The missing actor in the Middle East’s regional war: the Arab States
After a year-long war in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Force military operations are still dragging on with no end in sight. The Arab States, however, are no longer anxious about their Palestinian brethren. They no longer raise the daily issue of the huge death toll of Palestinian civilians or the systematic neglect of multiple ceasefire deals – negotiated by important heavyweight middlemen such as Egypt, Qatar and the US – that are willingly missed or dodged by the Israeli government in diplomatic fora.
Walking a thin line
At the latest Arab League summit, in Bahrain on May 16, 2024, the Arab States displayed unity and pledged once again for the 2002 Arab Initiative and the two-state solution, officially calling for “an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations to resolve the Palestinian issue based on the two-state solution”. Yet, they did not go into detail on practical means or plans to carry out their resolve, showing no intent to finally switch from diplomacy to politics. Contrary to what was expected, the so-called “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, which acted as game-changer in the whole Middle East, did not challenge nor bridge the ideological divide among Arabs, that is between the state supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Axis of Resistance’s alliance and the Arab Sunni “moderate” states. It did not force any Arab regime to strongly reconsider normalization with Israel, only freezing the public display of détente gestures, as well as bombastic statements on new joint trade partnerships.
The Arab States had to walk a thin line between unofficially continuing to reap the benefits of the Abraham Accords and normalization with Israel, on one side, and officially supporting the Palestinian cause, deeply resonating across their respective people, on the other. Yet, with the notable exceptions of Jordan and Morocco, the great majority of the Arabs did not take part in the global wave of pro-Palestine and pro-Lebanon demonstrations that intensified around the world on October 4th and 5th, as the celebration of the year-long October 7th attack drew closer. Remarkably, large gatherings took place all over the globe, including in Muslim-majority countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, but not in Arab countries neighboring Israel.
In fact, the latter governments tacitly seemed at ease with the Israeli goal of unseating Hamas and its Islamist allies in the Gaza Strip, just diverting public attention to the humanitarian crisis and the urgent need to provide aid for the 2.3 million defenseless civilians in Gaza at risk of hunger and disease. Indeed, since the outbreak of the humanitarian crisis, Arab governments convened and coordinated on one single point: the rejection of a new mass influx of refugees from the Gaza Strip. Namely, in support of the Palestinian cause, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States made it clear that they would not accept any Gazans expelled by Israel and to this end they would profuse their efforts in assisting them on site, by setting up field hospitals, delivering as much medical supplies as needed and negotiating (with Israel) the entrance of humanitarian personnel and materials.
Read also: The Gulf States’ regional role after October 7th
Egypt and Qatar also strived to broker a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel to no avail, refraining from walking out of successive rounds of negotiations even after public acknowledgement of Israel’s ill will to commit. At this stage, though, the Arab States seem to be in no hurry to act on the Gaza Strip, while the future of the Palestinian National Authority is at stake and could be left in a limbo by Israel for the next two years – that is until the next elections in October 2026.
However, the Arab States’ broad disengagement with the Palestinian cause does not mirror their respective public opinions, whose majorities continue to be strongly attached to their Arab brethren. In the latest Arab public opinion poll conducted by the Arab Center Washington D.C. between December 12, 2023 and January 5, 2024, 84% felt very emotionally stressed because of the Gaza war, with Yemen, Jordan, Algeria and Morocco ranking among the top five. The most striking results were recorded on the legitimacy of Hamas’ October 7th attack, which received approval from a net majority of Jordanians (84%) and Palestinians (79%) but registered a record low among Egyptians (34%), though overall some 67% of Arab public opinion approved of it as an act of genuine resistance to the Israeli occupation. Overall, 92% declared their steadfast support to the Palestinian cause, with a slightly lower percentage but still a net majority (69%) openly supporting Hamas as a liberation movement. Yet, the greatest spike in support was recorded in Saudi Arabia, where the percentage grew from the 69% in 2022 to 95% in 2024, with Morocco displaying similar rates (from 59% to 95%).
On the factors contributing to the continuation of the war, a majority of Arab public opinion blames US support as the main driver, while playing down “Arab governments’ lack of decisive action toward Israel” in percentages oscillating from the minimal 9% of the Palestinian people to 18% in Yemen and Sudan. The latter results show little room for critique of their respective governments in Arab States throughout the region, even on sensitive issues such as Palestinian solidarity.
A growing political cleavage in North Africa
In a round-up of Arab States’ reactions to the Gaza war in the region, a major cleavage between public opinion polls and their governments’ actions stands out. Tunisia boasts a long history of closeness and solidarity towards the Palestinian people. Even the Tunisian President Kais Saied, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on October 7th, immediately declared that Tunisia was officially expressing “full and unconditional standing with the Palestinian people”, which distinguished Tunisia from the rest of the Arab countries. Yet not even this political statement by the shrewd Tunisian President, meant to gain acceptance and electoral consensus, truly met the feelings of his people.
In fact, Tunisia has played a historical role in the Palestinian question: after the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon, Tunis hosted the operational headquarters of PLO leader Yasser Arafat from 1982 to 1994. Indeed, Tunisian support and solidarity for the Palestinians is bipartisan, as it is expressed by all streams and walks of society, gathering both Islamist and progressive parties and, above all, the large and powerful workers’ union (Union Generale Tunisienne du Travail, UGTT), able to mobilize thousands of people in a demonstration in August – including civil society representatives, political activists, lawyers and high school students – calling for the freezing of diplomatic relations with Israel. The demonstrators, waving Palestinian flags, denounced the support of France and the United States for Israel, blaming them as full-fledged allies in the attack on the Palestinians. For several weeks, the Ministry of Education introduced an official greeting of the Palestinian flag by school pupils of every order and rank and the leader of the UGTT, in his speeches, has repeatedly branded Arab countries’ normalization with Israel as a “crime” and called for the approval of a bill to ban it.
To the contrary, Egypt finds itself in a very different place: a regional giant, once at the forefront of peace negotiations with Israel (1981) which cased its temporary ousting form the Arab League, is now a country internally split on the Palestinian issue. The Al-Sisi government has repressed hundreds of student that trade union demonstrations in favor of Gaza. In addition, the Al Azhar University, the greatest religious authority of Sunni Islam, was carefully monitored and placed under strict control by the government because it hosted many eminent Islamic voices that are critical of the war and likely to trigger major public demonstrations in support of Gaza after Friday sermons.
In fact, the great Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayyeb, has repeatedly appealed to the Arab people to take to the streets against the occupation of Gaza, strongly criticizing the Western powers supplying Israel with weapons. The Al-Azhar al-Sharif (the Great Shaykh) El-Tayyeb indeed issued a stern warning to the world against the Zionist settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank (hurling at the Zionism entity, branding Israel as “an enemy of peace”) but also against systematic and deliberate targeted attacks on educational institutions in the Gaza Strip. Nonetheless, what the Egyptian government fears the most is Israel’s long-term plan to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Sinai: a move that would crash the Egyptian economy and eventually jeopardize Israeli-Egyptian bilateral relations.
The unconfortable Jordan position
Still, the harshest consequences of the Gaza war are felt in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Close to the warring parties and home to 11.5 million people, 70% of whom are of Palestinian descent, it has watched the outbreak and progression of the conflict with deep concern. Yet, it is at the bend of this year that the war began to hit Jordan more seriously, in the form of collateral damage: Israeli strikes on a Jordanian field hospital in Gaza and drone strikes carried out by Iran-backed militias on a US base hosted on its territory. Adding more fuel to the fire, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) crisis broke out.
Active and supportive of 10 Jordanian refugee camps, it was considered heavenly colluded and held accountable for supporting the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack. UNRWA’s severe budget cuts by Western donors revived protest movements in Jordan, which urged the King to distance the country from the West and to realign its foreign policy in solidarity with its Arab brethren and its neighboring countries. King Hussein resisted popular requests and reacted with a blend of symbolic gestures. These included recalling the Jordanian ambassador to Isreal and announcing he would not sign a water-for-energy deal with Israel.
There were also proactive measures, such as encouraging negotiations to bring about a ceasefire at the UN Security Council and to broaden the access of humanitarian aid in Gaza. Yet, the King resisted the Jordanian parliament’s calls to cancel Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel, known as the “Wadi Araba” treaty, and to end Jordan’s multi-billion-dollar gas deal with Israel signed in 2014, as its economy is still deeply dependent on US aid which provides annual essential funds to stabilize its economy.
This is an argument that most Jordanian citizens refuse to acknowledge, as distance between public opinion and the royal family is growing, a fact proven by the tendency of most Jordanians to distrust official channels of communication and to rely instead on social media to keep updated on the staggering civilian death count in Gaza. In Jordan, one of the main concerns revolves around further displacement of the Palestinian people, which could tip the domestic demographic balance even more in favor of this group. It is no surprise that the growing public detachment towards the establishment favored support for the Islamist opposition party in the latest parliamentary elections (September 2024), which won 32 out of 138 seats – a large number considering that 41 is the max allocated per party by law. As legal provisions stipulate that the party share of seats is projected to increase, from the current 30% to 65% in 2032, in future elections it is evident that the Islamist influence on the government is likely to increase accordingly, despite the fact that King Abdullah will still hold the ultimate power: the ability to dissolve parliament and lead the country’s foreign policy.
The crucial Saudi Arabia dynamics
Finally, an overview of the Arab world cannot avoid mentioning Saudi Arabia, the new leading country in the region. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan joined his Jordanian colleague, Minister Ayman Safadi, in officially condemning Israeli actions in Gaza and the ongoing military operation in Lebanon at a press conference during the UN General Assembly, declaring that the long-term security of Israel relies on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Over the year-long war, Saudi Arabia joined hands with Jordan, Qatar and Egypt to push for ceasefire talks, but it seems that its appeals for ending the war increased with the looming risk of a regional escalation. Indeed, the threats to the Gulf region – which accounts for 31% of global crude output – intensified as Israel and Iran became involved in direct confrontation and retaliatory rounds.
As it is widely claimed that an Israeli attack on Iranian oil infrastructures could significantly impact the global oil trade – with Tehran being OPEC’s third-biggest producer – it is likely that open conflict with Israel will trigger retaliatory measures by Iranian proxies, and in particularly by the Houthis in the Strait of Hormuz. Therefore, Riyadh is very concerned that the widening of the war will disrupt global oil trade, as the recent Israeli attack on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah earlier suggests. The latest gesture of détente with Iran on the sidelines of an Asian Cooperation Dialogue in Doha is, thus, meant to avoid potential attacks on their own oil infrastructure, or, as al-Monitor journalist Jennifer Gnana clearly poses it: “Gulf leaders worry that their own energy assets now may be exposed to Iranian tit-for-tat proxy attacks by Houthis” (al-Monitor, October 2, 2024).
Yet, Saudi Arabian public opinion is not as concerned about oil as much as it is influenced by the Gaza war. Indeed, popular dissent, in an otherwise very authoritarian regime, takes many forms: there is a religious dimension, particularly advanced by a powerful circle of Saudi clerics with millions of followers on social media known as the al-Sahwa (“The Awakening” movement), whose preachers, in a strictly Wahhabi interpretation, view peace with Israel as contrary to Islamic law; and pan-Arab political and liberal minority groups, which reject normalization in the name of the Palestinian question.
Moreover, despite the outstanding pragmatism displayed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who claimed early in January in a confidential conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “not to personally prioritize the Palestinian issue” (Yediot Ahronot online, September 29, 2024), it is impossible for the Saudi royal family to completely drop the Palestinian cause after having framed it for years as a pan-Islamic responsibility and as a cornerstone of the kingdom’s Muslim identity, being the Saudis the custodian of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina. Indeed, a huge gap exists between the positions of the people and the royal family’s interests, and dissent is curbed by Bin Salman’s iron fist, so far able to wipe out any opposition, by imprisoning, silencing and forcing activists and dissidents of all sorts to recant.
Yet, even if Arab people could still be ignored for the moment as they have little influence on their respective regimes, their opinions are growing more influential and more freed by the official channels over time thanks to both the spread of social media and liberal reforms introduced by the same regimes to modernize their own societies, progressively eroding the authorities’ control on public hearts and minds. As much as it is doubtful that they would rise up to make any difference in the context of the current Gaza war, it is undeniable, though, that they will have to be seriously factored in soon in future readings of Middle East dynamics.
