Israel’s History of Arab Realpolitik

While last week’s news of normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates represents a tremendous breakthrough, it is no secret that the two countries have been in contact for many years. Those contacts predate the much-commented-upon cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states (the UAE included) in the past decade and are, in fact, not highly unusual in the Middle East. By seeing the new developments in light of their historical precedents, we can better appreciate their significance.

I recall, years ago, sitting at Tel Aviv University Law School and listening to a guest lecture by Ariel Sharon in which he disclosed Israeli security cooperation with neighboring Arab states during the early 1960s. At the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt had undertaken a major military intervention into Yemen’s civil war, and Israel found itself in a coalition of states, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, opposed to Egyptian expansionism in the Arabian Peninsula.

The United Kingdom, the traditional protector of Middle Eastern borders, was no longer in a position to step in. In the 1920s British biplanes had defended the Hashemite monarchies of Transjordan and Iraq from invasion by fanatical Wahhabi warriors. But those days were long gone, and the USSR had since the 1950s been asserting itself as the ultimate power broker in the region. Indeed, the Egyptian air force was using Soviet aircraft to bomb Saudi border towns.