July 1, the target date designated by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu for applying Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria, has arrived. The mostly declarative move, which derives its political feasibility from the US Middle East peace plan, doesn't have to become a stumbling block to the slow but consistent normalization process between Israel and the countries comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – with the UAE as a leader of that process.
I refer to it as a "normalization process" instead of a "peace process," because of the simple fact that there was never a war between Israel and any of the GCC states. The sole GCC country who was at war with Israel is Saudi Arabia, as Saudi troops were sent to fight against Israel in the 1948 and 1973 wars, but its participation was a symbolic one.
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Israel has reconciled with its main regional adversary, Egypt over 40 years ago. The UAE wasn't even an independent nation when the 1967 Arab League summit held in Khartoum declared its famous "Three No's: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it."
The conflict Israel has at this time is with the Palestinians. There is nothing more desirable in the eyes of most Israelis as reaching a peaceful conclusion for this century-old dispute, which erupted in full force in 1920, when the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem resorted to violence in his attempt to scare the Zionists out of their homeland.
Since then, Zionism, in the eyes of most Arabs, has become synonymous with the suffering of the Palestinians. But Zionism and Arab nationalism were not destined to collide: Just two years before violence surged, Chaim Weizmann, then a prominent Zionist leader who negotiated the Balfour Declaration with the British, reached the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement with the Emir that eventually became the ruler of Syria and later over Iraq.
This agreement was meant to forge a united front vis-à-vis the victorious colonial powers that were to determine the faith of the territories formerly controlled by the defeated Ottoman Empire in the Versailles Peace Conference.
Two weeks prior to the signing of the agreement, on Dec. 12 1918, the Emir Faisal was quoted in The Times of London as saying, "The two main branches of the Semitic family, Arabs and Jews, understand one another, and I hope that as a result of interchange of ideas at the Peace Conference, which will be guided by ideals of self-determination and nationality, each nation will make definite progress towards the realization of its aspirations.
"Arabs are not jealous of Zionist Jews, and intend to give them fair play and the Zionist Jews have assured the Nationalist Arabs of their intention to see that they too have fair play in their respective areas. Turkish intrigue in Palestine has raised jealousy between the Jewish colonists and the local peasants, but the mutual understanding of the aims of Arabs and Jews will at once clear away the last trace of this former bitterness, which, indeed, had already practically disappeared before the war by the work of the Arab Secret Revolutionary Committee, which in Syria and elsewhere laid the foundation of the Arab military successes of the past two years."
The pragmatic and western-oriented Hashemites, proud Arab Muslims with a lineage to Prophet Muhammad, have since been de-facto allies of Israel through their remaining branch of the monarchy in Jordan.
Even after uniting Jerusalem and regaining sovereignty in the Old City, Israel respected the Hashemite kingdom's special role as guardian of Islam's holy places in the city, primarily Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel took a formal obligation to do so as part of the 1994 peace treaty signed with Jordan. The blood libel alleging that Israel seeks to harm the Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount has been repeatedly debunked as a populist call to arms by fanatics with no better slogan to use.
Fast forward 50 years to 2020, and Israel has proved time and again to its Arab neighbors, regardless of any formal ties they may or may not maintain with it, that it is a trustworthy ally in combating the main threat to regional stability – Iran.
Unlike the US, Israel is part of the Middle East and therefore it cannot disengage from it even if it so desired, meaning its regional policies are reliable. In the last decade, Israel has been relentless in its efforts to contain and even roll back Iran's efforts to increase its hold on the region. Its Arab neighbors, including GCC countries, are not oblivious to this fact and have moved to establish a semi-covert security alliance with the Jewish state.
This alliance means that together, they can do a far better job of deterring Iran than separately, and in joining forces this mission does not necessarily mean direct US military involvement is needed.
Moreover, this alliance means that the region can maintain its stability and Western orientation against the interference of actors who try to gain regional hegemony, like Iran and Turkey. This alliance is a huge step forward from the days of Khartoum, but there could be other dividends to it on top of improved regional security, by expanding it into the civilian realm as well.
Must the effort to normalize relations between the UAE and Israel be held hostage by the prospect of a full resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Wouldn't the UAE gain more leverage over Israel's foreign policy if it were to normalized relations with it? I would like to think it most definitely would because there is nothing that Israelis crave more than acceptance as equals by their Arab neighbors.
It is not too late. The UAE can announce that it will immediately normalize all aspects of civilian life vis-à-vis Israel, expecting Israel to uphold all of the articles of the Trump peace plan – including a four-year moratorium on settlement expansion, and the transfer of lands in the western Negev in favor of a future Palestinian state.
If in four years the UAE decides that Israel has not lived up to its commitments under the US peace plan, it can roll-back its normalization moves. This way, it will have considerable leverage on the outcome of the plan, both with the Palestinians and the Israelis.
In the meantime, the UAE and Israel stand to benefit greatly from cooperating in the fields of science, technology, medicine, trade, and tourism. It's an elegant, bold move that the leaders of the UAE can take tomorrow morning, and tectonically change the Middle East for the better.
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