[This article originally appeared in Orient XII.]

Political observers have voiced contrasting opinions about the peace treaty between Israel and the Arab Emirates. Some have seen it as a monumental betrayal, others as an historic breakthrough. Actually, the treaty changes nothing in the Middle East political equation, nor does it attenuate in any way the tragic disregard for the rights of the Palestinians which we have witnessed for so many years now. It is simply a strategic arrangement which has short-term advantages for the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United States but addresses none of the basic issues.

First of all, this peace treaty cannot be regarded as an historic betrayal of Arab positions. The UAE have been working for years to normalize their relations with Israel. The two countries have established high-level contacts in capitals all over the world and have made it known to the international community by organizing their own leaks: they have also sent signals to Western and Arab public opinion. In recent months, the UAE conveyed humanitarian aid to Palestine via the Ben Gurion airport, in co-ordination with Israeli authorities rather than with their Palestinian counterparts. The peace treaty is a normal, organic stage of this process. True, from a legal point of view, it is a decision which goes counter to the Arab peace initiative of 2002. But this latter had already been abandoned just as the Arab League’s sponsorship which went along with it had already been discredited.

At the same, brutal as it may seem, this agreement does not constitute a betrayal of the Palestinians. Their rights have already been sacrificed in the face of Israel’s determination to destroy any prospect of a Palestinian State by laying siege to the Gaza Strip and by gradually annexing the West Bank. The Palestinians have understood that in the Gulf, only Kuwait and Qatar are determined to reject any US sponsored “deal of the century” unless those Israeli policies are abandoned. Though the peace treaty does contain a clause theoretically putting an end to that territorial colonization. It only stops the annexation legally and formally while backing de facto the pursuance of the illegal colonization process.

Nor is the peace treaty an historic breakthrough. The Palestinian struggle has lost much of its political importance in the eyes of the Arab masses during the last three decades. And though it is still capable of sparking an emotional response and remains apolitical issue for Arab public opinion, it generates much less solidarity that it used to do.

DECLINE OF THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE

This decline has taken place in several stages. The first phase began with the Oslo peace process, which obliged the Palestinians to renounce many of their rights in exchange for the vague promise of a future state, meant to be the fruition of a peace process negotiated under the auspices of the international community. The second phase began with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. By destroying a traditional Arab power, the United States opened the way for Iranian expansion, the new disruptive element in the geopolitics of the region. In the years that followed, Iran considerably extended its strategic power in the Middle East.

Iranian military expansion climaxed in 2013 with the battle of Al-Qusayr in Syria. Before the Syrian civil war began, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both members of the Sunni axis in the region, faced off against Iran in low intensity clashes in the Gulf area. Al-Qusayr inaugurated a new era in which Iranian military forces could operate openly in Arab countries and provide support for regimes that are their allies. Not only Syria and Iraq, but also Lebanon and Yemen have become arenas of confrontation, fueled as much by sectarian hyperbole as by the principles of realpolitik.

The Sunni Arab states, which form the so-called “moderate” axis in the Middle East, regard such non-governmental actors as Hezbollah, the Houthi movement in Yemen and the militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq as auxiliaries in the Iranian war effort. In this context, the containment of Iran comes before the defense of the Palestinians.

The third event which has relegated the Palestinians to the sidelines of regional geopolitics was the Arab Spring. This foregrounded the issues of democratic emancipation and the overthrow of authoritarianism in many countries. The uprisings showed the extent to which the major ideologies of the past, pan-Arabism or its successor, Islamism, had lost much of their emotional appeal with Arab public opinion. Thus, the Palestinian cause became less visible, except in countries hosting large numbers of Palestinian refugees, like Lebanon and Jordan.

Yet while the Palestinians no longer figure high on the foreign policy agenda of most Arab states, the Arab world is certainly not about to plunge headlong into a collective normalization of relations with Israel. The big Arab countries would be likely to meet with strong public resistance. On the other hand, Bahrain, Oman and Mauritania are prepared to follow in the footsteps of the Emirates, and a modest “bandwagon” effect is not out of the question: other Arab countries could become involved in asymmetric exchanges with Israel in order not to be left out of any future settlement and to stay in the good graces of the USA. Short of complete diplomatic recognition, these steps might include the opening of liaison offices and the authorization of bilateral tourism.

For all these reasons, the peace treaty represents neither a tragic betrayal nor an historic breakthrough. From a strategic point of view, it is a calculated move meant only to offer short-term advantages to the three parties concerned.

THE UAE AND THE PRESERVATION OF A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY FRONT

From the UAE viewpoint, the treaty allows them to stand firm at a time when the Arab counter-revolution is in difficulty and imperils their reputation. Since the Arab Spring, the Emirates, along with Saudi Arabia, are at the forefront of the region’s countries which regard the propagation of democratic uprisings in the Middle East as an existential threat. The UAE are the leader of this counter-revolutionary front which advocates a Middle East of stable authoritarian regimes in which their petroleum resources guarantee them a decisive influence. According to this world view, electoral Islamism and political liberalism are two sides of the same coin; both represent radical changes which endanger the internal legitimacy of these regimes. It was the UAE that launched the counter-revolutionary battle and they cannot afford to lose it.

Recently, however, they have begun to lose ground. The Yemeni conflict has turned into a humanitarian disaster.

The over-confidence placed in certain factions to carry on their proxy war, as with General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, has not been repaid on the battlefield. As with the unwise embargo against Qatar, their diplomatic adventurism did not achieve its goals. Their investments in Egypt, aimed at making the Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi regime a model of the new Arab stability, have also failed to extricate the country from its political and economic stagnancy. In short, there is too much chaos and considering the initial investment, a rate of return much too low.

Considering all this, the peace treaty with Israel represents a calculated strategic consolidation. The leadership of the UAE hope to use Israel as a more powerful vector to help them achieve their geopolitical objectives, just as they used Saudi Arabia in the first phase of their counter-revolutionary thrust. The UAE are also protecting themselves against another threat: the shock wave that could result from an internal conflict in Saudi Arabia which would neutralise Mohamed Ben Salman. If this were to occur, the UAE leadership would find itself completely isolated.

Thus, the alliance with Israel offers the UAE some degree of protection in view of their common interests. Both countries share a deep hostility towards Iran and reject the nuclear agreement signed by former US President Obama. Both are equally disappointed by President Trump’s refusal to launch a large-scale military campaign against the Iranian forces. The lack of Trump’s military response in July 2019 after the attack on the Saudi Aramco oil facilities was seen as highly significant. And besides, Israel harbors a silent aversion to the democratization of Arab countries.

ISRAEL SAVES FACE

For Israel, the real advantage of this treaty is not economic. The Emirati leadership will make flashy investments in Israel, if only to show the Palestinians what they missed by turning down the “deal of the century”. But at the end of the day, the financial advantages for Israel will be slender. Trade with the UAE will be overshadowed by the existing exchanges with the USA and the West in general, while conversely the oil-rich UAE have no particular need of Israeli investments.

But Israel benefits from the agreement in other ways. First of all, it adds a little more legitimacy to its role in the regional order of the Middle East, even though it does run the risk of being sucked into the impulsive counter-revolutionary actions of its new peace partner.

Above all, however, Israel can go on pulling the strings in the Palestinians situation. Despite the passing mention in the treaty of a halt to the West Bank annexation process, the Netanyahu government considers this to be merely a temporary pause. The “deal of the century,” drawn up by Donald Trump’s entourage having bogged down this year, in view of the international condemnation of the annexation of the Jordan Valley, this new peace treaty provides an ideal opportunity to save face. Actually, no Israeli colony has been dismantled and no land has been returned to the Palestinians. Yet since the annexation plans have been officially suspended, the Palestinian Authority must remain operative as a political player, which preserves the fiction of a peace process in a bilateral framework.

A PUBLICITY OPERATION FOR TRUMP

A treaty like this is grist to the American mill because it is an excellent PR operation at a time when the presidential campaign is in full swing. The agreement can be passed off as a victory for the Trump administration, and the President can score some points as a successful negotiator. The fulfilment of the White House dream of hosting a peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country provides Trump with an excellent diversion to make voters forget his many governance failings in such areas as the coronavirus pandemic, race relations and other domestic issues.

The peace treaty also serves to hide the fiasco of the “deal of the century.” By claiming to have blocked the controversial annexation plans, the US will try to revive this moribund framework. At the same time, it helps Trump prop up his reputation with certain portions of his electorate. It enables the administration to recover a degree of credibility among liberal Jews who aspire to a collective peace in the Middle East while at the same time reassuring rabid Zionists that Israel’s claims to the West Bank are still on the table.

TOWARDS A “PALESTINIAN SPRING”?

In the last analysis, the real losers here are, as usual, the Palestinians. They will keep up their struggle to obtain the constituent elements of a viable state which include the right of return, a capital in East Jerusalem, and the end of Israel’s illegal occupation of their land. While the UAE, Israel and the USA may derive some short-term advantages from this treaty, the long-term future of the Palestinians is still up in the air.

Left at the periphery of the regional power play, the Palestinian struggle needs a fresh uprising. It is to be hoped that it will not take the form of yet another Intifada but rather that of a Palestinian version of the Arab Spring. This would require a rejuvenation of the Palestinian political establishment, the rise to power of a more responsible and better representative leadership, backed by united resistance on the part of Palestinian society as a whole.

This would also require that the Palestinians appeal to the whole rest of the world, not just the Middle East, because international support for a Palestinian State is still extremely high. Today the recovery of their rights by the people of Palestine is probably not linked to the two-state solution which is indeed no longer a viable option but must be sought henceforth in the framework of a single state.

CDDRL’s Program on Arab Reform and Democracy held its annual conference at Stanford University on October 11 and 12, titled “The Struggle for Political Change in the Arab World.” The conference is an outgrowth of ARD’s efforts to support new research on the dynamics of political change in the countries of the Arab world. Scholars from across different disciplines sought to understand how social, economic, and political dynamics at the national level, as well as international and regional conflict and power rivalries, impact struggles for political and social change in the region.

Overview of Panels and Speakers

Following opening remarks by FSI Senior Fellow Larry Diamond, the first panel titled “The Boundaries of Authoritarianism post-Arab Uprisings” featured CDDRL Senior Research Scholar Amr Hamzawy. His paper examined how the regime of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has employed discursive strategies to discredit calls for democratic change in the country. Sean Yom, Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University, outlined how the protest strategies of Jordanian youth have limited their effectiveness in advancing meaningful political change. University of California, Davis Scholar Samia Errazzouki discussed the failure of state-led political and economic reform in Morocco.

Chaired by Harvard University Fellow Hicham Alaoui, the second panel was titled “Popular Uprisings and Uncertain Transitions.” University of California, Santa Cruz Political Scientist Thomas Serres provided an overview of the economic disruptions that contributed to Algeria’s uprising. Lindsay Benstead, who is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Portland State University, analyzed the electoral successes of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party. Khalid Medani, Professor of Political Science at McGill University, explained how Sudanese protesters leveraged new strategies of contention to force Omar Al-Bashir out of power.

The third panel, titled “Politics, Succession and Sectarianism in the GCC States,” included Oxford University Fellow Toby Matthiesen, who discussed how Saudi Arabia and the GCC states have increasingly sought to protect their regimes by actively molding the politics of their autocratic patrons in the region, and by using new technologies to upgrade the effectiveness of their surveillance states. Georgia State University Political Scientist Michael Herb explained how the aging of the Saudi line of succession contributed to the political ascendancy of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and the decay of family rule in the country. Cal Poly Historian Farah Al-Nakib described how Kuwait’s royal family has used its sponsorship of large-scale development projects to sidestep the country’s political polarization, undermine the power of the parliament, and weaken public access to spaces of political contestation.

The fourth panel focused on “Social Strife and Proxy Conflict in the Middle East.” Chatham House Scholar Lina Khatib described Syria’s transformation during the civil war from a highly centralized security state to a transactional state in which the regime depends heavily on local powerbrokers. Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, discussed differences in how local communities in Yemen have been affected by the country’s conflict. David Patel, who serves as Associate Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, argued that Iraq’s democratic institutions have been impressively robust to a series of existential challenges, but he also highlighted a widespread feeling among the Iraqi public that its parliamentary system is failing to deliver.

Finally, the fifth panel examined the topic of “International Forces in the Arab Political Arena.” Stanford University Political Scientist Lisa Blaydes suggested that China’s efforts to involve itself in the regional economy may improve its reputation among economically-frustrated Arab citizens, but that such efforts also spell trouble for democracy and human rights in the Middle East. Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University Abbas Milani argued that Iran’s ideological commitment to exporting the Islamic Revolution has been remarkably consistent for several decades. Colin Kahl, Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI, reviewed the strategies of US administrations toward the Middle East, and posited that President Trump’s approach of pursuing maximalist objectives with minimal commitments is particularly likely to heighten instability in the region. FSI Scholar Ayca Alemdaroglu emphasized that Turkey’s neo-Ottoman foreign policy has failed to achieve its objectives in the face of mounting regional upheaval.

Common Themes of Political Change and Continuity

Several themes emerged from conference presentations. First, across the panels, scholars discussed the lessons learned by autocrats and activists alike in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and the ways in which these lessons have transformed regional politics. Hamzawy emphasized that the Sisi regime in Egypt has increasingly relied on intensive repression over cooptation to maintain stability, while at the same time refusing to grant even limited political openings as existed under Hosni Mubarak’s presidency. In part, this change appears to be rooted in the regime’s belief that relaxing the state’s authoritarian posture had contributed to the revolutionary upheaval of 2011. Likewise, Matthiesen suggested that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council States have learned to become more aggressive in strengthening their surveillance apparatus and policing popular discourse transnationally. By contrast, Serres discussed how the Algerian military and bureaucracy have responded to mass protests not by intensifying repression, but instead by attempting to coopt anti-corruption initiatives and democratic reforms to limit political and economic change. Similarly, regarding Kuwait, Al-Nakib illustrated how the restructuring of urban spaces has proved itself a subtle but successful strategy for the royal family to rehabilitate its reputation while limiting geographic focal points for popular politics.

Activists have also learned their own lessons from the aftermath of the Arab Spring. According to Yom, Jordanian activists continue to look to the leaderless revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt as a model to be emulated. As a result, they prioritize agility and horizontality in their protests, and they forgo the organization of formal political movements. This approach has succeeded in acquiring short-term concessions from the regime but has failed to generate broader structural changes. On the other hand, activists in Sudan appear to have been more successful at using lessons from the Arab Spring to push for systematic transformations of their political system. According to Medani, Sudanese protesters developed novel tactics to avoid the repression of the coercive apparatus, and they were effective at gradually forging a counterhegemonic discourse that clearly exposed the regime’s failures to the public. Following the overthrow of Omar Al-Bashir, activists in Sudan have also insisted on dismantling the political and economic might of the deep state to avoid following Egypt’s path.

Second, the conference discussion indicated widespread dissatisfaction with formal political institutions across the region. For instance, Hamzawy suggested that Sisi’s regime has been relatively successful at discrediting civilian political institutions, including the legislature and civilian-led ministries. Errazzouki highlighted widespread dissatisfaction in Morocco with existing political institutions. Likewise, Yom’s discussion of activists in Jordan emphasized their lack of interest in entering formal politics. In Kuwait, the royal court has found an opening to pursue urban development projects outside of normal institutions in part because of the public’s frustration with gridlock in the legislature. Patel speculated that frustration with the parliament and muhasasa system in Iraq may finally prompt major changes to the country’s political process.

Third, despite this disillusionment with formal politics, these political institutions have proved remarkably durable in countries across the region. For example, though current frustrations may finally prompt change in Iraq, Patel also highlighted the resilience of the parliamentary system in the face of a sectarian civil war, US troop withdrawal, the rise of ISIS, and a number of other major challenges. For both Algeria and Sudan, Serres and Medani stressed that militaries continue to exercise significant influence despite the popular uprisings. Meanwhile, for Egypt, Hamzawy noted the firm grip of the current military regime on power, and for Morocco, Errazzouki described the lack of systematic changes to the country’s ruling monarchy, even after years of popular pressure.

Fourth, this durability has not precluded a number of important shifts within existing political institutions. Regarding Syria, for instance, Khatib explained how the survival of Bashar al-Asad’s presidency has depended on moving state institutions away from a centralized security state to a transactional state reliant on local actors with a degree of independence from the regime. Herb described how the consensus-based family rule of the Saudi monarchy fell victim to deaths among the aging senior princes, which opened up opportunities for the king to appoint more officials in a manner that heightened his direct influence. Herb suggested that Mohammad Bin Salman recognized this change and knew that he would likely lose relevance upon his father’s death; as a result, he was motivated to gamble on consolidating his control while his father still held the power to issue royal decrees. In Algeria, the influence of the military and bureaucracy may remain paramount for now, but Serres also pointed out that protesters have succeeded in stripping away the civilian intermediaries who used to protect these institutions. Regarding the durability of local institutions, Yadav noted how pre-conflict and even pre-unification institutions in Yemen have continued to operate effectively in a number of local communities around the country.

Fifth, foreign interventions will continue to destabilize the region and impede prospects for democratization or post-conflict reconstructions in the coming years. Khatib noted that Russia has positioned itself as the agenda setter who can bring the Syrian state back to its feet, but also that Russia and Iran are competing to profit off the country’s reconstruction. For Yemen, Yadav argued that fragmentation at the local level has important implications for best practices in the international community’s reconstruction efforts, but that current actors are not well positioned to understand these trends. Kahl predicted that the Middle East strategy of the Trump administration would likely contribute to further destabilization of the region because of its emphasis on empowering allies to do what they want and go after Iran while the United States maintains its distance. Meanwhile, Blaydes’ presentation on China’s regional involvement, Milani’s discussion of Iran’s efforts to export the Islamic Revolution, and Matthiesen’s observations about the GCC States’ authoritarian coordination all illustrated how intervening states are reducing prospects for democratic political change.

Sixth, even as interventionist countries have contributed to the destabilization of the region, they have also confronted major obstacles themselves – and in some cases have failed outright to achieve their primary objectives. Khatib noted that Iran has faced backlash in Syria, while Abbas Milani and David Patel pointed to backlash against Iran in Iraq. Kahl emphasized that the Trump administration’s Middle East policy was unlikely to achieve its goals. Blaydes observed that China has not acquired greater salience in the Middle East despite its more active economic involvement, and individuals in many of the region’s countries – particularly those that are more developed – do not see China’s growth as a positive force. She also stressed the reputational risks China is taking in pursuing potentially unpopular investments through the Belt and Road Initiative. The GCC States are attempting to prop up strongmen in both Libya and Sudan, but this strategy has struggled in the face of local political dynamics; furthermore, the intervention in Yemen has been a disaster for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Finally, Alemdaroglu stressed that Turkey’s ambitious “neo-Ottoman” foreign policy, which reflects a desire to revive Turkish influence in areas ruled by the Ottoman Empire, has largely failed. In particular, the architect of the policy, former foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, lost his job; the country miscalculated badly in how it handled the aftermath of the Arab Spring; and Turkey’s relations with many of its neighbors have soured.

How can we make sense of the tragedy in Syria? Northwestern University political scientist Wendy Pearlman has conducted open-ended interviews with more than 300 displaced Syrians across the Middle East and Europe from 2012 to 2017. She has brought together these personal stories in the acclaimed new book, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins 2017). In a talk dated February 7, 2018, Pearlman shared a selection of voices from the book, along with her own commentary and analysis, to explain the origins and evolution of the Syrian conflict, as well as what it has been like for the ordinary people who have lived its unfolding. Co-hosted by the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the talk offered a humanistic interpretation of the current conflict in Syria and how it has transformed those who have experienced it. The video of the talk is available through the link below.

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