Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have just signed a historic peace agreement on the lawn of the White House. Beforehand, both Persian Gulf states announced that they would normalize relations with the Jewish state within the space of a month. In light of all this fantastic news, one can't help but ask, is the decades-long Israeli-Arab conflict coming to an end? Not quite, I'm afraid. Until a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is concluded, the Israeli-Arab conflict can never truly come to an end. Nevertheless, it appears that a growing number of Arab states are getting increasingly impatient waiting for the Palestinians to finally make peace with the Jewish state, and want to take advantage of having normalized relations with Israel sooner rather than later.
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Indeed, the Arabs are beginning to rediscover their connection to the Jewish people. We are cousins, after all. We are all the descendants of Abraham's children, Isaac and Ishmael. We are also both Semitic peoples, as our languages, Hebrew and Arabic, are both part of the same language family. Our conflict has essentially been a family feud. It's time for the feud to end and for the Arab and Jewish people to become one family again. The latest developments in the relations between Israel and the Arab states are the first steps towards reunifying our family. Once Israel establishes diplomatic relations with all the Arab states, the Arab and Jewish peoples can chart a course towards the gradual integration into an economic and political alliance similar to the European Union.
I am not the first person to suggest the political and economic integration of Israel and other Arab states. In the mid-1990s, when prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians were very encouraging, in contrast to today, there were ads on Israeli news sites advocating for a confederation between Israel, a future Palestinian state, and Jordan. I believe, however, that such a confederation should stretch from Morocco all the way to the Arabian Peninsula. In other words, it should be a confederation that encompasses Israel and all Arab states.
Israel and the growing number of Arab states with which it has relations can begin forging the path towards such a confederation even now. The European Union did not start as a full-blown political and economic alliance. European integration was gradual. It took decades for what we now know as the European Union to emerge. In the same sense, Israel and the Arab states should also pursue a gradual path towards integration. The process can begin with the slow integration of our economies, which would eventually lead to Israel and the Arab states becoming one economic bloc, just like the forerunner to the EU, the European Economic Community.
After our economies are sufficiently integrated, political integration can begin. For such integration to work, however, it would be necessary for all of the participating Arab states to become democracies, and for most Arab states, democracy is still a long way off. Even the economic integration of Israel and the Arab states will be difficult as some Arab states are far more developed than others. Whereas Persian Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have advanced economies consistent with those of developed countries, most other Arab states are still developing countries. Therefore, while the more developed Arab states may commence with integration immediately, many if not most of the other Arab countries will have to be held back until they reach a more advanced stage of economic development. The European Union has had to deal with this same problem as some countries on the continent are more developed than others, and the less developed ones have been prevented from joining the bloc until fulfilling certain requirements. Even today, some experts would suggest that the EU has expanded too quickly because of the significant difference in the levels of economic development among its members.
As impressive as the EU may be, however, a confederation encompassing Israel and all the Arab states has the potential to be even more impressive, and perhaps even more powerful. Together, Israel and the Arab countries have a population well over four hundred million. This population includes many young people full of potential. We, the children of Abraham, control forty percent of the world's oil reserves. And if that isn't enough, we also have full or partial control of several of the world's strategic waterways, including the Suez Canal, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, located between Djibouti and Yemen. Hence, the recent opening of full diplomatic relations between Israel and a growing number of Arab states can be the first step towards the creation of a political and economic global superpower.
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