• Geopolitics

January 29, 2025, 10:10 AM View Comments ()

In March 2018, an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off from New Delhi bound for Tel Aviv. This not only marked the first commercial flight between the two capitals, but more importantly, it became the first service to Israel allowed to cross Saudi Arabia’s airspace. This was the outcome of deft diplomacy, and it happened two years before the Abraham Accords were signed, offering the first preview of the “new” Middle East—one anchored around connectivity, wealth, business, and technology instead of ideology, conflict, and confrontation.

Today, the news from the region is more grim than it has been for years. A broader Israel-Iran conflict has taken center stage, Gaza’s civilians are returning to decimated neighborhoods amid a tenuous Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement, and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has exacerbated regional tensions.

The recent killing, by unconfirmed perpetrators, of Zvi Kogan, a 28-year-old Israeli Moldovan rabbi and emissary for Chabad Lubavitch in Abu Dhabi, has been classified as a terrorist attack by Israel. For Israelis, the Kogan murder case challenged a view of Dubai as an oasis of stability and security for everyone, including Jews. This underscores how the Israel-Hamas war has derailed the Israeli Arab rapprochement that characterized the heady days after the Abraham Accords, when Israeli tourists flocked to Dubai as if it were a European capital.

For a country like the United Arab Emirates—which has promoted pluralism and intra-religious harmony by way of inaugurating both a synagogue and Hindu temple on its soil—protecting sociopolitical gains is critical.

But did the very idea of a “new” Middle East—glimpses of which can be seen in the skyscrapers of Dubai and the blueprints of Neom, the futuristic city envisioned by the Saudis—die on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas conducted its audacious terror strike against Israel?

For a long time, the meteoric economic rise of countries like the UAE occurred largely because of their own government’s individual policies. However, regional progress today may well demand a rethink in Arab capitals regarding the importance of resolving the Palestine question once and for all.

Many scholars, intellectuals, and politicians believe that confronting aspects of the “old” Middle East that were ignored, like the status of the Palestinian territories and the political rights of Palestinians, is now central to any cohesive forward movement for the Arab world, Israel, and Iran alike. There are also those, such as scholar Marwan Kabalan, who believe that Oct. 7 was partly, if not entirely, designed to derail the progress being made, such as a potential Saudi-Israel normalization and the success of bigger geoeconomic ideas, such as the envisioned India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) announced on the sidelines of a G-20 summit in 2023.

The latest war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, as well as its extension into Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, has also rapidly reoriented the regional policies of the Arab states. The chain reaction of events—ranging from the China-brokered detente between Riyadh and Tehran to a rapid disintegration of the Assad family’s control of Syria after more than 50 years of iron-fisted rule—have once again placed the Palestinian cause front and center. The Palestinians have often been used as a crisis of convenience for management of regional politics, including by Arab states. But this is now bound to change with Palestinian self-determination once again finding a global audience.

The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 by a cluster of Arab states led by the UAE and Israel, sought to normalize political and diplomatic relations and set out a path toward a new regional order. Prosperity, economic progress, developmental integration—in other words, money—is the mantra today.

Regional powers such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia are hedging their bets on allies and pursuing strategic autonomy. In addition to close ties with the United States, they are expanding trade and political outreach with both China and Russia. In July, the air forces of the UAE and China held their second annual joint exercise in the restive Chinese region of Xinjiang, where Beijing has committed itself to systematic and violent repression of its Uyghur Muslim population.

Satellite images that captured these exercises show that the UAE flew its predominantly Western military equipment, including French-made Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft and U.S.-made C-17 Globemaster heavy transport aircraft, deep into Chinese territories. In former U.S. President Joe Biden’s framing of international relations—of an unfolding “democracy verses autocracy” contestation—Arab monarchies have found a sweet spot to thrive in.

The Middle East’s regional disorder has a different and older rulebook to it, where long-standing Western interference in both good and bad faith—led by a wish to reshape regional politics as per the requirements of Washington, London, or Paris—has failed to create outcomes leading to sustainable progress.

The recurring issue of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state is a prime example of the old rulebook’s return.

Iran, as part of its two long-term strategies of supporting an Axis of Resistance along with maintaining a “forward defense” posture, has used the Palestinian cause for its own ends—backing both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Israel’s assassinations of top Hamas and Hezbollah officials in recent months has dealt serious blows to Iran’s regional strategy, but Iran has had some victories away from the battlefield. Its normalization with Saudi Arabia is a merger of the old with the new. For the moment, the Saudis have stepped away from the idea of normalizing ties with Israel, and in return, Saudi oil facilities—which were attacked by Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen in 2019—have been spared since.

While this does not mean the fundamentals of Saudi-Iran rivalry have been resolved, Riyadh has pushed itself toward neutrality, rather than overt confrontation, to protect its own ongoing economic, political, and ideological diversification.

Read More

Will Trump Follow Through on Gaza?

Only sustained U.S. pressure on Israel and Hamas will end the war.

Analysis

|

Aaron David Miller, Lauren Morganbesser

Israelis and Palestinians Both Lost Their Futures

As the war’s smoke clears, both societies are moving backward.

Argument

|

Steven A. Cook

Israel Isn’t Serious About the Gaza Cease-Fire. Nor Is Trump.

All indications suggest that Netanyahu plans to return to war—and Washington is unlikely to stand in his way.

Argument

|

H.A. Hellyer

Amid all these interplays, the return of U.S. President Donald Trump is the proverbial joker in the deck. While it is true that Trump’s own preference for personality over policy may see him push all parties, including Israel, for de-escalation and long-term cease-fires, he is not expected to return U.S. intervention to the era of boots on the ground or even put promotion of democracy at the forefront.

But Trump is also what is known in Persian as a bazaari, meaning one who is always looking for a good deal. The Arabs, Israelis, and Iran alike are cognizant of this trait. In part, this may be a reason why Iran could remain content as a threshold nuclear state to try and box Trump in his own self-aggrandizing narrative as a president who did not start any wars.

The end of the current Israel-Hamas war and a push for a two-state solution is once again emerging as a consensus in the region. The old wisdom of a two-state design has triumphed globally, as it remains the only workable outcome on paper—primarily because no other viable options have been presented for decades.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, an advisor and close confidant of Trump, has said that the best insurance policy against Hamas is “not an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza but a reform in the Palestinian society” and that only the Arab states can achieve that. But not many leaders within the Arab states seem eager to take up unilateral ownership of such a task, even as they reap the benefits of Israeli military action to dismantle both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Despite more than a year of war, large projects ranging from connectivity to energy security continue to be envisioned. What will be expected from the region is to take ownership of its own regional security, critical for furthering its own economic aims. For this, conflict management, rather than conflict resolution, is the way forward.

An appetite for a new Middle East order may well provide enough motivation to resolve the obstacles created by the resurgence of the old one. The developing cease-fire between Israel and Hamas marks a moment of respite from war and an opening for the Arab states to address Palestinians’ role in the region moving forward. Saudi-Iran normalization can also be a catalyst, and Arab powers, specifically after the Abraham Accords, hold enough political influence across Israel, Iran, and the Palestinian territories to drive a new era of dialogue, compromise, and resolution.