Arab countries do not want to take responsibility for Gaza

Many Arab states are more or less reserved when it comes to engaging in the political future of the Gaza Strip after the war. And they are also tired of financing the renovation - over and over again. What are the reasons for that?

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Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

German Foreign Minister Analena Berbok called on the Arab states to work constructively on a peace solution between Israel and the Palestinians on Saturday (December 2.12). "Everyone who wants to end suffering must now work together. Because the key to living in peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians lies in the region," she told dpa.

She particularly highlighted the mediation activities of Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as Bahrain and Morocco.

"In a situation where one spark is enough to set the entire region on fire, Germany will continue to work intensively with its regional partners to ensure that Hamas has no chance of repeating the terror of October 7," explained the German minister.

The Arab states do not want to "clean up the mess" in Gaza after Israel

Jordan is considered a pro-Western country in the region and has had official relations with Israel since the mid-1990s - albeit politically quite cold.

Nevertheless, at the so-called Manama dialogue of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, which was held from November 17 to 19, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi expressed himself very harshly: The war that Israel is waging against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is an "obvious aggression" against the Palestinians. civilians and threatens to destabilize the entire Middle East. He said that Israel is committing war crimes by blocking the supply of food, fuel and medicine to the people of Gaza.

"We must all clearly and loudly point out the disaster that the Israeli war means not only for the Gaza Strip, but also for the entire region".

Safadi Safadi's words make it clear that even Arab states that have diplomatically recognized Israel are currently distancing themselves from Israel's military response to the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas. The fact that Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization in Germany, the EU, the USA and other countries - is not important at the moment. What is much more important is the solidarity that many citizens of Arab countries feel towards the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, especially given the high and increasing death toll since Israel launched a military operation there.

The Arab states are not yet willing to participate in the construction of a new political order - after the end of the war in the Gaza Strip, a day that cannot even be predicted now.

Jordan: "No Arab army will enter Gaza"

Arab states are not ready to first let Israel do what it wants and then clean up its "mess", Safadi stressed. The representatives of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia made a similar statement.

Restraint has above all political reasons. On the one hand, there is the question of security - and whether Israel will really succeed in destroying Hamas and making it harmless. Safadi doesn't believe that.

"I simply don't understand how that goal can be achieved. Hamas is an idea. And it cannot be destroyed with bombs," he said in Manama, dpa reports.

Taking political or even military responsibility in the Gaza Strip, where structures or at least popular sympathy for Hamas could potentially exist, would put Jordan in an extremely delicate situation - including the possible domestically dangerous accusation of "complicity". Safadi therefore does not see the political future of Gaza as the responsibility of Jordan or other Arab countries:

"Let me be very clear. The Arab army will not go to Gaza. Not any Arab army. They will not see us as enemies," Safadi said.

What do German experts say?

The fact that the Jordanian foreign minister stands out for his views is probably not a coincidence, says Nicholas Fromm, a political scientist at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg.

"Jordan has had a peace treaty with Israel for a long time. The countries have cooperated for decades. Because of this, Jordan was heavily criticized in parts of the Arab world, and this is still the case," says Fromm.

Other Arab states are probably in a similar situation, especially those in the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Qatar).

Some of them, such as the UAE and Bahrain, entered into normalization agreements with Israel just a few years ago. Others, like Saudi Arabia, have until recently maintained good relations, at least unofficially. And they will probably find themselves in a problem now, because parts of the population oppose this direction.

"The Palestinian issue continues to play a major role in the Arab world and has great emotional and political potential for mobilization. Politicians in power cannot ignore the mood of the population," says Eckart Wertz, director of the GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies in Hamburg.

However, at least some Gulf states are ambivalent about the war in Gaza, Wertz says:

"Some [(Arab) countries have a very critical attitude towards Hamas. Because Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that is considered a terrorist organization in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The governments of those countries could secretly be very pleased if Hamas in the Belt "Gaza was neutralized or at least limited in its possibilities. At the same time, in the Arab capitals, they also see the suffering of the civilian population in Gaza."

No one will pay for the reconstruction of Gaza - if there is no political solution

Another big challenge after the end of the war will probably be - financial aid to the Gaza Strip, which was poor even before the start of this war. An area that Israel and Egypt have been blocking for years, it will hardly be able to do this alone.

"However, no one - not Israel, not the US, not the Arab states, not the Palestinian leaders - nobody wants to take responsibility for it," said The Economist, summarizing the results of the dialogue meeting in Manama.

Even before the war, the rich Gulf states were already tired of the so-called "cheque diplomacy". As a result, they may not be willing to finance the rebuild. "They have already rebuilt the Gaza Strip several times. If the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip "is not part of a serious peace process, they will not pay," the paper quoted an unnamed Western diplomat as saying.

The German expert Wertz also sees a permanent political solution - specifically, a solution in the form of the creation of two states - as a minimum prerequisite for the possible later inclusion of the Arabs in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip:

"It cannot be rebuilt every few years and then demolished again. It is probably viewed similarly in the EU and the Gulf states".

German colleague Fromm adds: "In general, the Gulf states have been more financially restrained in the last decade and a half. Previously, economic rationality was somewhat extreme. However, the population has now become more cost-conscious. Many citizens are now calling for greater restraint."

Concerns about the spread of conflict - two opposing effects

The political elite of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf also want to keep the conflict as far as possible from their region, counting on the fact that the war will end at some point, according to the analysis of the Middle Eastern magazine "Al-Monitor". But it is not certain that this will happen. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, both Iranian satellites, as well as Iran itself, could further escalate the conflict. As well as pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. The Houthis recently hijacked a cargo ship in the Red Sea, believing it to be related to Israel. Such actions could also quickly lead to escalation.

However, the danger of the conflict spreading could also have the opposite effect - and motivate some Arab countries to be more involved in finding a solution - for the sake of their own security.

Nicholas Fromm sees it this way: regardless of what the political solution looks like, it must ultimately focus on giving the Palestinians a proper perspective. "If that doesn't work, there will still be frustration, anger, and therefore violence," Fromm concludes.

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