Saudi-UAE notions of Islam are at the core of Israeli thinking on post-war Gaza

By James M. Dorsey

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government is mulling a proposal for the post-war administration of Gaza that would put the battle to define moderate Islam in the 21^st century on the front burner of Middle Eastern politics and allow the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to export their autocratic notion of ‘moderate’ Islam.

Potentially, the 32-page proposal, if successfully implemented, would give the two Gulf states a leg up in their propagation of a socially less restrictive, religiously more tolerant Islam that rejects democracy and political pluralism, advocated by Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest, most moderate Muslim civil society movement, in favour of a contested Islamic principle of absolute obedience to the ruler.

Entitled “From a Murderous Regime to a Moderate Society,” the proposal calls for a cultural and political revamp of Gaza and the creation of a “moderate Muslim entity” in the mould of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Some analysts believe that Mr. Netanyahu may refer to the proposal in his July 24 speech in Washington to both houses of the US Congress in the knowledge that there is little chance of it being accepted by the Gulf states without the Israeli government substantially reversing its policy towards the Palestinians. Mr. Netanyahu has made clear that he has no intention of doing so.

The proposal envisions a transition phase that would lead to “an autonomous Palestinian entity” or “demilitarized Palestinian self-rule” rather than statehood.

Mr. Netanyahu’s National Security Advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, described the proposal as “brilliant.”

Israeli textbook watchdog Impact-se implicitly gave the proposal, put forward by four Israeli academics, a boost by concluding in a recent study that Saudi Arabia had significantly toned down the portrayal of Israel and Zionism in textbooks.

In 2022, Impact-se praised the UAE for mandating schoolbooks that teach tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and engagement with non-Muslims.

The academics’ proposal rests on long-standing questionable Israeli assumptions that, over the years, have proven to be inaccurate.

In Gaza, these assumptions include Israel’s belief that it can create an alternative Palestinian leadership that is not tied to the West-Bank-based internationally-recognised Palestine Authority (PA) or Hamas.

The 17-year-long Egypt-abetted Israeli blockade of Gaza failed to persuade Palestinians to push for an alternative to Hamas as the Strip’s rulers. So has Israel’s sledgehammer response to Hamas’ October 7 attack, even if many Palestinians hold Hamas alongside Israel responsible for the Gazan carnage.

Mr. Netanyahu contributed to the failure by encouraging Qatar to fund the Hamas administration as a way of keeping the Palestinian polity divided between Hamas and the Palestine Authority and unable to obtain the cohesiveness Palestinians would have needed to effectively push for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Multiple Palestinian efforts to achieve reconciliation have failed. China’s renewed endeavour to bring the two sides together in talks in Beijing in the coming days is unlikely to fare any better. The Beijing meeting is the second Chinese-sponsored encounter between the rivals in three months.

Drawing on the experiences of post-World War Two Germany and Japan and the more recent, less successful US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the proposal argues that the displacement of the Gazan population and the physical devastation of the Strip has destroyed the socio-political environment that nurtured Hamas and created new opportunities.

The proposal suggests that Gaza’s transition would facilitate “the creation of a positive horizon for the defeated nation,” deradicalisation of the population through “education for peace,” defined as “eradicating jihadist ambitions,” and the nurturing of a popular repudiation of violence and embrace of effective governance.

The proposal calls for the razing of refugee camps; “purification of the education system” by replacing teachers, rewriting textbooks, and ensuring supervision of schools and the media; and the substitution with Israeli-controlled structures of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the foremost international aid group operating in the Strip, and Hamas’ social and humanitarian programs.

Arguing that the fusion of religion and politics constitutes part of Gaza’s DNA, the proposal calls for Emirati, Bahraini, and Saudi Sunni Muslim clerics to guide the remoulding of Gaza and reconstruction of its education system along the lines of the Gulf states’ notion of ‘moderate’ but autocratic Islam.

The proposal’s embrace of the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s autocratic notion of ‘moderate’ Islam gained greater currency with the Emirates declaring that it may join a multinational peacekeeping force in Gaza after the war.

“The UAE could consider being part of the stabilisation forces alongside Arab and international partners…at the invitation of a reformed PA [Palestinian Authority], or a PA led by an empowered prime minister,” said Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s assistant minister for political affairs and special envoy of the foreign ministry.

Ms. Nusseibeh said UAE participation would depend on the force being US-led at the invitation of the Palestine Authority and US support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

She said the UAE, with one of the Arab world’s best-trained militaries, had discussed the force with the United States in an effort to fill the vacuum in Gaza and address its massive humanitarian and reconstruction needs.

The UAE, together with Bahrain and Morroco, established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020.

A day before her statement, Ms. Nusseibeh insisted in an op-ed in the Financial Times that any post-war arrangement in Gaza “must fundamentally alter the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict  owards the establishment of a Palestinian state that lives in peace and security with the state of Israel.”

Ms. Nusseibeh went on to say that a first step should involve “a temporary international mission that responds to the humanitarian crisis, establishes law and order, lays the groundwork for governance, and paves the way to reuniting Gaza and the occupied West Bank under a single, legitimate Palestinian Authority.”

Despite the notion of a peacekeeping force being part of the academics’ proposal under consideration by the Israeli government, there seemed to be little chance that Israel would be willing to accept the UAE’s conditions.

Responding to the International Court of Justice’s opinion that Israel’s 57-year-long occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem violated international law. Mr. Netanyahu asserted “the Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land.”

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.