Uncle Sam, Qatar, and the ‘new normal’ in Israel-Palestine

There are corners in the world where history follows neither a predictably linear nor sinuously zig-zag detour, but a cyclic, circular path. These are also the places where endless deliberations come to a naught, and struggles, hopes, and aspirations vaporise like ether into thin air. 

This is the perennial dilemma in the tragedy of geopolitics, and nowhere it’s more acute than in the Middle East, where often the choices are between a rock and a hard place.

Amid all the accusations, performative politics, and the extreme amoral fluidity and mendacity in the demarcation between people’s uprising and terrorism, it’s essential to take a few steps back to look beyond the ideological miasmas and numerous smokescreens erected.

Cash for Peace?

In a recent interview, Ehud Olmert, Former Israeli PM and a long-standing bete noire of Benjamin Netanyahu, accused him of tacitly empowering and ‘promoting Hamas by allowing hundreds of millions of dollars that came from Qatar’.

This comes in the wake of Egyptian intelligence as well as the US State Department statement that Israel was amply warned in advance about ‘Hamas planning something big’. 

Qatari Riyals dissuading militancy and holding the alchemic power of doing the impossible – transforming Hamas –sounds wildly incredulous. But the devil, as they say, lies in the detail.

A 2019 paper by the London School of Economics, authored by Ian Black, ‘Just Below the Surface: Israel, GCC, and the Limits of Cooperation’, astutely analyses policy convergences, motives, and the ‘Kiss-and-Don’t Tell’ ties between Israel and the Arab world.

“Qatar’s influence reached its peak in November 2018 when it delivered the first of six $25 million tranches (to be issued monthly) to pay 37,000 Gazan public employees and 50,000 needy families – as well as buying fuel to boost electricity generation.

Recipients were vetted by Israel’s Shin Bet security service to ensure they were not Hamas security personnel. Nevertheless, Netanyahu was accused of supporting Hamas”, says the paper. 

It goes on to cite an unnamed Israeli official who adds, “While Qatar is continuing its tradition of aiding the Hamas regime, it is also helping Israel avoid another war”.

Failure or Omission?

With Israel’s sophisticated aerial surveillance, cybersecurity expertise, vigilant reconnaissance, Eros-B military satellites, and near complete blockade of Gaza, Hamas stockpiling thousands of rockets and drones undetected over months gets hard to explain. 

Intelligence failure and ineptitude is one conventional explanation, while Israel being lulled into complacency, mistaking ‘unusual calm’ for prolonged peace, trusting the power of money to be the change-maker, is another one. It’s difficult to figure out which one is more accurate.

A 1988 Guardian interview profile of Hamas founder Sheikh Yaseen notes that Israel often condones Hamas activities to undermine the power, appeal, and legitimacy of Yaseer Arafat-led Fatah and the PLO.

Books such as ‘The Devil’s Game’ by Robert Dreyfus argue that this supposedly clandestine arrangement aimed at subverting the political legacy of Tel Aviv’s then Public Enemy No.1, Yaseer Arafat.

While there are a lot of unanswered questions and hidden motives behind this recent flare-up, most important one is cui bono? 

As per Olmert, Hamas and its sponsors aim to put a spanner in the wheel of ‘Israeli-Saudi’ rapprochement, which has been moving at a brisk pace, even if underground.

Post the Abraham Accords, UAE and Bahrain established full diplomatic relations with Israel. It was widely anticipated that Riyadh would follow suit. 

Riyadh normalising relations with Tel-Aviv would complete the jigsaw puzzle, symbolising the Arab world’s acceptance and recognition of Israel. This would gradually render outfits such as Hamas obsolete beyond a narrow clique.

Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman’s statement that he is in favour of a two-state solution is in line with subsequent UN resolutions, and nothing extraordinary so far. 

But one thing is certain: the momentum of Arab-Israeli normalisation has been derailed, and it will still take a few years to regain the pace. 

New Chessboard?

Post the 1973 Yom-Kippur War, not only did Golda Meir and her entire cabinet resign, but for the first time since the formation of the State of Israel the Likud Party won elections.

Another barely discernible but tectonic transformation was Washington’s increasing leverage over Israel as well as the Arab states.

Bassam Abu Sharif, a close aide of Yaseer Arafat, initiator of Oslo Accords, and a one-time editor of PLO magazine Al-Hadaf, quotes unnamed officials in his book ‘Arafat and the Dream of Palestine: An Insider’s Account’, who claim that during the war Golda Meir’s reaction ranged from panicked diplomatic calls to the nuclear blackmail. 

“Israeli general Moshe Dayan had told Golda Meir that he was planning to go on television to explain to the Israeli people their ‘invincible’ army had collapsed in the face of the surprise attack. They had lost over 2,400 soldiers and more than $5 billion in lost equipment. Not wanting to admit defeat, Meir placed a call to President Nixon demanding U.S. aid”, says the book.

“An Israeli officer (a friend of mine whose name I cannot reveal) told me that her message to the president was simply: Save Israel”, it adds.

A lot of it could be a mix of hearsay and hyperbole. It’s hard to corroborate what actually transpired, but Washington’s net gain in scripting the new consensus, is seemingly the most plausible outcome.

Taking a cue from the much-quoted Leninist dictum on the treacherous asymmetry between time and fortune, Robert D. Kaplan writes in a recent New Statesman column, aptly titled ‘Revenge of History’ that the party that gained most from the 1973 war was the US. 

While brokering the new arrangement, Washington resumed diplomatic ties with Egypt and Syria.

“This was a victory for the two Arab countries as well as for Washington, while a setback for Israel, which had benefited from the relative diplomatic isolation of Egypt and Syria”, writes Kaplan.

Clearly, the not-so-visible US hand played a key role in the post 1973 order that ranged from being a deus ex machina for Israel, to a canny peacemaker on its own terms. 

This begs the question that in the volatile post-Arab spring Middle East configuration, marked by US retrenchments, the Saigon style Fall of Kabul, fiascos in Sana and Damascus, the increasing regional clout of Tehran, thumping return of Moscow and sly entry of ambitious Beijing, what cards does the US still hold in the strategic region where it once enjoyed a near carte blanche?

Will the road to a new Israel-Arab modus vivendi go through Washington, Doha, Tehran, or Moscow? 

The answer to this riddle will presage what the future holds: a new normal or reversion to cyclic patterns.

ALSO READ: Is Europe slumping towards the Middle Ages?