Killing of Israeli rabbi in UAE may strengthen ties between Israel and Arab neighbors, experts say

(JTA) — WASHINGTON — The killing of an Israeli Chabad rabbi in the United Arab Emirates shocked many and illustrated the dangers Jews face around the world. 

But if the aim of the attack was to to undermine the Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE and other Arab nations, Middle East analysts say it could well have the opposite effect: making those ties even stronger. 

“If anything, given the Emirati response, and given that I have not seen any Israeli indication that somehow the UAE didn’t take this seriously enough, it seems to be the opposite, that Israel deeply appreciated the UAE response,” said Michael Koplow, the chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum, referring to a UAE statement calling the killing of Rabbi Zvi Kogan an “attack on our values.”

“In many ways, it’s only going to lead to a stronger diplomatic relationship,” he said.

Israel and the UAE are both still coping with the fallout from the killing of Kogan, 28, a Moldovan-Israeli emissary of the Chabad Hasidic movement who moved with his wife to Abu Dhabi in 2022 and whose body was discovered on Saturday. Authorities in the UAE on Monday arrested three Uzbek nationals suspected of involvement in his murder, which Israel has called an act of terror.

As authorities investigate who is responsible for Kogan’s death, political circles in Washington, D.C., Israel, and the Gulf are asking a related question: What will this do to ties between Israel and the UAE?

Strengthens ties amid ongoing Abraham Accords expansion

The stakes of that question have become especially high in recent weeks. The two countries normalized relations in 2020, in what is known as the Abraham Accords, and their ties have proven resilient even as Israel fights a brutal multi-front war against terror groups in Gaza and Lebanon. Now, President-elect Donald Trump, whose first administration brokered the accords, has vowed to expand them in his coming term beyond the four Arab states that have already signed on, including drawing in Saudi Arabia.

His former aides say that that ambition has not been hindered — and could even be accelerated — as a result of the weekend’s tragedy. 

Jason Greenblatt, the former Trump administration envoy to the Middle East, said he was in the UAE when the murder was reported, and he encountered nothing but outrage — a sign, he said, that warm feelings are persisting between the countries even as Israel faces protest and opposition across the Middle East and beyond due to the war in Gaza. 

“Everyone I met, Emiratis and other nationalities, including other Arab nationalities, were angry about what happened,” Greenblatt, who travels frequently to the region, said in a text to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 

He added that the Abraham Accords were secure and that the attack reflected the ability of the perpetrators “to penetrate even extremely secure cities” such as Dubai, where Kogan was last seen.

“To those tying the tragic, cold-blooded murder of Rabbi Kogan to the Abraham Accords and suggesting that the Abraham Accords will now weaken or fail, I strongly disagree,” he said. “The Emiratis abhor this kind of behavior. Of course, it’s true that, at this moment, it may be uncomfortable to be openly Jewish or Israeli. That’s natural, given what happened. But not because of Emiratis or the countless other nationalities that live in and thrive in the UAE.”

The UAE is an authoritarian state with strict limits on press freedom and protest, and the message the Emirati government has projected since the discovery of Kogan’s body has been anger and indignation at his killers. 

“Zvi Kogan’s murder was more than a crime in the UAE — it was a crime against the UAE. It was an attack on our homeland, on our values, and on our vision,” wrote Yousef Al Oitaba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, in a series of tweets on Sunday. “In the UAE, we welcome everyone. We embrace peaceful coexistence. We reject extremism and fanaticism of every kind. We honor Zvi Kogan’s memory by recommitting ourselves to these values.”

Motti Seligson, the director of media for Chabad, told JTA that Chabad, too, was determined to emerge stronger in the UAE following the killing. 

Kogan was one of seven emissaries in the country, and Seligson said Chabad would build a center in the UAE in Kogan’s memory. Donations have already begun to come in: Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who led the Abraham Accords negotiations, pledged $1 million to Chabad in UAE, and soon his brother Josh followed up with a pledge for a matching amount. A fund for Kogan’s widow has so far raised nearly $700,000. 

“When we’re faced with adversity, we strengthen; when we’re faced with darkness, it just means there’s more light to bear,” Seligson said in an interview.

The Biden administration said it was already working closely with the Israeli and UAE authorities to bring those responsible for Kogan’s death to justice. It reinforced the message that the attack was uncharacteristic of the welcome the Emirates had extended to Israelis, who began traveling to the country in large numbers following the Abraham Accords. 

“This was a horrific crime against all those who stand for peace, tolerance, and coexistence. It was an assault as well on UAE and its rejection of violent extremism across the board,” said a statement from Sean Savett, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his opening remarks Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting, also sounded determined to nurture and strengthen the relationship with the UAE.

“I greatly appreciate the cooperation of the UAE in investigating the murder,” he said. “We will strengthen the ties between us in the face of attempts by the axis of evil to harm the relationship of peace between us. We will strengthen them, and we will work to expand regional stability.”

Authorities have not yet determined whether an organization or country is behind the attack. Rich Goldberg, a National Security Council Middle East staffer during Trump’s first term, said the killing had the hallmarks of those seeking to undermine the normalization deal, which also encompasses Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

He said the perpetrators may have also hoped “to scare the Emirates and the Saudis that there is some sort of penetration of Islamic terrorism that can somehow blowback on their regimes.”

Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the attack, whoever was behind it, was a sign of weakness — an indication that the perpetrators could not reach Israeli officials or hard targets.

“If this is the most they can do, it’s the softest possible target there is, a civilian who really stands out,” he said, referring to how Chabad officials wear visibly Jewish garb in public. “It’s not a government official, and it’s not a ballistic missile barrage.”

Goldberg said if anything, the murder should spur the expansion of the Abraham Accords as a sign that attacks like these are ineffectual.

“This is a moment where if you don’t respond in that way if you pull back from normalization if you say that Islamic terrorism to sabotage normalization will succeed, then you will see more terrorism,” Goldberg said. 

The IPF’s Koplow said one immediate effect could be the diminishment of travel between Israel and the UAE. Currently, there are six or seven flights between the countries a day, a notable exception to other airlines that have stopped flying to Israel while it wages war on multiple fronts against enemies who fire barrages of missiles.

“If you have fewer Israelis going to the UAE because of security concerns, and that’s obviously an aspect of the relationship that is an important one, that’s going to suffer,” said Koplow.