab states, and to achieve this without solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” says Elias Zananiri of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the movement once led by Yasser Arafat.
This has contributed to a more general sense of unease among the Palestinians. Officials in other parts of the Arab world talk more about Iran’s meddling, the wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and their own domestic economic and political troubles. Such issues seem more pressing to their people. And besides, many Arabs are resigned to the stalemate in the peace process. Mr Netanyahu appears intransigent; Palestinian leaders are seen as divided, ineffective and corrupt.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, still makes the rounds in Arab capitals—and foreign leaders still profess their support. But the Palestinians are aware of their diminished status. In a recent poll 78% of them said their cause was no longer the top Arab priority, and 59% accused Arab states of allying themselves with Israel against Iran. The amount of aid flowing from Arab countries to the PA has fallen by well over half in recent years. Funds from the West have also declined.
The public in some Arab countries may have softened its animus towards the Jewish state. An Israeli polling organisation has reported that only 18% of Saudis see it as their country’s main threat. But the Palestinian issue can still excite passion. In Egypt, for example, a member of parliament was hit with a shoe and expelled by his colleagues after meeting the Israeli ambassador in February. The Israeli flag is still burned at protests in the region.
What really stirs Arab emotions are scenes of Israelis killing Palestinians. Violence over the past year has left dozens of Israelis and more than 200 Palestinians dead. Most Palestinians, according to polls, back a return to an armed
intifada (uprising). With the Arab world focused elsewhere, America in the throes of a presidential race and progress towards a two-state solution halted, they may see no other way to capture the world’s attention.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21702476-arab-states-warm-israel-palestinians-feel-neglected-enemy-my