How
Some Muslim Nations are Forging a Real Peace with Israel
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
September 20, 2016
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 It was a customary
political gesture, the welcoming of a foreign leader on Sept. 7 by local
dignitaries in The Hague. Benjamin Netanyahu, on a two-day state visit to
The Netherlands, was being introduced around the room, shaking hands with
Dutch parliamentarians, when he reached Tunahan Kuzu, the Turkish-Dutch founder
of the pro-immigration, pro-Islam Denk ("Think") party. Directing
his gaze straight at the Israeli president, Kuzu pointed to the Palestinian
flag pin he sported on his lapel, and placed his hands pointedly behind his back.
Netanyahu nodded his understanding and moved on.
If Kuzu's gesture was meant to insult the Israeli leader, it backfired.
Instead, he came under fire from both fellow members of parliament
and the press, who accused him of disrespect, lack of professionalism, and
anti-Semitic behavior.
But his critics missed an even larger point: those like Kuzu, and
gestures like the one he made, are becoming outdated. Rather, in the larger
picture, even some of Israel's most stalwart opponents are starting to
change course, with some discouraging Western calls for economic sanctions
(like the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction, or BDS, movement), and others even
engaging in joint military exercises with the Jewish state.
Unsurprisingly, American politicians have taken the lead in this. Just
days after the episode in The Hague, for instance, U.S. House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi put the kibosh on a planned BDS event scheduled for Sept. 16 on Capitol Hill. Several U.S.
states have passed anti-BDS bills throughout the past year, and in signing
the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 in February,
President Obama declared, "I have directed my administration to
strongly oppose boycotts, divestment campaigns, and sanctions targeting the
State of Israel."
But more unexpected have been the military cooperation exercises
involving less Israel-friendly countries. In August, Pakistan and the UAE
both joined Israel and the U.S. Air Force in exercises at
Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Israel and Jordan also recently participated in joint exercises with the U.S..
Much of this new military cooperation results from concerns within the
region of the growing threat of Iran, Commander Jennifer Dyer, a retired
naval intelligence officer, explained in a recent e-mail exchange.
"Obviously, the joint participation with Muslim countries is a step
beyond participating with NATO. Politically, it's new territory," she
observed. "The growing concern in Sunni nations about Iran is, of
course, the big driving factor."
As an example, she noted that the chief of staff of Pakistan's army warned
in January that "Pakistan would 'wipe Iran off the map' if Iran
threatened Saudi Arabia," and that Sudan cut ties with Iran at around
the same time. (For its part, Israel has since begun a campaign encouraging the U.S. and other Western nations to
repair relations with the African country.)
NATO has played a crucial role in this new cooperation, Dyer said.
"The common link through NATO allows Sunni nations and Israel to
facilitate military cooperation without going very far in terms of overt
political outreach" or "having to make high-profile political
declarations first."
"Overt" is probably the key word here. Where outreach in any
Muslim country towards Israel could lead to public outcries and violence,
collaborations such as these allow these countries to build relationships
with Israel "behind closed doors," a potential first step towards
long-term normalization.
They also help create a more supportive climate for activists like
Sheikh Abdullah Tamimi, who recently spoke at a seminar on Jewish and Arab
relations in Israel. As the Gatestone Institute noted in a report on the event, "Tamimi and his
colleagues do not believe in boycotts and divestment. They are convinced
that real peace can be achieved through dialogue between Palestinians and all
Israelis."
That position is shared by many, including hundreds of entrepreneurs
collaborating in joint Palestinian-Israeli tech startups and other business
ventures. And while Palestinians involved in those projects do not view
them as a "substitute for a political solution," Forbes'
Richard Behar reported in 2013, they do view them as a way of
"improving relations."
Even Kuzu's own Turkey made amends with Israel recently, ending a six-year
conflict that began with an Israeli raid on a Turkish flotilla said to be
carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. The reconciliation between the two
countries has already led to important cooperative ventures, including a major
Turkey-Israel gas pipeline.
All of which combines to make efforts like the BDS movement and the
token gestures of politicians like Kuzu the more ridiculous. They are the
reasons why Netanyahu could demonstrate respect for Kuzu's position and
still so easily shrug him off. Because clearly, while some continue
pounding out old arguments, repeating themselves into banal inconsequence,
others are already busy building new solutions, based on new realities. The
future of the Middle East depends most of all on them.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in
the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New
York and the Netherlands.
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