Despite the expectations of a unified stance coming out of the Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on November 11, regarding the position of Arab-Islamic countries in the context of Israel’s war against Hamas, there were some disagreements between the countries.
To start with, some major Arab actors prevented certain votes from passing against Israel, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain; alongside these four major Arab powers, Sudan, Morocco, Mauritania, and Djibouti voted against the disruption of oil supplies and against cutting their diplomatic and economic relation with Israel.
This disagreement, alongside other historical and political experience, indicates that the once unifying factor among the Arab world – to be against Israel – is no longer true for major Arab allies from the Gulf Countries Council (GCC) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Despite past ideological convictions of standing firmly with the “Palestinian cause,” today they are concerned about the economic and diplomatic risks of harming the relations with the Jewish state.
By this action at the Riyadh summit, the historical incidents, and the enthusiasm of Arab countries to maintain the Abraham Accords and the normalization process, it is clear they have grasped that the current war can no longer be viewed in the context of the “Arab-Israeli” conflict. This is a war between Israel and Hamas, along with its Iranian backers.
A war with Hamas
First and foremost, following the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Arab world understood that they did not have the military capability to confront Israel in the region, even if they had sophisticated armor or weapons. The created concept of the “Arab-Israeli” conflict in which Arab actors like Syria, Egypt, and Jordan were the leading states supporting the “Palestinian cause,” existed until recently. However, the reality on the ground changed the calculation, so that Aran countries grasped that they did not have the ability to confront Israel, as it grew stronger. Consequently, negotiation was the best way to secure interests – rather than military confrontation.
Overwhelmed and exhausted, Arabs did not even participate in the 1982 war, when Israel kicked off its operation for the elimination of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the South of Lebanon. Since then, all of the conflicts between Israel and other non-state actors in the region have not been identified as Arab-Israeli tension; and Arab powers no longer condemned Israel with a unified voice, and sought to normalize their relationship with Israel in various regional and international peace plans.
SECOND, MANY Arab policymakers consider “the resistance” to be troublemakers, both those in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, for the following historical reasons. First, Palestinian Salafi scholar Abdullah Azam was the founder of Maktab E Khadamt in Pakistan to pursue Jihad in Afghanistan. Consequently, Abdullah Azam from the West Bank shaped an alliance with Osama Ben Laden and then formed the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda. At the beginning of “resistance movements” among the Palestinians, Azam was first and foremost the ideologue and spiritual father of Hamas as a pan-Islamic transnational movement for “resistance” athwart of the PLO, which has been discerned as a soviet-Marxist movement.
In September 1970, the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA), in coordination with the Popular Front for the Liberation Palestinian (PFLP) and the tactical support of Palestinian fedayeen guerrilla, wanted to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan. After causing chaos in Jordan, “the resistance” forces were expelled from that country, but ultimately, in 1971, the Black September organization succeeded in assassinating Jordan’s then-prime minister Wasif Tal. Lastly, the PLO and its leader, Yasser Arafat, displayed their alignment with Saddam Hussain’s decision to invade Kuwait in 1990. This led the Kuwaiti monarchy to exile 357,000 Palestinians from Kuwait.
As a result of many historical events, Arab countries understood how “the resistance” could jeopardize their regional interests. For instance, Saudi Arabia’s new doctrine considers Hamas a troublemaker. Now Saudi Arabia questions to what extent Hamas, as an Iranian proxy – similar to the Houthis in Yemen – can pose direct and indirect threats to Saudi interests in Haifa harbor due to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), inaugurated in September 2023 in India.
Furthermore, based on the lessons learned, Egypt has emphasized multiple times that it cannot accept Palestinian refugees from the Rafah crossing on its border with Gaza and has even built a wall across the border to avoid any attempt at a coup to overthrow President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
THE ABRAHAM Accords treaty implies that the current conflict is not Arab-Israeli. Despite Iranian intellectuals repeatedly claiming that the October 7 attack on Israel, named Al-Aqsa Flood, put an end to the Abraham Accords and the process of rapprochement between Arab countries and Israel, those countries are still eager to remain in the Abraham Accords – or to continue the rapprochement process with Israel.
For example, the UAE still wants to maintain its political and diplomatic relations with Israel. Also, there are many reasons on Saudi Arabia’s side for pursuing the normalization agreement with Israel. From Saudi Arabia’s perspective, the current war will not sabotage the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement, and Riyadh has been seeking this opportunity more than any Arab country.
Lastly, reading between the lines, the opinions of Arab intellectuals lead to the conclusion that they are most concerned with Israel securing a victory over Hamas in this war. Lebanese author Hazem Saghieh considers that were Hamas to win the war, their tyranny and their evil governing would exacerbate violence in the Gaza Strip.
Additionally, other troublemakers and non-state actors in the Arab world would be inspired by them and begin a new trend of insurgency and posing threats to Arab countries. Ultimately, a Hamas win would enable it to spread its tactics and morals to other groups with the aim of shake the stability of those Arab states whose aim is peace at home and abroad.
Eliminating Hamas
The elimination of Hamas by Israel would be a valuable gift not only for the Gaza Strip but for all Arab actors who want to get rid of instability, terrorism, and insurgency.
The refusal of four major Arab countries during the summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to vote against supplying oil to Israel and for cutting their diplomatic and economic relations with the Jewish State demonstrates that none of the Arab actors (except Qatar) want a weakened Israel.
Based on the lessons of history, their own experiences and others, and more importantly, the bitter taste left after giving “the resistance” sanctuary, has led Arab states to the conclusion that Arabs should not stand against Israel – they should rather maintain their diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.
Finally, based on the same historical lessons and the eagerness of Arab actors for rapprochement with Israel, the current conflict is not being defined as an Arab-Israeli conflict. It is based on the terror and fears resulting from the Hamas’s deeds on October 7, and thus the war is clearly Israel against terrorism.
The writer is an expert on Middle Eastern affairs based in Canada, who focuses on the Abraham Accords and Canadian foreign policy.