Dr Lina Khatib
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today’s Members’ event on Israel-Palestine, Making Sense of Responses in the Region, to the Conflict. My name is Lina Khatib. I’m the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, and being a Members’ event, this event is being recorded and on the record. And although the event is not being publicly livestreamed, do feel free to tweet, if you’re watching, and spread the word.
As we know, the situation with the Israel-Palestine conflict is not getting any easier, especially with the recent escalation and violence, and this has implications beyond just Israel and Palestine, and I am delighted to be hosting this stellar panel of speakers to talk about what the recent escalation, as well as the conflict as a whole, mean for the region.
I am joined by two external guests and one guest from Chatham House. The two external guests, I’m sure, are no strangers to many of you. Both of them have had amazing careers in journalism in the region, and they are also highly respected Analysts on the region. First and foremost, I want to say hello and welcome to Raghida Dergham, who is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Beirut Institute. I also want to say welcome to Rami Khouri, who is the Director of Global Engagement at the American University of Beirut. And last but not least, to my colleague, Dr Sanam Vakil, who is the Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, and a Senior Research Fellow.
So, to start this conversation, without further ado, we’re going to move swiftly to our first speaker, Raghida. Again, we are saying the events that happened recently have implications for the region, and what’s your take on what this means, especially vis-à-vis Hamas’s relationship with Iran, amongst other things?
Raghida Dergham
Thank you. Thank you, Lina, for inviting me, and it’s nice to see colleagues. Rami, hello to you, you are in the States and I am in Lebanon, we reversed places for the moment, and hello, Sanam, it’s a pleasure to see you. Lina, yes, of course, Iran is pivotal in the Palestinian-Israeli developments. I think whether the direction of such developments is going towards clashes, a real confrontation, or towards accommodation. And the reason for that is because what happened in Gaza was not fuelled by not only the rockets that were provided most likely, or most of them at any rate, by Iran, but also, because Iran has decided that it will play its card, the Palestinian card, as far as it suits her, and so the Iranian regime decides it suits him, in the Vienna talks. So, therefore, it is a bit of a confrontation or testing if you will, to the Biden administration and to the Europeans to say, “Well, let me see, what can you do?” It’s crippling to them. “What can you do if we go as far as a possible confrontation with Israel?”
Now, the Israelis, luckily for them and for everybody else, because after all, those who suffer are the people of Gaza and the people in Palestinian territories and the people, the Palestinians and the Israelis inside of Israel. But luckily, the decision was not taken to go ahead with the land invasion of Gaza, because that would have escalated things maybe beyond control. But I think – I sense there was a lot going on behind the scenes to contain that possibility, and therefore, you saw that Hezbollah was reined in by Iran. I mean, they did not come to the help of our brothers Hamas, because they were having this magnificent moment of victory and, you know, what they always call the ‘great divine victory’. They didn’t, they didn’t move from here.
There were a couple of small things going out that they contained them very quickly, and I think the Biden administration turned a blind eye to the fact that Iran, and Turkey also, but Iran in a major way, was supplying these rockets to Hamas, and given – and I want to just take in bracket to say how can the impoverished Gaza have so many rockets, in the fact that it is really a painful thing to see that number of rockets would be acquired when people are really suffering in poverty. But anyway, this is another story.
So, for me, the developments between Gaza and Vienna talks on the JCPOA were very big because both sides decided, both the Americans and the Iranians decided, and the Europeans, they decided the priority goes for the Vienna talks. So what’s in it there for Israel? What was in it for Israel? Well, I will backtrack a bit about the Israeli huge mistakes committed in this invasion, and not invasion, rather in the escalation in Gaza, but more importantly, the messages that were sent by trying to expel Palestinians, again, the issue of expulsion has come back to the table. I worry about that from multiple angles. I worry because it remains, from my point of view, a policy for the extremists in Israel, maybe the extreme right. It remains also Hamas, but with its rockets, it remains a tool, if you will, that could be used by the Israelis to justify mass expulsion of Palestinians living inside Israel, and probably a way to deal with the demographic problem, and that worries me tremendously.
But I also worry that, you know, everybody right now is going to pay lip service and a bit of reconstruction for Gaza, which, thank you very much, is good. But I think this lip service about that Palestinian-Israeli two state solution, it’s good that it came back. People started to talk again about it, it’s good that the Americans are speaking about it, it’s good that the Europeans are, you know, endorsing it. But what’s missing is an actual roadmap to tell us how do we go to a Palestinian state? How do we have the actual revival of a two state solution?
I think it all depends on what happens in Vienna. If, as signs right now indicate, that things are going to go in the direction of resigning the JCPOA and that, you know, the Iranians will be off the hook on the major part of the sanctions, and with a great accomplishment for Iran, which is to push away those two issues. The issue of missiles and the issue of regional – what the Americans even call the malign regional behaviour. That being pushed away, with a test in Gaza, what happened in Gaza and then on Israel, no less, and with the fact that, you know, the Revolutionary Guards of Iran will have lots of money to play with, and not being, you know, scrutinised in their regional behaviour, I think we have quite a lot to watch for and see what will happen.
And finally, I think that I’ve got time to conclude, I think, I don’t know if my five minutes are up, you’ll tell me. But I think – and the silence of Israel, on the potential and clear indication that there would be a return to the JCPOA, lifting of sanctions, and also that comes along with it, the most important thing, which is an American-Iranian relationship, like the one that President Obama had. It’s the same team, and whether they’re give Iran – but they will give Iran and have given Iran, is recognition of the regime and a legitimacy of the right, as they say, for nuclear development. They call it, of course, non-militarised, although the IAEA is saying, “Hey, there’s a lot to worry about,” and we do not discuss, the world does not interfere, with your regional behaviour. That – why is Israel living with that? That’s the big, if you will, it’s a big mystery.
I am thinking, and I don’t want to put it beyond the word ‘thinking’, as an Analyst, as somebody who’s watching what’s taking place, and as someone who talks to a lot of people, that it’s important that the Americans give the Israelis, first of all, they’ve always giving them the superiority, in terms of their superior military force in the region, that’s a given. But it’s also important to say, “We can deliver an Iranian non-intervention with the peace process, with the two state solution, even possibly with the Abraham Accords, so that they can be – they can neutralise the fronts, and the Americans can say, you know, “The Iranians have agreed to give us a nod.” They will neutralise the fronts, for example, from Hezbollah, as we saw, that Hezbollah did not activate the fronts when Hamas was having its own war with Gaza, with Israel through Gaza. But also, I think, you know, we have a lot of presence, military presence of Iran in Syria as well. So, I think there may be something in it for Israel, because they never, the Israelis and the Iranians, never had a direct war, they always had the proxy wars. So, if there is a neutralisation of the proxy war plus the guarantees that the Americans would be given, I think that’s what they’re trying to do behind the scenes in Vienna. Thank you very much.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you very much, Raghida, and you do paint a complex picture, and I think, you know, the situation requires further digging into the issues that you raised regarding, especially this thing between the JCPOA talks and what is happening on the ground, and also the issue of containment. I hear this in my conversations from Washington as well, about the approach to Iran and the Levant in particular. And on that note, I want to turn to Rami. Speaking of the Levant, you know, you work at the American University of Beirut, what can we learn from what has been happening, especially from the perspective of Lebanon?
Rami Khouri
Thank you very much, and I’m delighted to be here with you and with my colleagues in Chatham House, to have this discussion. To complement Raghida’s more global analysis, I’d like to do something similar but with a slightly different angle, which is if you look at Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, which are the three critical countries that she mentioned in the region, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, and you look at the last century, the common denominator is that there has been constant Western great power meddling, interference and even imposition of the governments and rules and norms, and it’s no accident that Iran is what it is today. I’m not supporting Iran, I’m just saying Iran is a dynamic regional player who most people in the West and many people in the region don’t like. They think it’s meddling and causing trouble. Turkey is similarly much more dynamic in the region. Hezbollah has started to play a regional role. I’m not going to judge these groups, I’ll leave that for history, but what I’m saying is the fact that we have these regional dynamic militant actors who are not afraid to confront stronger players like Israel, like the US, indirectly the US, I think this is a function of this last century.
And what we’re seeing now in Lebanon, in Palestine, with the Iranian involvement, across the region, there’s a, kind of, revenge of history. And what I mean by that is Sheikh Jarrah – just that area of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem, within a span of about ten days captured for the world to see, live on television, several powerful [pause] realities that shape what is going on. One was Zionist settler colonialism. When you saw this fellow, Yaakov, this Long Island Jewish-American, saying, “Hey, I’m going to take this house. If I don’t take it, somebody else is going to take it.” I mean, we’ve never – the world has never seen settler colonialism live on television and on the internet. This was an extraordinary moment. And with it, of course, was the defiance of Muna al-Kurd, the lady who owns the house that he was trying to take over. So, the Sheikh Jarrah incident then sparked massive support by Palestinian youth, mostly in Jerusalem, leaderless young Palestinians, which then sparked the Aqsa situation, when the Israelis went into Aqsa mosque, and that spread to Lid and other places. So, within a week we had Zionist settler colonialism, Palestinian resistance, then Hamas got involved and started the confrontation with Israel on that front, which the Israelis had already done in Jerusalem for years. And then, finally, the United States, three times, postponed Security Council resolutions, reminding us that the tradition of Western military powers, Great Britain 100 years ago, the United States now, is to essentially give the Zionists what they want. Support the Zionist settler colonialism, and when it gets too awkward, then try to calm things down, which is exactly what the United States has done for many years.
So when you take all these things together, we have this situation. And of course, the US and the British involvement in Iran in 1910 and 1954 and, you know, there’s a history of these Western powers doing these kinds of things, let alone what the West and the French and the British have – did in Lebanon, at the creation of Lebanon and so – and making sure that Lebanon stays always weaker than Israel. So we see a bigger picture of tensions between Western powers and indigenous forces in the Middle East, which not surprisingly brought about, ultimately, after many years, brought about the birth of the government in Iran now, with all the things that it does, Hezbollah and Hamas, Turkish involvement or meddling, if people want to call it that, Turkish involvement, controversial involvement all across the region, and this should be no surprise.
So what do we have today? We have several 100 million, several 100 million young Arabs, between the ages of 14 and, say, 38, there is about 200 million of them, at least, maybe a little bit more, that are leaderless. And I’m not just talking about the leaderless Palestinians in Jerusalem, and it’s no surprise that there was young people who repeatedly rallied to support Jerusalem when it’s threatened by the Israelis, whether it’s the Aqsa mosque or the Damascus Gate or Sheikh Jarrah, [inaudible – 17:36], there’s a mass. The biggest single population group is young people in the Arab world who are not – usually not represented by their own governments, or they don’t have a government.
The Palestinians have not government. The Israelis have killed, jailed or exiled all the legitimate local leaders in Jerusalem and the West Bank. And the Arab countries, Lebanon is a prime example of this, there are masses of young Lebanese and middle aged Lebanese are not represented by their leaders anymore. They were for many, many years, but no more. So you’ve got this mass of leaderless, angry, worried people with electricity increasingly cut off, few jobs, education quality declining, water and housing problems increasing. This is the foundation, I think, for a lot of the turbulence that we see in the region, and I see a direct link between what’s going on now and the historical legacy. And the single most important element, and I’ll finish with this – the single most important element to me that I saw in the last three weeks, and I watched it here in the United States, where I am now going back to Beirut next week, but I watched it here, is this extraordinary shift, slow but clear shift, in the terms of reference in the international public sphere, media, politics, education, civil society, whatever.
People now often talk about Israel with – using the word ‘apartheid’. People are discussing the Israeli-Palestinian, you know, Gaza, Israel fighting, in terms of, “Well, we’ve got to go back to 67 and 48 and actually, we’ve got to go back to Balfour. We’ve got to look at the origins of this conflict. This has never been done in a serious way before, and it is partly a consequence of years and years of patient Palestinian activism, planning, studying, research, with teams of brilliant young Lawyers, most of them women Palestinian Lawyers, working all over the world, documenting every single element of this. And now it’s coming out, and for the first time ever, because Yaakov, this Zionist settler colonial predator from Long Island, was shown physically taking Mona el-Kurd’s house, it became suddenly very clear. And I think this is the greatest change, there’s a shift in the global discussion and it’s complemented by important shifts in the public opinion polling.
Not only do we see young Jews, increasingly in the US wanting an even-handed American position, we see it now among evangelicals. Young evangelicals now more or less ask the US Government to be even-handed, whereas older evangelicals are much more pro-Israeli. So these – and then in the Congress you had several bills asking to delay the arms sales, which of course were not going to get anywhere. But the fact that they’re even introduced into Congress is a sign of the changes and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party increasingly winning local and state and national elections. So the trend is very clear, and I think the biggest question is, who is going to harness this mass of 200 young, leaderless, angry, frightened, Arab men and women, all over the region, who’ve taken charge of their own destiny. And this is what they did in Jerusalem, and this is what they’re trying to do in Lebanon, the ongoing uprisings in Iraq, Sudan and Algeria, and in other places where they’re not automatically arrested and put in jail, as they are in places like Egypt and other countries. So, I think those are the issues that I would point to as significant, in my view.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you so much, Rami, and thank you for also reminding us that there’s obviously a recent escalation, obviously it did not come from nowhere, and it is connected to wider dynamics in the region, as you rightly point out, regarding youth and what’s happening with mobilisation. And yes, it’s a cautionary tale, but at the same time, as you’ve said, there’s been, I think, a positive shift in public rhetoric at the very least. It may not necessarily lead to a change in policy, but it is, as you said, significant and worth pausing at.
I’m going to move to Sanom. My colleague Sanom has been working on Gulf relations, including Iran, and of course, we have the latest big development of 2020, which was the Abraham Accords being, in a way, put to the test by the recent escalation and violence. So, Sanom, over to you for your analysis of what this all means for the Accords.
Dr Sanom Vakil
Thank you, Lina, and it’s a pleasure to be here today also, alongside Raghida and Rami. I’m happy to share my thoughts on normalisation and how, if at all, it has been impacted by the escalation and violence in Gaza and in Jerusalem as well. This is something we’re looking at in our programme quite a bit, and we’ll be carrying this work forward, so it is quite timely to be thinking about the impact of the Abraham Accords. When the Accords, of course, were announced last September, they were announced with a lot of fanfare, trumpeted by the Trump administration as a great success, with four Arab states normalising ties, and I think the principal one that I’m going to focus on being the UAE with Israel.
There was expectation, and perhaps, if Trump had been re-elected, that maybe other Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia might join suit, but with Biden’s election, the pattern of normalisation has very much been tempered. What’s of course quite interesting about normalisation of course, is that they’ve been – the agreement – the Abraham Accords has been very much billed as accomplishing much for regional economic ties between Israel and the Gulf Arab states of Bahrain and the UAE. But the implication here is that, of course, the relationship, particularly, I think, between the UAE and Israel, is much broader than solely economic and commercial, and in fact, with both states having quite close and co-ordinated relationships with the United States, the relationship, I think, suggests a bolder ambition, one where both states perhaps, in absence of an engaged United States, a US that is looking to prioritise domestic issues as well as geopolitical ones, perhaps will use this Accord as an opportunity to offload or burden share.
In the context, though, of the escalation and conflict in Gaza, the Accords were very much put to the test. There was much speculation, because, of course, the violence and the reaction across the Arab world, and specifically in Gulf Arab states, to the violence specifically around Jerusalem at the time of Ramadan, really, sort of, challenged the assumption that these Gulf Arab states had put forward, that the Accords were celebrated and supported indigenously in both countries. And, I think, for the UAE and more broadly, let’s say, for Saudi Arabia and some of the other Gulf Arab states, watching this popular frustration, anger about the injustices taking place in Jerusalem and then in Gaza, I think forced these governments to, sort of, hit the pause button. And there were, sort of, two phases to their reactions. Of course, when the violence and the tensions were very much focused around Jerusalem, there was a lot of empathy shown towards the Palestinians, more overt criticism towards the Israeli Government, and this effort of solidarity, very much was geared, of course, to domestic populations around the region and specifically in the GCC states.
But as Hamas entered into the conflict, a different dynamic emerged. And that dynamic was such where the UAE took, sort of, a backfoot, was, let’s say, saved by Hamas’s intervention, and here, sort of, we, sort of, can peel back the layers of intra-GCC tensions where Qatar and the UAE are on opposite sides of Palestinian issues. Qatar being the, sort of, financial lifeline of Hamas, and the UAE taking, sort of, a very anti-Muslim Brotherhood approach in the region, seeing the Muslim Brotherhood on a, sort of, linear line with terrorist groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and even seeing the extremists, and sort of, support of Iran’s influence in supporting Hamas, tying, sort of, tying all of these issues together. And so, Hamas’s intervention in effect helped the UAE from being exposed by normalisation and being criticised or being more susceptible to criticism, because of the Accords back in September.
What also emerged with Hamas’s involvement, of course, was, I think, taking us back to the broader strategic objectives of the Accords, which again, go beyond the commercial, but rather point to the, sort of, strategic shared concerns that the UAE and Israel share in the region. Those concerns directed towards containing Iran’s role, Turkey’s role, the growth of non-state actors in the region, and Hamas’s very overt engagement in this conflict, sort of, raised red flags and reminded us all, pointing back to what Raghida said, that regional issues particularly pertaining to Iran are not being addressed by the United States or are being addressed very much in a grey zone dynamic by Israel, and without any, sort of, follow-on talks from the Vienna engagement underway, could be left to the UAE and Israel to manage going forward. So it, sort of, raises the issue of Iran and reminds us that this Iran issue remains unresolved. And of course, in connection to Iran, there is the Iran support for all of these non-state groups as well, that remains a challenge.
Beyond the Iran issue though, I think what is also interesting about the escalation here is that the tensions between Qatar and the UAE that were resolved in al-Ula at the agreement that was signed in January of this year, also have papered over the three-and-a-half year Qatar crisis. But at the same time bring to light the different sides that the UAE and Qatar sit on in supporting regional groups themselves, with Qatar, again, being a primary backer of Hamas and the UAE being quite critical of Hamas’s role in the region. So going forward, it’s going to be very interesting, and I think important, to, sort of, watch how the UAE balances domestic demand, if it continues to take a broader role in managing or shepherding through some, sort of, process between Israel and the Palestinians.
In that process, I think that it will be important to watch the Qatari role as well, and at the same time, separate from that, examine Saudi Arabia’s space. It has previously, of course, tried to spearhead and take the lead, putting forward the Arab Peace Initiative in the past, which has now, of course, been tossed to the wayside, and with Saudi Arabia being primarily concerned about Iran’s regional role as well, how will the Kingdom, which is also present in Vienna at the negotiations, not in the same room, sitting in another room, but deeply concerned about the rehabilitation of Iran as a regional actor, how will Saudi Arabia try to balance that – these negotiations, against Iran’s role in the region, and is there an opportunity for the Kingdom to take a broader role also in the Israeli-Palestinian space, that could be sold in the United States as part of burden sharing, but also balance, and also, sort of, hedge against what could be the outcome in Vienna.
So there are a lot of moving parts and moving pieces in this story, but ones that will be important to watch, particularly because the UAE has very overtly said, since the conflict has drawn down, that they would like to take a bolder role in shepherding discussions forward. So we have, you know, a lot to keep track of.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you Sanam, and once more, yet another complex angle, which is very important, and as you said, the position of UAE in particular is an interesting one to watch, regarding what role they can play in the future. But at the same time, the way I see it is UAE is to me interested in containing any risk coming from Iran for the sheer fact of geographical proximity, you know, amongst other things. But at the same time, this challenge, as you said, in a way pushed it closer to Israel, so it’s an interesting dynamic to think about. So, I just want to go back to Raghida, I mean, in light of Sanam was saying regarding burden sharing and all that, and I think if anything, this recent escalation of violence confirms how fundamental the Israel-Palestine tension is to all kinds of other issues in the region. However, the role of Iran remains central. So, do you think, Raghida, the United States is, first of all, interested in trying to find a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict at this time?
Raghida Dergham
Yes.
Dr Lina Khatib
And, if so, should the route there pass through engaging Iran or at least finding the resolution to Iran’s regional role? Is there something missing in the administration’s policies?
Raghida Dergham
Lina, as I said, the United States is interested in neutralising Iran’s intervention or blocking of whatever is going on, on the Palestinian-Israeli front or at the Arab-Israeli front. Good enough for the United States if Iran is simply neutralised and Iranians are not promising that easily. They are very tough. They want to pocket everything before they give any such promises. So, it’s a very difficult, surprising development that took place to a Biden administration, because it really has been obsessed, per Europeans, with the nuclear issue. They came into power with a very clear – with clarity of where their priorities are. China, of course, and Iran. So you’ll see when President Biden goes to Europe, you will see the importance of both in the talks starting from the G7 to NATO to [inaudible – 34:54] to the Europeans and dealing with the Russian President Putin on the 7th of June.
I don’t see the Europeans at all interested in investing heavily in the Palestinian-Israeli resolution or a two-state solution, but they are obsessed with Iran. It is an amazing development that’s taking place. All they want is that – like one recently – recent – I mean, one high ranking official, actually David Hale said that actually, it was in public, during my – the e-Policy Circle of Beirut Institute Summit that I host every other Wednesday, when he admitted that the Iranian role had been really one of concern. He was speaking in his own name by that day, and he had left the day before, his position as Under-Secretary of State. But he said that the Biden administration was quite well aware of, you know, the bad role that Iran was playing with Hamas against Israel and other places. He described that as worrisome, but then he went on saying, “Oh just can you imagine if this was happening when Iran had a nuclear weapon?” So then, you see as – then you can see stopping that and you say, “Alright, in the name of the nuclear, might be, which probably will be regardless, you go ahead and you allow things to happen.”
I think that is a little bit tricky for the Biden administration, because he’s going to have a pushback. If this goes on for too long, all of – there is a return to clashes in the Palestinian-Israeli arena, I think he is going to have a bit of pushback, not only by, you know, Republicans with their own agenda, but also you see the celebrities are now, you know, taking on the issue of Israel, they are going too far, you know, stop Israel from these atrocities, yes, we’re pro-Palestinian. And you also have the media, which is again, obsessed with absolutely overthrowing anything that’s got T, big T on it, Trump. And so there may be a pushback, and if there is a Vienna success, everybody’s going to forget about it. Everything’s going to be, like, it’s going to be in Vienna something like the grand bargain that we have always spoken about, it’s then the grand confrontation or the grand bargain.
Now where is Russia on this? Sorry, I’m jumping, because I missed the issue of Russia and I just remembered it when I mentioned that summit between President Biden and Putin. You know, Russia is really not in love with Hamas. I mean, they’ve got a lip service support, just like the Europeans. They support the Palestinians, lip service, as again, with a bit of aid, a lot of aid, maybe financially, but not politically. Because if they’d really been politically supportive, they would have taken clear action against Israel, when Israel has done so many wrong things from the settlements, from you know, I mean, right now, Israel exposed itself. Right now, you know, what Benjamin Netanyahu did for Israel was really probably, it’s his downfall, because Israel was exposed as the paper tiger. I mean, the Israelis were, like, you know, everybody described Israel, “What happened? Rockets from Hamas got you scared and scrambling?”
So back to Russia, why Putin doesn’t care about Hamas, probably there is an element of Turkey in there, because Turkish support and, you know, as Sanam was saying, you know, Qatar or Turkey, these people are known to be sympathetic with Hamas and they – and Hamas serves their agenda. But also, don’t forget, the Russians have been very close to Israel, at least in particular in Syria, because that’s where it matters to them. Syria is what matters to them. And in Syria you have the Golan Heights were practically given to Israel, not only by Trump, they were given first by Russia. The Israelis were given the Golan Heights first by Russia, and then, you know, sort of, the official stamp was by Trump. So you have a situation where Hamas could look like they are the winners, but they are really a fleeting winner in this. They are not a winner. Israel is a loser and so will Hamas be.
Speaking of the leadership that Rami was referring to, I think Hamas failed in cultivating the event to become a collection of leadership towards the Hamas reign if you will. They failed. They didn’t take away the leadership and rebuilding, for example, Gaza from the Palestinian Authority. Even the Palestinians in Israel, in the beginning they just, you know, got very emotional about it, yes, it’s great that we have, you know, launching the rockets and showing the Israelis what they’ve done to us, that we can back at you. But they didn’t declare Hamas their leader. And Hamas, as you know, they remains under the mercy of Turkey, in a way. Turkey’s is only for public relations right now. Yes, they have bigger issues to deal with. But Iran, they are fundamental for Iran, which is very interesting if you think about it. That Hamas is really more fundamental for Iran than it is for Turkey. Where one would have expected it’s Turkey, because, you know, they are of the same Muslim Brotherhood direction, if you will.
So, I don’t think this story is over yet. Israel has got a lot to think about. Its opportunity to look at all the wrongs that have – that they have committed towards the Palestinians. And the – and Hamas has got to also look at itself and think what benefit would it be for the Palestinians, especially those inside Israel, if the extreme right, which is going to be ruling in Israel, uses the Hamas escalation and rockets as a pretext to push the Palestinians out of Israel. The demographic problem has got no other solution, unless there is an absolute, you know, grand bargain of peace and a two state solution that is really serious.
I hope that the Biden administration, together with the Europeans, who are now given, by the way, the Biden administration has decided that, you know what, they’re busy with Iran, so they just, sort of, they gave the Europeans the hand to do what they want to do in the Middle East. They’re not interested in the Middle East, they just want the Europeans on Biden’s side on Iran and China. So – and the Europeans are all over the place, as always. What do you think that – I hope that the French will succeed in, for example, resolving the issue of Lebanon. But you know how much they’ve done in Lebanon. They can’t – they don’t have much to show, in terms of their ability to deliver. And therefore, I think there’s – it’s going to be, I would argue, it’s a huge mistake to take away the tools of influence with Iran and not to discuss the regional goals of Iran, because I think it’s, you know, quite honestly, you know, forgive me if I don’t celebrate the love affair between the Iranian regime and the European governments and the Biden administration, when they also are going to be paying the price, are the people of the Arab region.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you very much Raghida. Rami, if I may turn to you with a complementary angle, which we haven’t discussed yet, which is that of countries like Egypt or Jordan, the countries that historically used to play, you know, a relatively significant role in Arab regional affairs and, you know, they perhaps are having a slightly different, kind of, set of circumstances these days. So I just wanted you to, kind of, you know, tell us what’s your diagnosis of where Egypt and Jordan in particular stand on all this?
Rami Khouri
They don’t really stand anywhere very clearly. These are coun – the big – well, I like to take a, kind of, big picture look at the Arab region in my analysis, and one of the big features of the contemporary Arab world, meaning going back, say, 30, 40 years, is the de-sovereignisation of Arab independent states. We have many Arab countries that are formally independent and sovereign, but in fact are not sovereign, because they can’t make sovereign decisions, what arms to buy, who to make treaties with, etc., unless they get the approval of either Washington or Russia or Iran or Tel Aviv, or sometimes Turkey, sometimes Saudi Arabia. So, there’s a lot of – and Egypt and Jordan are examples of the failure, the broad failure with flashes of success, but the broad failure of statehood, citizenship and sovereignty in the last century of Arab independence.
The biggest problem, and again this is one of the underlying drivers of a lot of the tensions and the turmoil in the region, including migration, terrorism, sectarian fighting etc., etc., and then – and the people who gravitate to some of these armed movements, like Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis or others, and the big underlying driver, the single biggest one, is the mass pauperisation of the Arab world. About 75% of Arab families are poor. They cannot meet their basic weekly needs in essential things like water, food, medicine, shelter, and education. They just don’t have enough money. The good news is that the Arab culture is very – has a lot of solidarity, so neighbours, friends, relatives abroad, people help them out. So you don’t have many people starving in the street, or becoming drug addicts and criminals, but you – there is mass pauperisation and combined with mass political helplessness. The masses of poor Arab people have no way to either express themselves or bring about political change to fix their situations. And that’s why I call them leaderless, because the existing governments don’t really represent the masses of their own people.
So the governments are going to do what is best for their incumbency, which is what most governments do. I mean, you know, Boris Johnson does this, so does Biden. I mean, this is normal. We’re not that different from other people. But I think we have to analyse the Arab region, I think, in the terms of its historical development, and we had a rise in statehood and sovereignty and national development opportunity, roughly between the 1920s and the 1980s, and then ever since then it’s been, kind of, downhill for most of the Arab countries, except for the few rich oil countries with small populations. So my sense is that countries like Jordan and Egypt and maybe Morocco, maybe a few others, are not really fully sovereign, and we shouldn’t analyse their moves in any other form.
They rather raise an important point about Hamas and Iran, and this comes up all the time, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Iran, whether it’s called meddling or strategic alliances or whatever you want to call it, it is one of the great dramas of the – one of the great dynamics of the contemporary Middle East. You know, predominantly Shi’ite revolutionary, well, so-called revolutionary Islamic regime, having close ties with largely Sunni Arab non-state actors. But the fascinating thing is how this relationship or these relationships have grown over time.
With every new effort by the US or Europe to blunt these relationships, they only get stronger, and you can track this in Hezbollah’s performance and Hamas’s performance. I don’t believe that the majority of – I’m convinced that the majority of Arabs do not want to live under systems run by Hezbollah or Hamas, and there’s no doubt about that. But there’s also no doubt about the fact that when confronted with the dehumanisation and the colonisation and the subjugation that we are suffering under the combined forces of Israeli predatory colonialism and barbaric militarism, and authoritarian Arab indigenous governments that work closely with Israel, in some cases now have relations with them, if Hamas suddenly fires some rockets, that’s going to make people feel a little bit emotionally good. It doesn’t mean they support Hamas.
So I think we need to analyse the relationship between Hamas, Palestinian citizens, Arab citizens, Iran, in a series of nuances, of why do people react to these movements? And why is it that they have just gotten stronger over time? The Lebanon situation Raghida mentioned, is important that there was no fighting on the Lebanon front. A few little rockets somebody fired, and Hezbollah quickly shut them down. The reality, I think, is that Hezbollah has brought about a situation of mutual deterrence on the Israel-Lebanon front. The Lebanese and Hezbollah and Israel are prepared to fight an all-out war in Lebanon, and destroy civilians in Lebanon and Syria – and Israel. They’re prepared to do it, and they will do it if they have to, but they’d rather not do it, because they know how destructive it’s going to be, and they also probably know that it’s not going to reach any better verdict or finale than the previous wars.
So you’ve had three or four now Hezbollah-Israel wars, Hamas-Israel confrontations. Each one has left the Arab group in a slightly stronger position, in terms of negotiation, and each one forced the Israelis to accept a ceasefire. So this is fascinating, and again, I’m not a supporter of Hamas or Hezbollah, but as an Analyst, I look at them and I ask myself, why is it that with the continuous transgenerational American, Arab conservative and European push to blunt these groups, why is it they keep getting stronger? They don’t get stronger, in terms of mass popular support, but they get stronger, in terms of their ability to confront Israel.
And therefore, to end, I’ll say, the answer to me is that Iran and Palestine are the two issues that need to be addressed simultaneously. The grand bargain that Raghida mentioned I think is absolutely the one that we should start looking at. And you’ve started to get people in the Gulf, the Emirates and the Saudis playing footsies with the Iranians and meeting with them and talking with them, which is exactly what should happen. So I believe that we – that there needs to be a really serious effort somehow. It’s not going to come from the US, but – and it’s not going to come from within the Arab region right now. We don’t know where it’s going to come from. But there needs to be an attempt to address the root causes of the Palestine issue and resolve it, which is, I think it’s resolvable, given the Arab positions. And the Iranian situation is eminently resolvable. The Iranians, I believe, just don’t want to be abused anymore. They want to have their rights. So, I don’t think they’re trying to conquer the Middle East or control it or be a hegemonic power. They know they can’t be a hegemonic power. They’re Iranians. Some people think they can, I don’t. S0 we’ll have to see how this plays itself out. But what the Iranians showed, in the first agreement on – with Obama, is that they’re willing to negotiate, they’re willing to accept constraints on their nuclear industry, in return for the things that they feel are their right under law. So, these are issues that need to be addressed together, and in a big serious way, which is beyond the capacity of the Americans, the Europeans, the Israelis and the Arabs, and the Iranians right now. But, you know, the main – the one big lesson of the Middle East is that it never stays static, things keep changing, and we’ll have to see, hopefully, we’ll move in that direction.
Dr Lina Khatib
Okay, thank you, Rami. I know not everyone necessarily agrees regarding Iran’s hegemonic ambitions. I think Raghida would have a lot to say on that. But I just want to move to a question from the audience, ‘cause I realise we’re, you know, a bit out of time, we only have eight minutes, and a question asked by Dina Mufti, I’m going to read it as she wrote it. She says, “When will countries put sanctions on Israel for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Israel’s apartheid policies?” And here I want to turn to Sanam to broaden the lens a bit. So, in terms of what tools of leverage, so if we’re speaking sanctions, tools of leverage. If Rami’s saying it’s not going to be the US, what Rami’s also saying, it’s not going to be the Arab countries either, maybe, trying to – or being able to resolve this. But we see the Abraham Accords and what you mentioned about countries wanting to show that they have influence. So what leverage do these countries have, Sanam, to be able to really influence this particular conflict, and also, Iran’s regional role as it connects to it?
Dr Sanam Vakil
It’s a big question, Lina. I don’t think that the countries have a huge amount of leverage, to be very honest. But there is a lot of reputational risk currently in play. The UAE has a particularly ambitious regional agenda. Its tempered it, of course, militarily, but I do think it sees itself as a regional powerhouse, if you will, one that can help manage regional conflicts. So, you know, the Israeli-Palestinian one I think is a hugely difficult one to cut your teeth on, particularly because it involves also Qatar and it does bring in a broad nexus of regional challenges, but if there is progress made on this conflict, I think that it would be a huge boon for the UAE. So, in that regard, there is a lot that they can gamble on, but they would have to work quite seriously behind the scenes, and of course, because they do have not very productive relationships with the Palestinian authority and Mahmoud Abbas, there is lot of backchannelling that needs to take place there.
So, you know, just to quickly answer, it will be tricky, but tying it back to the discussion, if I may, and the conflicts, being Iran and being Israel-Palestine, I think also we can bring in Syria and Yemen, I think, you know, these are the burning conflicts that do need to be challenged. And what is on the table in Vienna is the need for an agreement from the Iranians to move beyond the JCPOA and the Biden administration has asked for a commitment to discuss missiles in the future, to discuss regional issues in the future, and to lengthen and strengthen.
The question is, are they going to have the muscle to do so? And this is why the Abraham Accords’ paradigm is one that could be used to manage regional conflict, and this is why alternatively you also see the backchannelling taking place not just between the UAE and Iran, but the Saudis and Iran, and the Egyptians and Iran, and the Jordanians and the Iranians. Because I think everyone has woken up to the fact that the United States is not going to handhold the region anymore, and it is now very clearly the responsibility of regional states to try and dial down tensions. They are all very clearly overextended, in my opinion, Iran also very clearly overextended, otherwise it wouldn’t be engaging and testing the waters with Saudi Arabia in Iraq.
But, you know, ultimately speaking, you know, also just to address the hegemon, the hegemonic idea of Iran, I think Iran has broader hegemonic ideas much beyond a military hegemonic agenda in the region. It goes – and to address that hegemonic position of Iran, it requires Iran to unravel its tensions with the international community and the United States. It needs sanctions relief, because Iran does see itself as an economic powerhouse in the Middle East, and to achieve that agenda it has to come to terms with the international community. So, you know, there is the short-term, the medium-term, and then the big picture, where Iran wants to be the regional exporter, Iran wants to be the regional engine of growth, Iran wants to be the conduit of trade moving from East to West. So, you know, my final point on the Iran issue, thank you.
Dr Lina Khatib
Okay, thank you, and Raghida, last word goes to you. I know you also have a lot to say on the Iran issue and what it means for the region as a whole.
Raghida Dergham
Yeah, okay, very quickly, I think what the 5+1, or what they like to call themselves, three Europeans then US, Russia and China, like to do, is to offer some, sort of, a consolation to the Arab countries, especially the Arab Gulf, to say, “Oh, you’re not being left behind, you’re really good citizen, and the room next door and yes, there’s such, we can see how much can we help in having a conversation.” As you know, there is – there has been several conversations between the Saudis and the Iranians, and you know, I pray they get somewhere. The priority, for sure, for the Saudis, will be Yemen. But I’m not so sure that it’s – this is a substitute for what should have happened.
There should have been a refusal by the administration and the Europeans to allow Iran to get away with its insistence that to exclude the conversation – to exclude the issue of regional behaviour. The regional policy is hegemonic, Rami, I’m sorry. What Iran is saying to everybody is, “You know, you could get a deal on my terms, but on my terms. However, if the deal is not on my terms, there will be my actions.” And the actions are where? The actions will be in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq. Look at what’s happening in Iraq. And Yemen, of course and therefore, the strength that the Iranians are feeling now is not only – they’re not being emboldened without any, sort of, like the tools of pressure through the sanctions by the JCPOA, by the Europeans and by the Americans. In fact, this comes on top of their pact with China, remember, they signed a very important pact, they agreed, all told, it’s 25 years old, with a lot of money. And don’t forget that they are a partner, I mean, an actual partner, with Russia in Syria and beyond.
So then, how does the regime in Tehran feel about itself? Great. And how are the elections going? Well, everybody’s afraid that, you know what, maybe we should really watch these elections. And we understand now that the moderates have been practically ousted from running for the elections. But maybe the extremists – well, they don’t call them extremists, they call them the, you know, the guys who do foreign policy, the Revolutionary Guards, maybe it’s good to accept that they are ruling the country, running the country. Never mind our commitments to human rights of Iranians inside. But also, they are a stabilising power for Iran. We, you know, this is the, sort of, the good old Russian favourite word, ‘stabilisation’. That is the obsession now of what looks to me of the Europeans and of the Americans on top of the Chinese and the Russians. And in a way, I can say that, yeah, the Iranians can say that strategic patience paid, and good luck, too. A lot of good luck.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you so much, Raghida. I know there’s a lot of provocative thought in today’s session, and for anyone who follows the Middle East and North Africa Programme, we have an event on the Iranian elections, so follow our Twitter, etc., and you’ll hear all about it. Sanam will be moderating.
Dr Sanam Vakil
Wednesday.
Dr Lina Khatib
Wednesday, yeah, that’s very soon. So, thank you to Raghida, Rami and Sanam for today’s discussion. Thank you for everyone in the audience for joining us, and hopefully see you again soon. Thank you so much.
Rami Khouri
See you.
Raghida Dergham
Ciao.
Dr Sanam Vakil
See you.
