_{(Above: Palestinians demonstrate in Ramallah against the UAE's 'normalisation' with Israel. Picture © Anadolu Agency, 2020)}

In making its Normalisation deal with Israel the UAE had strategic calculations in mind as well as a professed desire to move beyond sectarian state-identification and motivations and to break the logjam in addressing the ‘plight of the Palestinians’ [i]. The Emiratis share with their principal Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, a determination to face down Turkey's perceived hegemonic ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The Emiratis also see this Turkish ambition as outlasting the Erdogan presidency, and judge Turkey a more serious threat to their interests than Iran, a country with whom they have sought to improve relations. So it is odd, if not a serious political miscalculation, that the extent of the warmth of the Emiratis’ peace deal with Israel should include an undeclared but fully practised normalisation with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. This though is at one with an official Emirati discourse on the historic conflict that has reduced it to an Israeli-Palestinian argument and in the process sought to denude Jerusalem of its centrality in the political claims of Arabs and Muslims more widely. The UAE’s Normalisation Deal with Israel is already proving to be to the detriment of not just the already limited popular credibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA) but to Jordan’s internationally-recognised Islamic leadership role in the Holy City and therefore to the direct advantage of Turkey’s aspiration to politically lead the Sunni Muslim world. (Outside of its already loyal circles Iran's ideological advantages from this perceptible 'Arab' abandonment of Jerusalem are rather more nugatory). Speculation that the UAE’s motive may be a serious intent to have its own Islamic role in Jerusalem is though probably groundless. More to the point is that the UAE lacks any practical conception that its actions and approach to Jerusalem - in Islamic as well as in business terms – are an unnecessary sop to Israel even allowing for the signing of a bilateral peace agreement, and a gift to the Emiratis’ primary regional enemy.

Palestinian-Emirati enmity

Unsurprisingly therefore the vicious war of words between Palestinians and Emiratis in light of the UAE’s Normalisation deal continues unabated. Both Hamas and the official Palestinian Authority (PA) are hostile to what they perceive to be Emirati ambitions inside Israeli-controlled territory. In mid-November Hamas’ official spokesman focused on perceived Emirati business interests with Israeli companies in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. PA politicians have actually gone further, including PM Mohammed Shtayyeh, who in late October accused a UAE agricultural delegation that included the deputy head of a state-linked company, and that met with the Israeli agriculture minister, of acting like Israeli settlers by visiting Al-Aqsa mosque via an ‘Israeli gate’ and under an Israeli security guard. (In mid-October Al-Ain Media, a UAE semi-official news outlet, put up images on Twitter of another Emirati group, presumably also intent on visiting Israelis to discuss business, praying at Al-Aqsa a few days before the Emirati agricultural delegation’s visit).

A former PA Minister for Jerusalem, Khaled Abu Arafa, reportedly reacted to these visits by specifically accusing the UAE of having ambitions over Al-Aqsa mosque itself, implying that he believes that the Emirates wishes to supplant Jordan’s internationally (and Palestinian) - recognised role as protector of all of Jerusalem’s Islamic sites (although presumably not Jordan’s assumed role as custodian of the Christian sites too [ii]). According to the same report, the next day Abu Arafa was arrested by the Israeli authorities. An Emirati assault on the legitimacy of both the PA and of Hamas was launched in mid-November by a member of the UAE’s Federal National Council (FNC), an elected but wholly consultative body chosen by limited franchise from among state-approved candidates. Indicative of the hurt and insult felt by the Emirati authorities over Palestinian accusations of ‘betrayal’ for their Normalisation deal with Israel, FNC member Dirar Al-Falasi said that the official Palestinian leadership was corrupt and that Hamas’ ‘terrorist’ attacks on Israel were an extension of the Turkish/Qatari Muslim Brotherhood axis in the region. 

The fact that Emirati delegations visited Haram Al-Shareef (the compound containing Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock and which physically abuts the remains of the Second Jewish Temple) so soon after the UAE had formally signed its Normalisation deal with Israel is not surprising. That they could only do so under an Israeli armed guard is again not that odd given that two months prior to the Emirati visits the head of the Awqaf, the Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein had said that any Emiratis entering Al-Aqsa under the guise of Normalisation with Israel would contravene his fatwa on such visits. The UAE Government, whose blessing would have been required for the delegation to have undertaken the visit to Al-Aqsa, may have simply regarded the semi-official delegation as actualising what was written into the August 13 2020 Normalisation ‘joint agreement’ that prefigured their bilateral peace deal ('Abraham Accord') with Israel. Co-signed with Israel and the US, the August ‘joint agreement’ expressed the principle outlined in Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ (DOTC) that Al-Aqsa mosque will be open to peaceable Muslims (only) to worship at. The UAE may regard this as one of its signal achievements in signing the Normalisation agreement with Israel: that along with supposedly ensuring the suspension of Israeli annexation of a large portion of the West Bank, free access of Muslims to the third holiest shrine in Islam was underscored by Israel, the US and the UAE. This seemingly made any future Israeli closing off of access to Al-Aqsa for Palestinian Muslims, or any other peaceable Muslim worshippers, contrary to an official agreement.

The problem is that this Emirati-Israeli-US attempt at in effect internationalising access rights at Al-Aqsa self-evidently paid zero regard to the authority and preferences of the local Islamic authorities in the form of the Awqaf that operates in Jerusalem under the leadership of the Mufti. That this Islamic authority is ultimately a representation of both local Palestinian leadership at the Muslim sites and Jordan’s custodianship of them doesn’t seem to figure in Emirati concerns. Jordan’s custodianship is in part expressed by its determining role in the appointment of the Palestinian Mufti and the Council for Waqf & Islamic Affairs (the Palestinian notables who form the Awqaf’s decision-making body on Islamic affairs in Jerusalem).

This has caused some fairly far-fetched speculation that the UAE is therefore making a push to have a role in the custodianship of Jerusalem’s Islamic sites, following strong indications that Saudi Arabia had been interested in at least encouraging Jordan to think that the Al-Saud, with Israel’s encouragement, might be interested in such a role [iii]. An anti-Awqaf Tweeted rant at the time of the Al-Aqsa visit, expressed by a known attention-seeking Saudi lawyer, Abdulrahman Al-Lahem, whose provocative messaging on a range of issues must have discreet official Saudi encouragement, encouraged, for some, the idea that the Emiratis are challenging the existing Islamic authorities in Jerusalem. Al-Lahem reacted to the hostility that the Emirati visitors received by saying that UAE, Bahrain and Israel should ‘discuss’ how to ‘liberate’ Al-Aqsa from Palestinian ‘thugs’. It’s probably unlikely that having only been in existence for half a century, a UAE that, for western audiences, purports to be a ‘secular’ state, that is emphasising to foreign white-collar workers and the incoming Biden Administration its domestic legal moves away from shariah norms (or at least their salafi, Arabian variant) on personal conduct, and that also expresses public contempt for all things politically Islamist, is making a very serious pitch to supplant the Hashemites, the former rulers of Mecca and Medina, on Haram Al-Shareef. However, Turkey is also making its presence felt in Jerusalem, including literally on the Haram Al-Shareef, but without overtly asserting its own custodian credentials [iv]. Therefore the UAE probably wants to do what it can to compete with Turkey, and in the process is prepared to disregard the consequences for both the Palestinians and Jordan, and therefore, paradoxically, advantages Turkey!

The political symbolism of the Emirati visits to Al-Aqsa under an Israeli guard was at one with the Trump Administration’s judgment that Israel is both a good, and the only acceptable, political custodian of Jerusalem. Legally speaking, however, Israel (and the US) recognise the authority of Jordan as a ‘custodian’ of Al-Aqsa and the rest of the Islamic holy sites of Jerusalem. According to the analysis of PASSIA, a Palestinian think-tank headed by a member of the Council for Waqf & Islamic Affairs, Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, this makes the Hashemites the ‘sole official responsible religious authority’ at Al-Aqsa/Haram Al Shareef [v], a view more or less officially underwritten by the PLO itself [vi].

In practise, despite a historic acknowledgement of the ‘status quo’ as applied in terms of authority over Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian sites before June 1967, Israel regularly disregards the preferences of the Awqaf, and by doing so has weakened the religious authority of Jordan in Jerusalem. (It is to Jordan’s Ministry of Awqaf Affairs that Jerusalem’s Council of Waqf & Islamic Affairs directly reports). Now it seems as if the UAE is likewise disregarding the Jerusalem Awqaf and therefore Jordanian authority over it. Not that the Emirati relationship with Jordan is in as parlous a state as that of the UAE-Palestinian relationship. In fact the tripartite summit held in Abu Dhabi in mid-November that brought together the Bahraini king, Hamed, the de facto UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayyed, and King Abdullah of Jordan seemed designed in part at least to try to cool down Jordanian mistrust over the consequence of the Normalisation deals for the future of Jerusalem. (Not that this could be gleamed from the public summary of their meeting that carried the usual vacuous expression of a shared rhetorical commitment to the two states solution). However that the UAE’s deal with Israel brought necessarily officially-blessed Emirati delegations to Al-Aqsa against the wishes of the PA, the Jordanian-overseen Jerusalem Islamic authorities, and of Palestinian worshippers, with not just the enthusiastic approval but the (necessary) police protection of Israel, means that the UAE has normalised with Israel’s self-declared (and US-backed) sovereignty over all of Jerusalem including, in effect, over Israeli and Palestinian-recognised Jordanian religious authority there.

The ‘Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate’ barely mentions Jerusalem

Intriguingly, at this year’s Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate (ADSD), organised by the Emirates Policy Center (EPC) in virtual form in mid-November, Jerusalem was hardly mentioned. In the session discussing the implications of Normalisation for Turkey and Iran, the name of this much-contested and, in terms of a pivotal UNSC resolution at least, internationally protected city – the holiest place in Christianity, the third holiest location in Islam and the historic centre of Jewish identification – was not mentioned once.

Ömer Taşpınar did though speak at length about Erdogan’s ideational and populist Islamic gains from the deals, noting that a leader who’s deeply immersed in his and his country’s ‘victim complex’ that, thanks to Turkey’s contemporary rejection by ‘Europe’, he’s helped resurrect among ordinary Turks, has benefitted from Normalisation. Taşpınar presented this in terms of a country with a failing economy seeking domestic and international credibility in a context where it appeared that the Arabs were no longer prepared to lead the ‘defence’ of the Palestinian people. A president with an aspiration to lead the Sunni ‘Ummah’, to wrest Islamic legitimacy from Saudi Arabia as others would present it, was presented with a ‘gift’ from a Palestinian president who had called Normalisation a ‘betrayal’, said the ex-IDF general and current INSS head, Amos Yadlin. The deep popular Turkish attachment to the Palestine Question will outlast Erdogan, Taşpınar said. Yadlin argued that if the incumbent Turkish president doesn’t try and do an improved version of Trump-style manipulations to stay in office, then political Islam will still influence any successor leadership following next year’s Turkish elections. Al Badr Al Shateri, an Emirati strategic analyst (and former professor at the Abu Dhabi-based National Defense College) concurred re the residual Islamism that would in his analysis for example affect a mooted Ahmet Davutoğlu presidency. Kemalism is dead, Al Shateri asserted. With the military disempowered politically – they had been the ones who had made the formerly close Turkish-Israel relationship happen, Yadlin noted – then an Islamic context will outlive Erdogan and the AKP. So would a Turkish ‘Islamic’ nationalist interest in fighting the Kurds and expanding in Syria and Iraq as well as the eastern Mediterranean, said the ADSD chair and EPC president, Ebtisam Al Ketbi.

Iran, said Alex Vatanka speaking in the same panel, has got used to Israeli-Emirati intelligence cooperation over many years. (This has also been alleged by Hamas as having occurred in Gaza for more than a decade). Vatanka acknowledged that the public stepping up of Israeli-Emirati cooperation might raise concerns in Iran that Israel could launch covert ops inside Iran from Emirati soil. Offsetting the significance of this factor, he said, was Iran’s familiarity with Israel being deeply entrenched with some of Iran’s other neighbours, including Azerbaijan and Georgia to its north-west, as well as Israel having relations with Turkmenistan and (its former overlord and a still influential actor in Central Asia) Russia. The UAE and Israel were in practise unlikely to sanction the conduct of any significant Israeli action inside Iran from Emirati soil, said Vatanka. (It’s worth noting that Mossad has obviously long operated from Emirati soil, seemingly with impunity in the case of its 2010 killing of a senior Hamas operative, Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, when Hamas was unambiguously a strategic ally of Iran).

In response to the Normalisation deals an ideological rejectionist front bringing together Turkish and Iranian Sunni and Shia leadership aspirations, respectively, is not envisaged by Vatanka or Taşpınar. However, while Iran appears to be a partial loser from the Normalisation deals, a third Palestinian Intifada (uprising) would be to its benefit, said Vatanka. (It would also benefit a rejectionist Turkey and arguably majorly discomfort the UAE and Bahrain).

This Gulf discomfort factor, and its potential to grow, was at work in the noted angry and defensive fulminations of the FNC member. It is also interesting that the urbane Khalifa Shaheen Al Marar, an undersecretary at the UAE foreign ministry, commented three times in the Normalisation session that closed Day Two of the ADSD on the need for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He said that Normalisation was actually about achieving this and claimed it would create a momentum for a resolution, asserting that there is a ‘universal consensus’ on the need for a solution to this historic conflict based on an ‘independent state on the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.’ This was the stated position of the UAE both before and since the Normalisation Deals, but Al Marar’s repeated emphasis on it was striking, even though the Emirates has obviously broken with the Saudi-authored 'Arab Peace Plan' that in 2002 proposed a warm peace with Israel on the above territorial basis. While the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash had claimed in his ADSD keynote address that the UAE will be more able now to influence any ensuing political talks, Al-Marar noted that it will be up to Israel and the Palestinian leadership to make an agreement. ‘We are not a substitute for the Palestinians,’ Al-Marar said. The formal Arab policy stance was reflected in the reference made by the conference chair, Ebtisam Al Ketbi, to the UAE now having relations with ‘Tel Aviv’. This is the politically-correct synecdoche for ‘Israel’ (as opposed to ‘Zionist entity’, a term that for example still crops up in the Kuwaiti media). However to hear it used now, albeit consistent with the UAE’s ongoing official stance that Jerusalem should also be the capital of an independent state of Palestine, seemed odd. ‘Tel Aviv’ after all is the country with whom, according to Al Ketbi, the UAE has formed a strategic axis that also includes the USA. The UAE’s embassy in Israel will no doubt be in Tel Aviv though, in line with the location of the embassies of Egypt and Jordan after all.

Alon Ushpiz, the director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, pointed out in the same session that there are now four Arab states who have reached normalisation deals with Israel, five including Sudan he added as an afterthought. Actually there are six if you count the aspirant state of Palestine which, in the form of the PLO, signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1993 even if it didn’t fit with the subsequent Israeli demand for a formal ‘end to hostilities’ as also called for in the DOTC. Jerusalem though cannot be a location option for any Arab embassy at present.

Al Shateri noted that the transformative aspect that the Israeli speakers (and Al Ketbi) had referred to the Normalisation deals as representing in strategic terms, is unlikely to occur unless the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is seen by the people on the ground as having been resolved. A change to the regional order, which would include a new Arab state system wholly rooted in defined territorial borders held in theory and practise to be sacrosanct – along the lines of a Middle Eastern ‘Westphalia’ – will not occur, he said, Nor, Al Shateri asserted, will there will be a mass of Arab states queuing up to strike their Normalisation deals, unless this historic conflict is resolved (including, by implication, agreement over the status of eastern Jerusalem). In fact this logic seems clear in that at present the status of the remaining territory that has not been annexed by Israel, which is still the majority of the West Bank, is disputed and in almost all legal interpretations defined as ‘occupied’, as is the annexed (and expanded) eastern half of Jerusalem. So a new regional order cannot follow if there is still a state in waiting, in embryo or simply under occupation. The same could be said of the contested territorial integrity of Iraq (part Turkish occupied and subject to Kurdish secessionist pressures) and that of Yemen, a non-functioning state with major and multiple secessionist pressures (a large proportion of which are encouraged by the UAE).

Al Ketbi contested Al Shateri’s additional claim that the unresolved Palestinian issue is why Egypt and Jordan only have a cold peace with Israel. She argued that that was because of their history of being at war with Israel (and vice versa) unlike the warm peace that it is now possible for Israel to have with the UAE and Bahrain. Al Ketbi asserted that the UAE is creating a model for others to follow: this, she said, is the strategic shift.

Ambassador Brian Hook, Trump’s point man on the Abraham Accords, spoke at the ADSD about this ‘model’ at some length. For him there was a clear line running from the DOTC, and Jared Kushner’s advocacy for this supposedly serious basis for a two state solution, to the Normalisation deals. The Trump Administration’s approach has been to look at the problem ‘outside in’. It had hoped there would be more enthusiastic backing for the DOTC, but it envisaged that an expanding circle of Arab states engaging with Israel absent any peace process would create the momentum for the Israelis and Palestinians to finally come to terms. While it is true that both Egypt and Jordan had signed peace deals absent an Israeli commitment to a Palestinian state, Sadat had actively sought an addressing of the Palestinian Question as part of a bilateral agreement although all he got was an Israeli commitment to Palestinian autonomy. He had, like the UAE and Bahrain today, been bitterly opposed by the Palestinian leadership for signing a peace deal with Israel. Jordan signed a deal with Israel shortly after Israel and the Palestinians had entered a five year ‘interim’ process leading to what was supposed to be the irrevocable resolution of the conflict. The UAE and Bahrain have signed deals with Israel in the total absence of any Israeli political process with the Palestinians but with an understanding that a warm peace with Israel will ensue. It can be argued that Bahrain’s agreement with Israel is short of the effusive language of peace deployed by the UAE [vii]. However, Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, chairman of the Bahraini institute DERASAT and an undersecretary for international affairs at the Kingdom’s foreign ministry, talked at the ADSD of the great potential of two countries enjoying ‘A diplomatic peace and friendly relations.’ This didn’t sound that cold.

Given that Hook said ‘the new normal’ will be ‘two-way visits’ including Emiratis and Bahrainis travelling to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem ‘to visit the mosque,’ an obvious reference to Al-Aqsa that only a couple of weeks earlier had been so controversially visited by officially-blessed Emirati delegations, then it seems clear that this Normalisation goes much further than the Egyptian and Jordanian deals. The UAE ‘model’ for a deal with Israel is about accepting the political and territorial status quo (including in Jerusalem) and negotiating over what is left: what is currently under the PA’s and Hamas’ domain in the West Bank and Gaza respectively; what was due to be annexed in the Jordan Valley by Israel until it was, as the two Israeli speakers kept stressing, ‘saved' by the Emirati and Bahraini Normalisation Deals with Israel; other exclusively Israeli-controlled West Bank territory; and those parts supposedly jointly-overseen by Israel and the PA. Fitting with the DOTC’s ‘outside in’ approach, Ushpiz said that it was now down to the Palestinian leadership to ‘walk through the open door’ and negotiate with Israel.

The Palestinians’ role

It seems as if the fact of an incoming Biden Administration in the US is the main reason why Abbas has announced a restoration of the security and civil cooperation with Israel that the PA has been claiming had been fully suspended in May 2020. While this suspension was in part a fiction in the first place, it did increase risks of unwanted confrontations involving either Israeli settlers or Palestinian fighters. It seems highly likely that a Biden Administration that makes clear that the DOTC is off the table will be engaged with by the PA too. Where would this leave the process of Normalisation and its mooted impact?

Yadlin and Ushpiz both argued that the PA should be using the UAE and Bahrain to leverage their demands, just as they should, in their view, have countered the DOTC with their own plans[viii]. Given that a Biden Administration that engages with the PA seems inevitably to be one that will criticise aspects of Israeli policy including settlements in and around Jerusalem, then more Arab state Normalisation Deals with Israel are probably unlikely. Hook argued, with the agreement of the Bahraini official, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Khalifa, that it was US leadership that had made these deals possible. Al-Khalifa also praised the Trump Administration’s tough stance on Iran, giving ballast to Hook’s bullish claim that a US leadership that doesn’t take such an approach to Tehran will not be able to secure more normalisation deals. The UAE’s relationship with Iran these days is less hostile than its Bahraini ally. However Al Ketbi’s talk of several regional axes – of which Iran and Turkey, and their allies, constituted two separate ones in their own right – suggested that for the UAE its shared opposition with Israel to both Iran and Turkey, and their shared firm alignment with the US, were essential to it opting for Normalisation. Interestingly, the US contributors to the ADSD suggested that Trump’s Administration was almost an add-on, and that the Deals’ signatories had publicly flattered the President about his and his officials’ important role in securing them to advance Trump’s re-election ambitions. However Hook’s overt demonstration of an insider’s deep familiarity with the process, and the UAE and Bahrain’s close reliance on the US and strong embrace of Israel against both Iran and Turkey, suggest that in fact the US was an important part of what led to the Deals being signed. Assuming, as did all those ADSD panellists discussing the subject, that the next US Administration will not be such an active persuader for more Normalisation Deals, then they probably won’t materialise. Although a Biden presidency might like the credit for more such agreements, the US is unlikely to be able to help deliver them if it is engaged, however toughly, with Iran.

If the PA, as expected, engages strongly with the Biden Administration then it is not impossible that the Palestinians will offer an olive branch to the UAE and Bahrain. However if these Arab states are unable to criticise any aspect of Israeli policy short of a possible resumption of Annexation plans in the Jordan Valley, then any rapprochement seems unlikely to get very far. After all, Abu Dhabi and Manama kept silent in mid-November when Israel invited bids for construction at the planned Givat HaMatos settlement that will form part of an existing ring of strategic settlements built across its 1967 border with the West Bank but within its expanded definition of Jerusalem. European governments strongly criticised the move - possibly an augury of what a Biden Administration would do (although acceptance of Jerusalem as Israel's capital would complicate US criticism). That said, a PA that is engaging with Biden and once again receiving Israeli-controlled funds and US aid is unlikely to want to continue to have Iran and Turkey as its closest regional allies.

The sound of silence

Borrowing from Simon & Garfunkel, Hook noted what he called ‘the sound of silence’ in Arab capitals in response to the Normalisation Deals, stressing that the expected widespread popular Arab disquiet hadn’t materialised. For Hook this was obviously in keeping with what he said was a widespread frustration, especially among younger Arabs, with having ‘their future buried in the past.’ Critics might suggest that Arab states are more likely to accept popular rallies against US policy (such as the DOTC), then against what Arab neighbours are doing. Hook said too that there are other countries ‘interested’ in Normalising with Israel, stating that there were two such countries and separately hinted that these could be Muslim-majority countries from outside the Middle East. Hook also stated that there might be some countries who enter a form of relationship with Israel short of full Normalisation. Here he may have had Arab countries, even Saudi Arabia, in mind. In late-November Netanyahu conducted a semi-public visit to Riyadh for talks with MbS. However a Saudi Arabia that is both adjusting its diplomatic lens to an incoming Biden Administration and using a relatively open partnership with Israel to assert a shared and tough perspective on prospective US engagement with Iran, is likely to avoid any substantive deals with Israel for some time. MbS will probably prefer to leverage such an option as, for one thing, he would like the KSA to have an influential seat at what otherwise will be highly distrusted US-led renewed JCPOA discussions with Iran. Iran for its part will be increasingly driven by intra-regime nationalist competition ahead of presidential polls in mid-2021 that are liable to see a harder line, IRGC-backed, occupant.

This does not preclude the possibility of at least a partial nuclear understanding between Iran and the US if a renegotiated JCPOA proves untenable. Whether it could also discreetly include mutual confidence-building such as calming the periodic conflict between the US and Iran in Iraq is less clear. A resumed nuclear deal of some kind depends on whether Biden is able in the face of both Israeli-Saudi and possibly definitive Congressional objection [ix] to offer significant sanctions relief to Iran. Getting to full Iranian nuclear cooperation and addressing in some way concerns about its missiles and regional activities may require Biden to pressure regional allies to acquiesce in the effort. Of these the Israeli-Saudi-Emirati alignment (with Bahrain’s backing) appears the most resolutely anti-Iran, while the UAE is officially saying its Normalisation is not against Iran even though Ebtisam Al Ketbi asserted at the ADSD that the UAE’s axis with Israel and the US is at least a rival to Iran and to Turkey. The intensifying war inside Iran involving Israeli and US agents is one hostile action that would have to be ended if Iran is expected to rein in its distrusted regional activity. This would though be a hard ask from Israel under either Netanyahu or his main challenger Gantz, even if a re-negotiated JCPOA is tougher on Iran’s nuclear sunset clauses and even manages to include Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Discussing the missiles has of course been very firmly publicly ruled out by Iran and, more discreetly, by those close to Iran’s thinking. However should circumstances be different, the UAE might have a role to play in trying to reassure Iran about the conduct of any covert ops from its territory. After all, mindful of the Emiratis’ increasing public guise as an indispensable regional player to all sides, Al Ketbi has also suggested that the UAE could mediate between Iran and Israel [x].

Contributors to the ADSF noted that Biden is probably more likely than Trump to want to enforce sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of the Russian S400s air defence missiles, and is unlikely to seek to frustrate ongoing Department of Justice investigations into Turkish sanctions-busting regarding Iran. So, befriending Turkey as it seeks to agree a tough deal with Iran may simply not be a Biden option. With the Turkish economy declining fast, this makes Ankara’s ‘Islamist’ posturing over Jerusalem all the more likely to continue. One possible but probably outlying scenario, mentioned almost en passant at the ADSD, that might offset this Turkish ideological inclination would be if the EU resumes accession discussions with Turkey. However this is something that at the very least would require a more receptive and amenable Turkish president to be sitting in Ankara.

'If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem...'

In discussing winners and losers from the Normalisation deals, ADSD participants were mostly measured in how much Turkey or Iran had been losers, even if they, predictably, thought that Israel, the UAE and Bahrain were outright winners, and the UAE especially so. Jordan and Egypt were seen by Amos Yadlin as partial winners too as now it will be possible for them to have a warmer peace with Israel, he argued. Sisi has for some time deepened Egypt’s strategic cooperation with Israel, something that his close Emirati relationship will presumably only encourage. For Jordan however the UAE’s deal with Israel has helped to undercut its role in Jerusalem. This is principally because the UAE has made it easier for Turkey to pose over the Holy City, thereby strengthening popular Palestinian sympathy for Ankara. This overlaps with Palestinian support for Hamas that Jordan has sought to keep out of the Awqaf [xi] but that’s also encouraged by wider Palestinian impatience with Hashemite diplomacy. The UAE doesn’t need to vie to be a custodian of the Islamic sites in Jerusalem to seriously unsettle established Palestinian-Jordanian interests there. This is the major untold story of the Emiratis’ Normalisation with Israel.                   

_{End Notes:}

_{[i] The phrase used by the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, in his opening remarks to the Seventh Abu Dhabi Strategic Dialogue in November 2020.}

_{[ii] See the section entitled ‘Defending the Christians’ in 'Intervention in Palestine: The Struggle for Jerusalem and Gaza' by Neil Partrick} 

_{[iii] See the section entitled ‘Saudi custodianship in Jerusalem’. Ibid.}

_{[iv] See the section entitled ‘Ottoman rebirth in the Holy Land’ Ibid, and the section entitled ‘Conceding Jerusalem’ in 'Normalisation For What?' by Neil Partrick}

_{[v] See page 16, point 6 of this PASSIA (Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs) publication on the Bab Al-Rahma dispute}

_{[vi] See for example the PLO-Jordanian Agreement on custodianship in Jerusalem, including as explained here} 

_{[vii] See for example, ‘The Gulf States and Israel after the Abraham Accords’, by Fatiha Dazi-Héni} 

_{[viii] Arguments on both sides of this assertion regarding the DOTC were widely aired by participants at a high-level London forum held shortly after the DOTC was published. See this report on that meeting} 

_{[ix] In part this is due to the tightness of Senate arithmetic following elections on November 3 2020 and the specific need for a run-off election for the two Georgia seats in January 2021. A related factor is the extent to which any Presidentially-orchestrated sanctions relief would be temporary and/or limited in scope.}

_{[x] See my assessment of Ebtisam Al Ketbi’s perspective on the Abraham Accords in 'Normalisation For What?'} 

_{[xi] See the section entitled ‘Conceding Jerusalem’. Ibid.}