President Biden approached his Middle East trip with a strategic view. Many critics took the narrow view that he failed to secure any announced increase in oil production or to make any progress between Israelis and Palestinians. Time will tell whether his discussions will yield not just a more stable oil market but also one in which the Saudis and others are actively collaborating with us to manage a stable transition away from fossil fuels over the next two decades.
However, on the Palestinian issue, the critics missed that Biden sees the region differently. In speaking to Arab leaders of nine states in Jedda, Biden said that “we will operate in the context of the Middle East as it is today: a region more united than it has been in years … Increasingly, the world is seeing the Mideast through the lens of opening and opportunity.”
The new reality in the region — providing economic cooperation between Arabs and Israel — means Biden understood there is a new paradigm for peace-making between Israelis and Palestinians. As he told an Israeli television interviewer on the eve of the trip, “the more Israel is integrated into the region as an equal and is accepted, the more likely there is going to be a means by which they can eventually come to accommodation with the Palestinians down the road.” If in the past an Israeli-Palestinian deal was the gateway between Israel and Arab states, now Biden is saying the reverse. The message is that ties with the Arabs give Israel something to lose.
But there also is a different Arab angle to the Biden view: Arab states are no longer willing to wait for the Palestinians and forego what is in their interests. Because Sunni Arab leaders are increasingly mindful that Israel can help on critical domestic needs, ranging from water to cyber security challenges, they are seeking cooperation with Israel. What began as under-the-radar cooperation against terror and traditional security threats is now expanding to include domestic economic needs. That reality has emerged very much in the open with the Abraham Accord countries, especially in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-Israeli ties. However, with Israeli business people now doing business in Saudi Arabia, albeit on second passports, the phenomena is clearly not limited to the countries that have made formal peace with Israel.
President Biden’s trip showed how one Abraham Accord country, Morocco, could help the Palestinians now: Morocco played a key role in getting Israel to agree to keeping the Allenby Bridge crossing — one which Palestinians use to cross to and from Jordan — open on a 24/7 basis. Biden administration officials also made clear during the trip that the Negev Forum, a regional framework of four Arab states hosted by Israel, should involve the Palestinians on different economic working groups ranging from health to food security.
Arab states themselves understand they have leverage in making peace with Israel. When the Emirates approached the Trump administration in July 2020, they conveyed that they were ready for full normalization with Israel provided that Israel did not unilaterally annex West Bank territory allotted to it under the Trump peace plan. The Palestinians rejected what the Emiratis were doing, seeing Israel rewarded with normalization before occupation was ended. What the Palestinian leadership has failed to realize is that the needs of Arab states now mean they are no longer willing to wait for the Palestinians, particularly because they doubt the Palestinian leadership is capable of doing anything to help resolve the conflict.
Like the Palestinians, most critics of Israel hold it solely responsible for the conflict with the Palestinians. They absolve the Palestinians of the need to do anything except be on the receiving end of Israeli concessions. They ignore that peace-making is a two-way street, including preparing both publics for peace and acknowledging…
Read More: A path to peace from Biden’s trip — How the Arab states can help