The appalling human toll of Israel’s war in Gaza – now more than 26,000 people killed, with 60% of Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed – is compelling Gulf countries to modulate their positions toward Israel in significant ways. However, this has not undermined the logic of normalizing ties with Israel for Gulf states. Countries such as the United Arab Emirates, which, with Bahrain, agreed to normalize relations with Israel through the 2020 Abraham Accords, and Saudi Arabia, which has pursued normalization over the past two years, have taken steps to distance themselves from Israel. The Saudis, for example, have sharpened their rhetoric and in recent days made clear they will insist on a credible path to statehood for the Palestinians before normalizing relations with Israel or getting involved in the reconstruction of Gaza.
In early December 2023, the UAE, as the Arab member on the United Nations Security Council, sponsored a resolution, opposed by both Israel and the United States, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The United States eventually vetoed the measure. The UAE’s ambassador to the U.N. made clear that for the UAE, the Gaza war is “a turning point” and that any postwar roadmap without a two-state solution is “not the trajectory we signed the Abraham Accords on.” The UAE’s presidential diplomatic advisor, Anwar Gargash, spoke recently of the need to end the Israeli occupation, criticized Israel’s disproportionate response in Gaza, and reiterated UAE support for a Palestinian state.
In addition to the toughened rhetoric, moves at the U.N., and public gestures of solidarity, such as meetings with senior Palestinian officials and significant humanitarian assistance, Saudi Arabia, together with four other Arab countries, is reportedly proposing an ambitious diplomatic plan focused on postwar Gaza and Palestinian political aspirations. While still being refined, a version has been shared with the United States, reportedly to garner support. Its key element calls for a pathway to a Palestinian state in exchange for Saudi recognition of Israel. The plan also calls for Arab states to train Palestinian Authority security forces and revive the Palestinian Authority as a political force. Israel has “so far” rejected the plan, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear to the United States that he opposes any Palestinian state. In the meantime, Qatar is playing a pivotal role cooperating with the United States, Israel, and Egypt in developing a new hostage release deal. It is believed that 132 Israeli hostages, abducted October 7, 2023, remain in Gaza.
The Logic of Normalization Remains Intact
The logic of Arab states normalizing ties with Israel remains evident even amid the sharpened rhetoric and ramped up Arab diplomatic efforts the Gaza war has provoked, some of it newly collective in approach. The UAE continues to make clear its move toward Israel represents a strategic choice and will survive even major obstacles, such as the Gaza war. Saudi efforts to keep the door open for normalization, even as the kingdom ramps up diplomatic maneuver and sharpens its rhetoric, make clear the implicit bargain for Gulf countries remains appealing: normalization with Israel in exchange for better relations and more leverage with the United States, allowing them to obtain reinforced security commitments and better access to U.S. technology and defense systems. Of course, each Gulf country has had its motivations and priorities, shaping this logic of normalization to its own needs. The UAE, for example, assuming the United States was pivoting from the region and seeing in Israel a strong regional security power as a potential partner, and a country that could provide opportunities for strategic investments and trade, emphasized a somewhat different mix of elements than the Saudis have pursued. But the basic logic of normalization has remained relatively constant.
Even the expressed willingness to pursue normalization, far short of any agreement, has helped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman significantly improve relations with a reluctant administration in Washington and a skeptical, often hostile Congress. Some analysts even insist that Mohammed bin Salman has already obtained much of what he wants, in terms of improving relations with the United States, even if the war has dimmed or greatly delayed prospects for a Saudi agreement with Israel to normalize relations.
While the logic of normalization remains intact, continuing to shape diplomacy, messaging, and motivations, the Gaza war seems to have altered the outer limits of normalization: its prospects for Gulf and other Arab countries, the reemergent influence of the Palestinian issue in Gulf countries’ assessing the cost-benefit calculus for normalizing ties, and the rising price for Israel, particularly for a deal with Saudi Arabia.
Regarding prospects, the UAE and Bahrain seem to be reducing short-term expectations for normalization. The UAE has recently warned that the Gaza war has caused a regression in relations and could lead to a cold peace stunted at the level of government-to-government relations if the war drags on. The Bahrainis have in effect downgraded relations, ensuring there is no Israeli ambassador in Bahrain and no Bahraini ambassador in Israel. At least for the foreseeable future, Gulf countries that have normalized ties with Israel or are pursuing it see the outer limits – the prospects for a warm, fully engaged relationship with Israel – shrinking and the potential costs rising.
Gaza War Impacts Arab Attitudes Toward Normalization
While such developments could be short-lived, the horrific devastation and death toll in Gaza are likely to linger in the public consciousness of the Arab world, preventing any quick resumption of normalization momentum. Polling in Gulf countries and the broader region long before the war showed significantly weak levels of public support for normalizing ties with Israel. Polling since the war began shows Arab public support for normalization, including in Saudi Arabia, has fallen off a cliff. Other polling results have affirmed the reemerging “salience” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s impact on the region’s politics. This polling also charts rising support for a Palestinian resort to force in addressing the issue and dramatically falling favorability for any countries identified as having good relations with Israel, with the United States showing the steepest decline but also including Arab countries that have normalized relations with Israel. Pollsters from the Arab Barometer have suggested the United States will have trouble expanding the Abraham Accords, given the impact of the Gaza war on Arab sentiment about Israel, normalization, and the United States.
In addition to such sharply defined public opinion on the war and the prospect of relations with Israel, there have been regular protests on the streets of various Arab capitals, including in Bahrain. Gulf governments are acutely aware of these widely, forcefully held negative views about normalization with Israel and Israel’s actions in Gaza. Governments in the Gulf are sensitive to public opinion and go to great lengths to try to shape it; they generally prefer operating in contexts in which high-profile moves have some degree of public support. The January 26 ruling by the International Court of Justice ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts” within the scope of the Convention on Genocide, while demurring on the issue of a cease-fire, will likely reinforce the hardened public views referenced in the polling.
The Price for Normalization Has Gone Up
Realities on the ground in Gaza, reinforced by internal Israeli political dynamics and rhetorical flourishes of far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition, make it difficult to see how Israel plans to wrap up the Gaza operation, at least in a manner that could help short-circuit some of this hardened Gulf and broader Arab public opinion. Without a change of script to some sort of diplomatic scenario, the optics of the fatalities and destruction in Gaza will continue to loom in the region. These realities ensure that the reemerging importance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a factor shaping Gulf government decision making will continue. These Gaza-hardened realities also mean the diplomatic price Israel will pay for normalization has gone up. Where in the past the logic of normalization meant the United States was either directly or implicitly viewed as the party expected to deliver results, with Israel primarily reaping the benefits, Gaza-shaped demands from Gulf countries make clear Israel will be asked for politically costly concessions related to a Palestinian state and the end state in Gaza. While negotiations will likely downsize such demands, they will loom as long as the appalling conditions in Gaza remain the focus.
As Gulf countries assume the logic of normalization remains persuasive, even if stubborn, awful realities in Gaza constrict its potential, they will be examining U.S. diplomatic moves in the coming months with intense scrutiny, hoping they will reinforce the promising logic of normalization and not its currently shrinking horizons.
