When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out on July 1 to begin annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, he was also drawn to a secure position in history.
Now, a few weeks later, Mr. Netanyahu has changed one date with history to another: an agreement to normalize with the United Arab Emirates in exchange for freezing the annexation in the near future.
The decision, announced last week with President Donald Trump, would make the United Arab Emirates the third Arab country to settle for full relations with Israel in its 72-year history. And it allowed Netanyahu to compare himself to the iconic Israeli leaders who have made peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan: Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin, respectively.
It also showed symptoms of replacement in Israelis who understand themselves in the region.
Suddenly, the Israeli media is full of photographs of Dubai’s skyscrapers and breathless hypotheses about Arab countries that may be on the list: Bahrain, Morocco, Oman and even Sudan. After years of discussions about the discreet alliance with The Arab Gulf countries, the agreement is based on Israeli aspirations for normalcy and acceptance in the Middle East, a thirst that crosses the borders of Israel’s fractured politics.
“Israel is a component of this region, and the fact that we have been away from it for 72 years on a formal basis is coming to an end. I don’t think we’ve begun to perceive the massive impact. If this does what it is intended to do, the entire region can benefit,” says Jonathan Medved, founder of OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based venture capital firm.
However, other Israelis position diplomacy in the context of other rapid and long-term national priorities, adding the opposite fight to the coronavirus and ensuring peace with the Palestinians.
Herzliya’s psychologist Tamar Sidi says that while standardized ties with the United Arab Emirates would be wonderful, she believes Netanyahu is exaggerating the dimensions of her feat. Israel has had casual ties with the United Arab Emirates for more than a decade, and Netanyahu’s annexation motion has been blocked, politically and diplomatically. He says he fears that Palestinians will be excluded from the equation.
“That’s the biggest challenge we have, so I wonder where that is in the big project,” he says.
Although the agreement does not come with direct progress in a two-state solution with the Palestinians, Israeli peace argues that the silence of Mr. Netanyahu’s annexation drive (the prime minister has insisted that he has not yet abandoned it) is nevertheless a historic situation. a blow to the Israeli right.
“Netanyahu’s dream was to make history: to return the biblical land to the other inhabitants of Israel. It was the settlers’ dream,” says Alon Liel, a peace activist and former ambassador of Israel. “He has worked hard to build politics in Israel. I had a majority in the Knesset. And, boom, all of a sudden the world stops it. This is a coup de grace for Israel’s imperialist visions.”
Liel also sees a revival in the way Israelis think about their position in the region. “For more than 15 years, Israel has fled the Middle East into the arms of Eastern European countries such as Greece, Romania, Poland, Hungary,” he says. “The Middle East would possibly be our physical district, but not our cultural and advertising district.
“Here, all of a sudden, Israel has realized that there are Arabs who are worth being friendly with and with whom to associate,” he adds ironically. “Not only arms sales, but also tourism and trade.”
Until now, Israelis traveling to the United Arab Emirates had to enter with passports from third countries. Religious Israelis like Mr. Medved would reposition their caps in baseball caps to lower their profile, even though their Emirati counterparts knew exactly where they came from here. Talks between the two countries had to take a position on the Internet; phone connections opened on Sunday.
“It’s one of the things that’s not right or left, Trump or Biden, Bibi or Gantz,” Medved said, referring to the prime minister through his nickname and his recent election rival, Benny Gantz. “Everyone says, cheer up. It’s very clever news. What’s the downside?”
In fact, a vote conducted through the Twelfth Israeli television channel found that 76.7% of Israelis prefer standardization with the United Arab Emirates to annexation; 16.5% prefer otherwise. In a June vote, the increase in Mr. Netanyahu’s annexation had become a warm government priority (4%).
The wonderful agreement with the United Arab Emirates, on the other hand, spoke much more about the Israeli consensus. This gives the Prime Minister the opportunity to replace the issue at a time when he faces open-air protests in his apartment against the pandemic-induced economic crisis and his corruption trials. The agreement also comes at a time when coalition disputes are fueling the hypothesis that Israel will once return to the election.
“It’s Netanyahu who pulls a diplomatic rabbit out of his hat that says ‘only Bibi’ can lead it,” says Jason Pearlman, a communications representative who recently rivaled Netanyahu in his Likud party.
“It’s anything that’s common. There’s even an organization of leftists who will appreciate it. He is desperately seeking his qualitative political advantage: he lost in the crown, lost in annexation, cannot pretend to be a strong opponent of Hamas; What else can you claim? Bring regional peace”.
The agreement with the United Arab Emirates would be the geopolitical alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab countries of the Middle East opposed to Iran, Syria and its Lebanese Shia ally, Hezbollah.
This can pave the way for an increase in bilateral industry, something that never materialized in Israel’s peace with Jordan or Egypt. Trade analysts point out that the United Arab Emirates has built a diversified economy that is likely to host Israel’s next-generation start-ups in sectors ranging from finance to green energy and water. Israeli tourists will be attracted by Dubai’s hotels and shops.
“Everyone talks about it. Apparently, the costs are cheap. It’s less than 3 hours of flight time and it’s luxurious,” says Tom Misgav, a Tel Aviv lawyer who has already visited an online Dubai resort page. “From what I hear, they’re just waiting for the Israelis to arrive.”
The agreement with the United Arab Emirates has blurred the same old refrain from critics and lawyers of the Prime Minister.
Nahum Barnea, a left-wing political columnist for Yediot Ahronot, wrote that the agreement is “historically significant in Israeli regional and national terms.” Array… Netanyahu deserves the highest esteem.
However, the leaders of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, some of Netanyahu’s top unwavering supporters, have alleged treason and warned that the prime minister is heading for a rupture with his ideological base. In three consecutive election campaigns since 2019, Netanyahu has made annexation a central promise.
“If the State of Israel sells its sovereignty [in the West Bank] for a piece of paper from a country that has never threatened Israel and is from Israel, it is a scam,” shouted Yossi Dagan, head of Shomron Regional Council. Settlements.
For now, the agreement calls for the Prime Minister’s strategy of normalizing relations with the countries of the region first and then targeting the Palestinians, the so-called “out-of-in” approach. But it is not known whether all of this will help strengthen Netanyahu’s political position. While some believe this resolution will bring Israelis to the political center, it has for many years moved away during the years of divisive rule.
“You save us from not resolving the Palestinian situation. We would probably be dreaming of a thousand days and nights in Dubai, but we live longer with Gaza,” said Misgav, who wondered aloud whether this historic resolution would stimulate Mr. Netanyahu’s appetite for new diplomatic initiatives.
“Perhaps this will replace your perception. Do you need to go down in history as a prime minister who was imprisoned on three counts of corruption, or as a peacemaker?”
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