In 2020, the quinquennial international expo (the modern successor to the World’s Fair) will take place in Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and—over the vociferous objections of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority—Israel will take part. This news, writes Yoni Ben Menachem, is a sign that improving relations between Jerusalem and the Gulf states, long a poorly kept secret, are moving out from behind closed doors:
Israel has begun to take part openly in sports and cultural activities in Arab countries including the UAE, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain. Not to be forgotten in this context is Benjamin Netanyahu’s official visit to Oman in October last year. . . .
Last March, Anwar Karakash, the UAE’s state minister for foreign affairs, called for “an opening of the Arab world toward Israel” and said that “the relations between the Arab states and Israel must undergo a change to achieve progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.” Some in the Arab world saw this as acceptance of the Israeli position that normalization between Israel and Arab states need not depend on reaching a permanent Israeli-Palestinian settlement. . . .
Arab rulers . . . see, on the one hand, that Israel has been attacking the Iranian military entrenchment in Syria with the full backing of the United States and even a certain coordination with Russia, and, on the other, [the Palestinian president Mahmoud] Abbas’s rejectionist policy toward any compromise with Israel, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been turning the Gaza Strip into an Iranian stronghold.
The conditions for open normalization between the Gulf States and Israel are gradually ripening, and Israel should encourage any possible cooperation with them. This is an important process that can help the Palestinians understand that Israel is a fact of life and that even the Arab states . . . have come to terms with it.
Read more on JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/israel-and-the-gulf-states-on-the-way-to-normalization/