What’s at stake for Israel and Gulf Arab countries in light of the Abraham Accords?

Hussein Ibish: The UAE, which initiated the whole thing and announced first, I think had a lot of different ideas in mind. It sees Israel as a natural partner on many fields, in high-tech, in R&D [research and development]. They need the same kind of military technology, signals, intel, anti-missile imaging, electronic warfare, because they’re both small countries with small populations, but big footprints. For Bahrain, which joined immediately after, it’s a pretty simple list. They want to make common cause with Iran’s most robust military enemy in the region, the country that takes the battle to Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq, and sometimes even Lebanon. So, for them, that makes sense, because they feel an existential threat from Iran. And also they’re interested, like the UAE, and getting closer to the US and in promoting the idea of a kind of multicultural, multireligious regional order of tolerance — but not democracy.

I think without a doubt. I mean, Bennett, who just went to Bahrain, went to UAE in December, and they are seriously working on a number of combined initiatives. The UAE is trying to access Israeli defense systems, but the attacks by Houthi rebels from Yemen, the missile attacks into Abu Dhabi and the UAE have prompted closer cooperation, more technology transfer, etc. In fact, with every new security threat, the countries are moving closer together.

There has been a separation of the issues. I think right now for the UAE especially, we’re in a honeymoon phase, right? I think for all three countries, it’s a honeymoon and it won’t last. These countries have entered into mutual agreements that look good from all sides — except the Palestinian side — but they look good for all the principles, except for this: They have different visions of the future in the long run. Certainly, I think the UAE — and less Bahrain, because Bahrain doesn’t get involved in too many regional issues itself — but I think the UAE is still well aware that it’s not going to live in a very secure neighborhood until the Palestinian issue is resolved. You know, what they’ve done is they’ve put it aside, but they have made it clear to the Israelis that they’re still committed to a two-state solution. Palestinians are very angry, and I think it’s probably true that their ultimate independence is not going to be furthered by any of this Gulf-Israeli relationship.

Not really. If there’s any overlap with Saudi Arabia, it’s that Bahrain, which is almost a protectorate of Saudi Arabia since 2011, is sort of a test balloon for the Saudis to see how it goes. I think the UAE-Israel relationship is really independent of the Saudis entirely. But I think that the situation the Saudis are in, is that they find many of the same potential benefits that their smaller neighbors do in developing a potential open relationship with Israel. But they also have concerns that those smaller countries don’t have. They have a regional Arab leadership role. They have a global Islamic leadership role that they have to protect, and they have a much larger population, more than 30 million people. It’s a very big country and they have really complex politics. So, they’d also have a domestic political situation to be concerned about in a way that the other two countries don’t.

They’re still in the honeymoon phase, but over time, they’re going to realize that, while they share a lot of common interests, especially Israel and the UAE, I mean, down to things like what kind of technologies they want to develop and what kind of attitude they want to take towards high-tech and even maybe space exploration, things like that, there’s still a lot of differences. They don’t have the same national interests. They they are all status quo powers and they share some concerns. But I think the difference is they’re going to become clearer over time.