As the normalization between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain was being forged, Dr. Najat al-Saied, a Saudi-American expert in political science and communications who lives now in Abu Dhabi and works as a senior analyst in the local media, was one of the first to voice their opinion for changing the attitude towards Israel. She is also optimistic about the developments the agreement will bring, and ties its success to the results of the US presidential elections.
"Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE crown prince, has a lot of influence on Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates have become a role model in many areas: education, technology, women's rights," says Saied, who was born in Kentucky. "Mohammed bin Salman wants to change Saudi Arabia, modernize it, he looks at bin Zayed as inspiration. The logical move would be for every country in the region to make peace with Israel. I have believed that for a long time for many reasons. First of all, when you have a conflict, you must have ties with the other side. Second, you need to be realistic: Israel exists, it is a member in the UN, you can't deny that and believe that it can be wiped off the map.
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"I'm talking about the establishment of diplomatic relations, not peace because we never fought Israel. The lack of diplomatic ties was the main problem and we fixed it. If Saudi Arabia wants to help the Palestinians, they need to have diplomatic ties with Israel. If we want to get to know the Israelis, we need to be in contact with them.
"I always criticize the Arab media: why do they only show the Arab side? Why not the Israeli side? And why do they always highlight the Palestinians speaking out against Israel when there are many Palestinians who oppose their own government, and they're not opposed to Israel the way the media is trying to convince us? There is a need for diplomatic ties in order to recognize the reality – and not the vision we were sold for 72 years."
Eliminating prejudice is one of the biggest challenges, according to Saied. "When there is an ideology people have believed in for years, it's not easy to overcome it overnight," she says. "In education, media, conferences, we were taught that Israel is the enemy. If [Saudi Arabia] the state we are in that has the two holiest sites for Islam forges ties with Israel, the strength of the response in the whole Muslim world would be difficult to imagine. In that regard, Saudi Arabia will need time, not only because of the Saudi population.
"Qatar, the Iranian regime and Erdogan are waiting for this move, in order to turn the Muslim world against Saudi Arabia. It makes the whole deal more complex than it was for the Emirates and Bahrain. I have no idea how the Saudi government will get over that, and when. Today we are surrounded by failing countries controlled by Iran and Turkey. We need to ask who our allies are. The obvious axis that works together is Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. The only country that I can count on as an ally is Israel. Therefore, I think that forging ties between us is crucial for us and the whole region. Israel is a responsible ally. Responsibility is something lacking in the Middle East."
According to Saied, the continuation of these processes in the Middle East – for good or for bad – depends on the election results in the US, as a country that traditionally pulls the strings behind the scenes. "We saw clearly the differences between the Obama and Trump administrations. The Gulf states are not united in their stance towards what is going on in the US, especially since the crisis between us and Qatar.
"In the past the Gulf states spoke in one voice. Now, it's split on all issues. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain stand together and tend to support Trump more, while Qatar, Oman and Kuwait are not so clear. Our support for Trump is based on his determined opposition to Iran and political Islam – such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Erdogan's Turkey. Trump and his administration support this stance. The Obama administration saw the Islamists as moderates, while the Gulf states see them as terrorists. This is a complete, vast difference of opinion."
Saied says that "the radical Left controls the US Democratic party today and not the moderates, like in the past. The main goal of this Left is to fight anyone who opposes its ideology, meaning traditional America. And who would support that if not the Islamists? Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt are the traditional allies of the US Therefore, the Left in the Democratic party is against relations with them.
"We oppose the Iranian regime not because it is Shia, but because it interprets Islam in a very extreme ideological way and does not believe in the idea of a state. They do not respect governments, but only work with parties and militias. We saw this in Iraq, in Lebanon, and in Yemen. The Democrats are trying to use these political Islamists, who oppose the traditional values of the US, to fight the Republicans. It might work for them in the upcoming elections, but in the end the Islamists will turn against them."
As a Trump–supporting US citizen, Saied is concerned that a Joe Biden victory will bring a replacement of American values with new principles: "I don't want my religion to be kidnapped by radicals and hypocrites, who show a moderate face to the West and a radical one to the Middle East. I don't want these people to win, and a Biden win will be a major victory for the Islamists in the region. That is the reason they support him and the Democrats. They know he will allow them to achieve their goals.
"We also warned the Europeans against opening the borders to the Islamists and they preferred not to listen. This is the same problem with the Democratic party in the US There are Islamists on their behalf in the Congress, like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The Democrats use them to attack Trump, but they'll see what they will do to them. They will turn the US into a third world country. I hope it doesn't happen, but I'm so worried about what will happen. The Democrats will only learn their lesson after the disaster takes place. They don't think about the repercussions."
"I will vote for Trump first of all because I don't want America to change, and second because I want his policy towards the Iranian regime to remain in place," Saied says. "We don't want war, but pressure on the regime. The only American president who put real pressure on the regime in Tehran, especially economically, was Trump. The Iranian regime wants us to declare war. But we want to strangle it until it passes. Look what they do to their people, and think of what they have planned for us. This regime doesn't care about Shiites or Iranians. They use ideology to realize their personal goals of hegemony and control."
'Destructive democracy'
This year will be a decade since the beginning of the Arab Spring, which Saied calls "the Spring from Hell." According to her, the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt "with the support of the West and especially the Obama administration" made her fear for the fate of the strongest Arab country. "I opposed it," she remembers, "not because I oppose democracy, but because I know these people and I knew they would use democracy to take power. They don't believe in democracy at all. We saw that with Hamas. They were democratically elected and stayed in power forever. They don't believe in peace, only in Palestinian rights.
"We see the rotten version of elections in Iran, where you can only vote for candidates approved by the regime. They don't believe in democracy, human rights, freedom of expression. Democracy is much more than elections. I knew the situation that would be created would be chaotic, that the Islamists don't understand at all how to run a country, and don't know anything about the economy, education. They only want to control people ideologically and promote their ideas. We saw that in Iran and Erdogan's Turkey. So why should we accept something like this in the Arab world?"
The UAE may not be a democracy, but Saied brings examples of Arab states that attempted to implement democracy, and the results were devastating: "I prefer the way things are with us and object to the media attacks over lack of democracy. We saw what happened with democracy when the West tried to implement it in Iraq and other countries. Why do they want to implement it in other countries? If we had conditions like in Lebanon and Iraq could we have signed a peace deal with Israel? Of course not. The people would not come to the conclusion that peace with Israel is good for them.
"It saddens me to see people hiding in their offices and giving advice on a region they have never visited or know nothing about. Listen to us, the people who live here. Don't listen to the Palestinian or Lebanese, who have specific political agendas against us, or to a few opposition activists in Saudi Arabia or the UAE who don't represent the majority. There is a very different mentality between the Gulf people and those living in the Levant. We're completely different."
One result of the Arab Spring, as Saied sees it, was the change of view regarding Israel's place versus the Arab world: "Many understood that their problem is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that they have other problems: the mentality, the interpretation of Islam, the economy, the education. It's important, however, to understand that in the Gulf, the Arab–Israeli conflict was never our first problem. Our first enemy has always been and still is the regime in Iran. Not Israel. After the regime in Iran, it's the Muslim Brotherhood.
"The third problem was the Palestinians themselves – their lack of gratitude towards the Gulf Arabs, their attacks on us. They always fought alongside our enemies – Iran, Erdogan's party, Saddam Hussein. The burning of flags and pictures of our leaders made many of us ask: who are we supporting?
"The Palestinians brought us to a place where we believe the al–Aqsa mosque will not be in safe hands if it remains in theirs. The insulting manner in which Mahmoud Abbas reacted to the peace agreements as if the Palestinians are cultured and we are the ignorant, only interested in money showed us he holds an old grudge towards us and not only critique of the peace deal. He wants our money and knifed us in the back. That understanding plays a central role in the changing of minds in the Gulf."
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