Arabs-Israelis closer to peace under Trump’s aegis?

Let us walk through the streets of the Arab world -from glitzy downtown Dubai to the slums of Cairo- to conduct an insightful, albeit theoretical, poll. The results might be astonishing. If the drill question is: “who is the traditional enemy of the Arab world?”, a loose term meaning the majority Sunni States, the predictable reply would be: Israel. But if the question is: “who would you consider an immediate threat to your country?”. The unequivocal answer would be: Iran, not Israel.

The commentary of armchair Middle East experts would be as patterned as the answer to our first question in the ‘virtual’ poll. Pundits would posit that such animosity towards Iran is due to the Sunni-Shia’s rivalry that ensnarls the Middle East. Others would trace such enmity back to the Persian-Arabian clash of civilizations. While such arguments have merits, they fail to grasp the gravity of the second answer to our ‘virtual’ poll. The fact that Iran has wrestled the top spot for Arab hostility from Israel, a spot held firmly since 1948.

Let us analyze this for a moment.

For decades, the Sunni-Shia’s divide did not prevent the Arab world from cooperating with Iran. Saudi Arabia established diplomatic relations with Iran in 1929. Late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and the Shah closely collaborated on the establishment of multinational Islamic institutions, including the Organization of the Islamic World Congress, the Muslim World League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. On another level, whilst Arabs and Persians have clashed since the Sassanian Empire (224-651), they equally have interacted and cooperated for centuries. Reading the same Iranian poetry of Khayyam and the philosophy of Al Farabi and Al Ghazali, and relying on the most prominent grammarian of Arabic, the Persian-born Sibawayh (an ancient Noah Webster) to conserve the purity of their words. Persian converts to Islam naturally turned to the script of the Koran and finally, Pahlavi alphabet has been abandoned in favor of the Arabic.

Undisputedly, the Middle East has been the ‘bête noire’ of international diplomacy starting from the second-half of the 20th century. The region’s complexities have dogged experts from the UN Security Council to the US Council on Foreign Relations, and every foreign Chancellery in between. In their midst, regional conflicts have generated numerable preconceived ideas that have the ring of dogma. One such canon is deeply-rooted sectarianism that plagues the region’s different ethnic components. “They hate each other’s and they have done so for thousands of years”, is some sort of conventional wisdom not an informed analysis. But hatred between religious or ethnically diverse groups is a sad reality hardly confined to Sunnis and Shia’s, or to Persians and Arabs for that matter. It is a recurring theme from the high plateaus of Kashmir, to the Venus island of Cyprus, and from the street alleys of Northern Ireland to the neighborhoods of Marseilles, Birmingham, and Beirut. Undoubtedly, religious antagonism causes severe frictions between varied groups living side by side, but it cannot warrant an all-out war between nations. Surely, more is at stake.

What is really at stake?

The Arabs’ legitimate fear of today’s Iran –more than Israel- is premised on a myriad of reasons unswervingly related to the latter’s expansionist plans, not to its Shia branch of Islam.

The Nuclear Threat. Since the mid-1960s Israel has had a nuclear device with which it did not menace its Arab neighbors, even at the apex of Arab-Israeli wars. Conversely, Iran has frequently threatened to ‘wipe-out Israel’ and flaunted its nuclear capability to bully Arab neighbors into submission. Iran has a uranium stockpile to create eight to ten nuclear bombs. According to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) signed on July 14, 2015, Iran must reduce its uranium stockpile below the enrichment level needed to create a bomb. Awaiting Iran to comply with the JCPA,

Let us walk through the streets of the Arab world -from glitzy downtown Dubai to the slums of Cairo- to conduct an insightful, albeit theoretical, poll. The results might be astonishing. If the drill question is: “who is the traditional enemy of the Arab world?”, a loose term meaning the majority Sunni States, the predictable reply would be: Israel. But if the question is: “who would you consider an immediate threat to your country?”. The unequivocal answer would be: Iran, not Israel.

The commentary of armchair Middle East experts would be as patterned as the answer to our first question in the ‘virtual’ poll. Pundits would posit that such animosity towards Iran is due to the Sunni-Shia’s rivalry that ensnarls the Middle East. Others would trace such enmity back to the Persian-Arabian clash of civilizations. While such arguments have merits, they fail to grasp the gravity of the second answer to our ‘virtual’ poll. The fact that Iran has wrestled the top spot for Arab hostility from Israel, a spot held firmly since 1948.

Let us analyze this for a moment.

For decades, the Sunni-Shia’s divide did not prevent the Arab world from cooperating with Iran. Saudi Arabia established diplomatic relations with Iran in 1929. Late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and the Shah closely collaborated on the establishment of multinational Islamic institutions, including the Organization of the Islamic World Congress, the Muslim World League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. On another level, whilst Arabs and Persians have clashed since the Sassanian Empire (224-651), they equally have interacted and cooperated for centuries. Reading the same Iranian poetry of Khayyam and the philosophy of Al Farabi and Al Ghazali, and relying on the most prominent grammarian of Arabic, the Persian-born Sibawayh (an ancient Noah Webster) to conserve the purity of their words. Persian converts to Islam naturally turned to the script of the Koran and finally, Pahlavi alphabet has been abandoned in favor of the Arabic.

Undisputedly, the Middle East has been the ‘bête noire’ of international diplomacy starting from the second-half of the 20th century. The region’s complexities have dogged experts from the UN Security Council to the US Council on Foreign Relations, and every foreign Chancellery in between. In their midst, regional conflicts have generated numerable preconceived ideas that have the ring of dogma. One such canon is deeply-rooted sectarianism that plagues the region’s different ethnic components. “They hate each other’s and they have done so for thousands of years”, is some sort of conventional wisdom not an informed analysis. But hatred between religious or ethnically diverse groups is a sad reality hardly confined to Sunnis and Shia’s, or to Persians and Arabs for that matter. It is a recurring theme from the high plateaus of Kashmir, to the Venus island of Cyprus, and from the street alleys of Northern Ireland to the neighborhoods of Marseilles, Birmingham, and Beirut. Undoubtedly, religious antagonism causes severe frictions between varied groups living side by side, but it cannot warrant an all-out war between nations. Surely, more is at stake.

What is really at stake?

The Arabs’ legitimate fear of today’s Iran –more than Israel- is premised on a myriad of reasons unswervingly related to the latter’s expansionist plans, not to its Shia branch of Islam.

The Nuclear Threat. Since the mid-1960s Israel has had a nuclear device with which it did not menace its Arab neighbors, even at the apex of Arab-Israeli wars. Conversely, Iran has frequently threatened to ‘wipe-out Israel’ and flaunted its nuclear capability to bully Arab neighbors into submission. Iran has a uranium stockpile to create eight to ten nuclear bombs. According to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) signed on July 14, 2015, Iran must reduce its uranium stockpile below the enrichment level needed to create a bomb. Awaiting Iran to comply with the JCPA, Arab nations understandably hold Iran’s nuclear threat to be real, close and personal.

Interference in Internal Affairs. Iran has exploited pockets of dissatisfied Shia communities in Arab countries and turned some of them into ‘agents provocateurs’ working to destabilize legitimate governments from Manama to Mecca. Conversely, there is little evidence of Arab states manipulating Iran’s Sunni minority (circa 9% of the population) for subversive ends. More recently, Iran has overtly used Shia’s of Arab and non-Arab origins, such as Hazaras from Afghanistan, as cannon fodder in its proxy wars in Syria and Yemen. By doing so, Iran has reignited internecine conflicts within Arab society, further cementing a feeling of distrust that was already prevailing between divergent communities.

Hijacking of the Palestinian Cause. The dealings between Israel and Iran during the Iran-Iraq war are well documented. Israeli support for Iran consisted of several elements including, arms sales to Iran that totaled an estimated $500 million from 1981 to 1983. Conversely, when dealing with the Arab world, Iran has continuously marginalized the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, armed and aided the terrorist activities of Hamas, and snatched the Palestinian cause from the grips of the Arab League. All to become the main interlocutor of world powers, a proof of its forcible role in regional affairs.

The Risk Posed to Oil Routes. Millions of barrels of oil pass through the Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz every day to Europe, the US and Asia, along the coasts of Yemen and Iran, respectively. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have regularly threatened to close or exercise control over the Strait of Hormuz, as they have repeatedly harassed US ships –the last incident occurring on September 2016- and detained US sailors. Such risks can and do raise tensions in the global energy markets and leave the Arab oil exporting nations vulnerable to such an imminent danger.

Where do we stand today?

At present, Arab nations, save for Egypt and Jordan, are officially in a state of war with Israel. Arab nationalism and the commitment to the Palestinians’ cause have not waned, albeit dissipating in the fog of regional wars. Israel’s current government is backtracking from the Two-States solution as it embarks on building a new wave of illegal settlements in the West Bank. All told, an uneasy status quo looms over the region.

Facts on the ground tell another story. They imply that Arabs and Israelis are practically facing a common threat: present-day Iran. Would such danger bring old foes together? Would it be conceivable that a newly elect US President with little legacy in dealing with either side, but with well-recognized negotiating skills, bring them closer to a comprehensive peace settlement? It is not too far-fetched. Napoleon’s France brought Prussia and England to coalesce on the plain of Waterloo leading to the emperor’s defeat and the signature of the Treaty of Paris. Nazi Germany’s naked aggression brought the US and the USSR to combat side by side in the fields and trenches of Europe, producing a stable ‘bipolar’ world and the rebuilding of Germany thanks to the American Marshall Plan.

Could this be such a rare historical moment in the Middle East? It surely is a possibility worth entertaining. I recall on this occasion, a saying by an atheist friend who lives in the region but hides well his lack of beliefs: “only in Middle East politics do miracles happen”.