Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Israel’s normalization of relations with the UAE and Bahrain is more transactional than transformative.
The much-vaunted announcement that Bahrain will normalize relations with Israel, hot on the heels of the United Arab Emirates, has been greeted with excitement in Western foreign policy circles. But true stability in the region is a long way off.
Tensions are rising dangerously in the Eastern Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey, two members of NATO. But can the world’s most powerful military alliance do anything to de-escalate the crisis?
Whether the Israel-UAE deal holds and has an enduring impact on the region will depend on several factors.
It should be obvious that the timing of normalization efforts in the Middle East are tied to the political interests of the key players.
Perhaps a more accurate way to evaluate this agreement is the consolidation and formalization of ties that have been in the works, largely subterranean, for a decade or more. But the strategic impact, at least for now, won’t be nearly as consequential as Israel’s peace treaties.
The loss of the Arab world’s commitment to an end of Israel’s occupation as a precondition for Middle East peace will spell the death knell for a negotiated political solution.
Israel’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank may have been temporarily suspended, but anyone who believes the world is any closer to a negotiation, let alone an agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is mistaken.
It’s in neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan’s interests for Russia to pick a side in their conflict: Nagorno-Karabakh would go from being a unique place where Russia and the West cooperate to yet another theater for their rivalry, with all the ensuing risks and dangers.
On July 12, skirmishes broke out on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The fighting claimed at least sixteen lives in the most serious outbreak of hostilities in the South Caucasus since 2016. Although the fighting has subsided for now, the situation remains volatile and a war of words between the two countries continues—all of which further complicate prospects for a negotiated solution.