Bridging the gulf with Israel

Times:

ISRAEL’S relations with the Palestinians may be frozen, but in one of the subtler shifts in the region, its links with the Gulf Arab countries are warming up.

The gates won’t be thrown open between the two until there is some formal progress in Israeli-Palestinian relations, and that is now out of sight.

But in a region where most changes are potentially alarming, this one offers hope of greater openness, prosperity and forging of common links.

One Israeli official said: “We want normal relations with the Arab world, and the Gulf is a natural place to start. We have no quarrel with them.”

Qatar, the maverick of the Arab world, is the only Gulf state formally to recognise Israel. Oman broke off diplomatic relations on the Palestinian uprising of September 2000. Commercial links have been strangled by the Arab boycott, set up in 1951 by Arab countries as a way of hurting Israel. But in the past few years, the Gulf states have quietly softened the estrangement.

The turmoil in Iraq has led some to look for allies. So has the new hardline Government of Iran, noisily voicing its ambitions of being a regional power.

So, too, has the uncertainty about the long-term future of Saudi Arabia, the giant of the Arab world.

“These ties, with the US, with Israel, all help (the Gulf states) be more independent of us,” said one Saudi official. They were not unfriendly to their “older brother”, he said, “but it suits them”.

The shift has shown up in diplomatic contacts.

Most visibly, the Qatari and Israeli foreign ministers met at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.

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