After a community dinner in December, the Israeli family was walking back to their hotel in Dubai. Her father with a skullcap, her mother and four teenage boys starred in an unfortunately rare scene in recent decades: Jewish life in an Arab metropolis.
Suddenly a taxi approached, stopped and opened the window. “Welcome, Jews. We are very happy that you are here! Exclaimed the driver.
The report appeared on the pages of Gulf News, one of the main media outlets in the United Arab Emirates, in an interview with Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, deputy mayor of Jerusalem. “It was really amazing,” she commented.
Current research in the world of Arab-Israeli relations, once dominated by conflict and aridity, has become a routine activity. The Moroccan government, for example, announced the inclusion of courses on Jewish history and culture in the curriculum. The initiative was created to “promote the values of tolerance, diversity and coexistence in schools and universities,” maintained a text signed by Saaid Amzazi, Minister of Education.
The tectonic movements that are transforming the Middle East, although still in its infancy, demonstrate the potential unveiled by the Abraham’s Accords, sewn in 2020 and tasked with adding four members to the list of Arab countries to recognize Israel.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have joined Egypt and Jordan, whose peace treaties with the Jewish state date from 1979 and 1994, respectively. The new wave of rapprochement, however, has an abysmal difference. with the previous phase: it lays the foundations for a “warm peace”, unlike the rarefied contacts, for example, between Egyptians and Israelis.
There are hardly any cultural, tourist and sporting exchanges as bridges to bring Egypt and Israel closer together. Cairo’s military regimes chose to avoid further war conflicts and ally themselves with the United States in the Cold War, but they continued to nurture a strong anti-Israel sentiment among Egyptians, contaminating narratives in the Egyptians. media, educational and diplomatic environments.
The reasoning was to present the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the “central theme” of the Arab world to national public opinion, in a diversionary tactic to avoid debates about stifled individual freedoms and inefficient economies in the Middle East.
The formula for making the conflict with Israel the main focus of Arab interests is exhausted. Challenges such as job creation in the so-called post-oil world, the waning interest of the United States in the Middle East when it prioritizes China, and the expansionist threats of the United States. Iran forced the change of leadership.
Concerned about the need to diversify their economies and build new alliances in the field of security, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco have embarked on the path of revising relations with Israel. They transform an enemy into an ally, in the commercial field, technological innovations and even in the field of defense, in the face of the reality imposed by the 21st century.
Since the Abrahão accords, more than 100,000 Israelis have flown to Dubai, arriving on direct flights from companies such as FlyDubai and El Al. WAM, the UAE news agency, has launched a service in Hebrew , a language also used on Twitter by Mohamed Al Khajah, the country’s ambassador to Israel.
The Abrahão accords, in addition to rethinking the regional logic, could also push Egypt to abandon the “cold peace” with Israel, replacing it with a relationship with the daring, dynamism and innovation seen in the countries. UAE and Morocco options.
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