The Gulf States and Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Resolution
Table of Contents
Author(s)
To access the full paper, download the PDF on the left-hand sidebar.
This paper examines the potential role that the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—might play in conflict resolution between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Formally, there is little to no state-to-state contact between the GCC states and Israel, while geographically, the Gulf states are not, and have never been, “frontline states” in the Arab-Israeli dispute. Nevertheless, this paper documents a range of mechanisms that can, and in fact already do, constitute a practical basis for involving the Gulf states in regional mediation and conflict resolution initiatives. These range from the projection both of direct and indirect influence over the various Palestinian factions to quiet cooperation on technocratic and “non-political” issues such as energy and water, while the Saudi-proposed Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 remains the most comprehensive and credible plan to bring about a durable settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moreover, in the 12 years since the plan was unveiled, a realignment of regional geopolitics has created a convergence of interest between most GCC states and Israel over issues such as the Muslim Brotherhood, violent extremist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), Iran, and Arab Spring challenges to the status quo. GCC states’ responses to the political upheaval combined a more expansive capability with greater policy intent and positioned them at the heart of regional policymaking as the Middle East and North Africa emerge unsteadily from the Arab Spring.
There are four parts to this paper. Part I provides historical context to the political, economic, and social connections that have bound the Gulf states to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These encompass far more than critical policy decisions at key junctures such as the Arab oil embargo following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Throughout most of their formative decades of development as nascent sovereign states, the Gulf monarchies tapped the human capital of the Palestinian diaspora, particularly in the fields of education and health. In its heyday in the 1950s and early 1960s, Gulf politics not only were inflected heavily by Arab nationalism but also influenced actively the emergence and growth of Palestinian political organizations. A dynamic process of mutual interaction lasted until the rupture in Palestinian-GCC relations in 1990 following Yasser Arafat’s support for Saddam Hussein after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Gulf War fractured the Gulf relationship with the Palestinian territories, which took years to repair. During this period, low-level ties with Israel began to develop as individual Gulf states engaged tentatively in creating political and commercial links after the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
Part II analyzes the technocratic cooperation in energy and water that has constituted both the most practical and the most viable mechanisms of Gulf-Israeli interaction, given the common interest in attaining resource security in a highly water-stressed environment. Sporadic and issue-specific “under-the-radar” cooperation has in fact occurred for decades, beginning with the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (“Tapline”) in the 1960s and 1970s. More recently, the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC) in Oman—the only surviving organization set up as a result of the 1993 Oslo Accords—has become a model of cooperation in shared research and capacity-building. Furthermore, the experience of the MEDRC illustrates how such technocratic institutions can advance multitrack diplomacy between Arab states and Israel by providing opportunities for professional interaction between states that do not otherwise have formal diplomatic relations. This notwithstanding, the section ends by analyzing how the attempts to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East demonstrate the vulnerability of technocratic issues to rapid politicization and becoming themselves the source of contestation.
In Part III, the focus shifts to the GCC states’ post-2002 stance toward Arab-Israeli negotiations and Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. The section begins with an overview of the comprehensive Arab Peace Initiative put forward that year at the Beirut Summit of the Arab League by Saudi Arabia’s then-Crown Prince Abdullah. In addition to contributing to the international rehabilitation of Saudi Arabia following the events of September 11, 2001, the Arab Peace Initiative represented a significant breakthrough in the Arab position on Israel. Putting his personal imprint on the proposal, Crown Prince Abdullah not only committed Saudi Arabia to achieving a lasting settlement based on the “land for peace” formula but also formally accepted Israel’s existence within its 1967 territorial boundaries. Israel rebuffed the initiative, but the section continues by examining the growth of discrete Israeli trade relations with Qatar and Oman and unofficial commercial ties with the UAE. The section ends with the fallout from Israel’s December 2008–January 2009 offensive in Gaza, and the early signs of the divisions between Qatar and its GCC neighbors over Hamas that foreshadowed larger splits in policy toward the Muslim Brotherhood during the Arab Spring.
Part IV of this paper examines how the changing regional geopolitics of the Middle East have created new opportunities for the Gulf states to engage in Arab-Israeli conflict resolution after the Arab Spring. Gulf states’ responses to the Israel-Gaza war that erupted in June–July 2014 illustrated the shift in GCC states’ positions toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and must be viewed against the backdrop of the Arab Spring and the projection of assertive regional policies that combined growing capabilities with more expansive policy intent. Broader issues influenced policy on Israel and the Palestinian territories rather than the other way around, demonstrating how the Middle East peace process no longer was central to regional policymaking. The section formulates a set of policy recommendations on how the Gulf states can engage with regional and international partners and build upon the greater space for action as the shifting parameters of Middle East politics create new regional pathways for action and cooperation. As regional powers with a wide array of political and economic leverage, the Gulf states can play a significant role that goes beyond the provision of humanitarian assistance in conflict-afflicted environments to encompass a range of innovative conflict resolution tools as well.
This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.