Arabs, Iran and Israel in the Eyes of America

There is a certain understanding among the American elite and general public that the recent normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are just two episodes in the saga of American efforts to isolate Iran and minimize its ability to launch acts of terrorism in the Arab Gulf region.

The UAE and Bahrain’s establishment of relations with the Jewish nation brings the tally of Arab countries that recognize Israel’s legitimacy to four, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Other Arab states are bound to follow soon, as President Donald Trump has promised.

Good or bad, Democrats oppose everything Trump brings forward. They diminish the importance of the two agreements and deny that they are a worthwhile achievement. They refuse to acknowledge them as peace deals since Israel was not at war with the UAE or Bahrain. Finally, they point out that the Gulf countries have been quietly carrying on relations with the Israelis for decades. During the election season, this only stacks the deck against Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden.

Other Americans, the majority of whom are Republicans, diverge from this opinion. They say that the legitimization of these relations sends a strong message, indicating change in the region. To them, it shows a gateway to the birth of a new situation in the Middle East, with other Arab countries following suit of normalizing relations with Israel. Perhaps the Sultanate of Oman and Sudan are next, and maybe Morocco, and finally the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is what makes Trump a man of historic deals, even if he loses the coming election.

The American media now reports that these Arab countries shifted from complete hostility toward Israel into a state of ease because of a need that they share with the Trump administration. Complete normalization is crucial in forming a strong regional alliance that will hold up against the Iranian regime’s aggressive behaviors, and from the serious risks of other militant religious groups. This is critical to the security of the region — for the Gulf countries more than others.

America and Israel offered the two Gulf countries an important incentive in signing these two agreements: the “promise” from Israel to halt plans to annex the Palestinian lands in the West Bank (which were supported by the Trump administration). However, the Palestinians have not trusted this promise, with many strongly objecting the two agreements.

If the recognitions of Israel don’t blow over — and important countries that are the most important supporters and financiers of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas come around — this may eventually pressure the Palestinian side to return to the peace talks. With the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian nationals working in the Gulf states, this is especially relevant. Israel’s precarious entanglement with Middle Eastern economies might even push them to prefer peaceful coexistence and recognition of the Palestinian nation. This is what will offer a real opportunity for lasting peace in the region.

The moderate U.S. newspaper Detroit News published an opinion piece that invoked a conspiracy theory that is pervasive among many Arab writers and journalists. The piece saw the recent happenings in Washington between Israel and the two Arab countries as the grand finale in a long-spanning American-Israeli Zionist plan, which started more than half a century ago and has two aims:

The first (for a large number of Arab countries) is to take cover behind America, and to form an alliance with Israel, in order to face the looming danger of foreign threats.

The second aim is to inflict as many losses as possible on the Islamic faith and to increase the number of atheistic Arabs or those with weak religious observance. This will dismantle local pods of Islamic organizations and movements, especially the ones with a jihadist message. From there, they will crumble internally.

The American newspaper adds that this formed a sort of support for Khomeini. The plan turned a blind eye, a kind of laissez-faire indifference, to his widespread violence against his Arab neighbors, particularly the Arab Gulf countries, first and foremost the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps the most important part of that plan was let Khomeini’s regime ease into the occupation of Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, and to encourage Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Syrian and Yemeni supporters to commit offensive crimes of the utmost injustice, threat, humiliation and sabotage in Arab capital cities that he boasted to have occupied.

The shady plan also secretly and openly supported other extremist religious organizations, like al-Qaida, the Islamic State group and the Muslim Brotherhood. These groups were directly and indirectly financed to commit the most heinous acts of slaughter, destruction, burning, bombing and displacement of the largest number of Muslim citizens ever.

This was all reinforced by an American report that traces the reasons for the decrease of “religiousness” among Iraqi youth. The report confirmed that the Islamic parties’ practices are the most important reasons and motives against them.

The report, which was published by The Monitor on Sept. 22, 2020, also says that the number of Iraqis that attend Friday prayers decreased from 60% to 33% within five years, adding to the decline in confidence in Islamic parties from 35% to 20% from 2013 to 2018.

And according to The Arab Barometer, the percentage of Arabs that describe themselves as “nonreligious” has increased from 8% in 2013 to 51% in 2018.

With that, the American newspaper’s claims become closer to the truth and easier to believe. The Iranian regime has realistically and practically done America and Israel a service that was once seen as too broad to achieve.

But the American newspaper advises its American readers, and perhaps Arabs and Muslims alike, saying: “Don’t expect that America and Israel will easily give up on Iran and its destructive role in the region. On the contrary, conflict may arise if the nerve of the Iranian regime toward the international community reaches a tipping point and becomes a real threat to their higher interests.”*

With that, we see that the American Republicans and Democrats, as well as the Israelis, hope to tame the Iranian regime. They hope that it would stay within its current troublesome but harmless borders, without having to reluctantly force it. With its fall, they could wash their hands of Iran, and get back to searching for a different evil nail to hammer down in the heart of the region.

*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.