Dismantling Hamas requires Arab-Israeli normalization - opinion

The effective de-radicalization of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian extremists across the Greater Middle East depends on the survival of Arab-Israeli normalization. 

The latter will hinge upon Israel’s willingness to collaborate on charting a road map for a de-radicalized, moderate Palestinian state. That’s the Catch-22 that Israel’s current government cannot resolve.

As demonstrated by the recent backlash against US Senator Schumer, Israelis, and many American Jews, are understandably traumatized and unwilling to even discuss a two-state solution after October 7, particularly while over a hundred hostages remain in Hamas dungeons and no deal has yet been reached. Leveraging this collective trauma and appeasing his base, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been staunchly rejecting the idea of a Palestinian state, thereby alienating not only critical Democratic allies like Schumer but also Arab ones who have been carefully balancing domestic and regional criticism to keep channels for regional integration and normalization open.

Netanyahu insists that opening a path for a two-state solution would embolden and reward Hamas after it committed the most appalling crime against Jews since the Holocaust. This perspective is not only factually inaccurate but also detached from the current realities of the Greater Middle East. 

To provide a clearer picture and explain the regional challenges posed by extremist governing forces like Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran, we first need to delve into the recent history in the MENA region that paved the way to normalization.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, in which the working class called for dignity and economic opportunity, socio-political movements for liberal and democratic reforms were hijacked by extremist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, who sought to destabilize and replace existing regimes. For the first time in the history of modern Arab states, an Islamist insurgency took over the main squares and ousted, in a domino effect, legacy regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. This was deeply alarming, particularly to the long-standing monarchies of the region, who prioritize security and stability. 

In countries with neither monarchies nor strong political institutions, ISIS rose to power and exploited power vacuums in Iraq, Syria, and Libya to commit grave crimes against humanity. So, while the Abraham Accords and normalization accompanied a bigger vision for social and economic reforms, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco pursued the peace agreements as part of a broader regional effort to counter extremist mobilization and stabilize the region following the imposing challenges sprung from the Arab Spring. 

Influence of the Abraham Accords

The Abraham Accords and the trilateral peace agreements between Israel and her Arab partners were signed after multiple anti-Islamist policies and measures had already been exhausted in the region, and Democrats prematurely divested from the Middle East. 

The UAE was the first to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots (including Hamas) as terrorist organizations in 2014, after the Islamist takeover of Egypt, and hired former Hamas opponent Mohammed Dahlan to serve as national security adviser to Emirati ruler Mohamed Bin Zayed. 

Bahrain charged close to 170 individuals in 2018 for forming Bahrain’s Hezbollah. 

Saudi Arabia led an Arab coalition against the Houthis starting in 2015, only to be solely blamed in the West for the humanitarian disaster that unfolded in Yemen, a disaster which the Iranian-backed Houthis actively engineered. 

Saudi Arabia, along with the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt even severed ties with Qatar for a few years over its support of the Muslim Brotherhood and close relationship with Iran. Nevertheless, the moderate Arab regimes were effectively abandoned by Washington and left to counter Iran’s Islamist proxies and friends alone. They looked to Israel for a new strategy. 

In Morocco, the monarchy strong-armed Islamist party leaders to sign the 2020 normalization deal with Israel and the US, thus delegitimizing much of its anti-Israel and anti-Western sentiment, with which it galvanizes the masses, breaking the Islamist Justice and Development party both internally and externally. 

Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the same party has been desperately instrumentalizing pro-Palestininan protests to call for an end to Moroccan-Israeli normalization, in an attempt to crawl back into power. In Yemen, the Houthis are running recruitment campaigns forcing young men and little boys to “defend their Palestinian brothers.” In Egypt, fears over a revival of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has historically shared ties with Hamas, have been looming large since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. That’s also precisely why Egypt has refused to allow any Gazan refugees to cross over. 

Any Israeli who thinks that Arab leadership will eventually welcome Gazan refugees doesn’t understand that the Hamas ideology poses an existential threat to Arab moderates as much as it does to Israel. 

As the war continues without clear objectives, we are getting dangerously close to a stage when extremism will have grown beyond the moderate regimes’ appetites, forcing them to cut ties with Israel in a last-ditch attempt to appease local sentiments and contain Islamist effervescence. 

Israel’s moderate Arab partners have been treading lightly, balancing between allowing criticism of Israeli actions and displays of pro-Palestinian solidarity, while also communicating behind closed doors that Israel has the right to defend herself against Hamas – and vetoing calls for an end to normalization. Realizing the vision for a new integrated Middle East depends on joint Arab-Israeli collaboration against Iranian and Qatari-sponsored extremism, which has been and continues to be fueled by Pro-Palestinian sentiments. 

That’s precisely why taking action towards establishing a roadmap for a moderate Palestinian state, with Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship of a revitalized Palestinian Authority, would help Israel’s Arab partners not only to manage domestic criticism but also trust that their financial and political investments will contribute to Palestinian de-radicalization. This, in turn, supports their wider efforts to counter extremism and curb Iranian aggression, after learning that hard power alone won’t work. 

A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia could have outmaneuvered Iran and its proxies. However, the prevailing sentiment among Saudi leadership today is that the Islamic Republic is the only party benefiting from the continued war in Gaza.

Regrettably, Netanyahu seems to believe that he might emerge as another political victor if he persistently thwarts all talk of a path toward a two-state solution. But in doing so, the prime minister is further isolating Israel from American and regional support and undermining Israel’s ability to effectively de-radicalize a growing number of Hamas supporters, especially in the West Bank and in Arab-Israeli towns where Islamist Arabic slogans hang in public squares. Netanyahu’s entourage, however, is too anti-Arab to be able to read them and realize just how close the networks of jihadists are.

The writer is a co-founder and co-CEO of The Emma Lazarus Institute for Liberty and Tolerance. She is currently a WIn fellow at Atlantic Council, a convener at Israel Policy Forum, and a 40 under 40 awardee of the Middle East Policy Council. She is based in New York and Dubai.