JERUSALEM – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presents himself as a global leader who is in a league different from his rivals – someone who can keep Israel safe and promote its interests on the world stage. But tensions in their relations with two important Arab allies, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, have damaged that image in the race for Israel’s election.
Netanyahu’s personal ties to King Abdullah II of Jordan have long been cold, although his countries have had diplomatic relations for decades, and have recently worsened. And the Israeli leader’s efforts to capitalize on his new partnership with the United Arab Emirates ahead of the fierce election on Tuesday injected a bitter note into the emerging relationship between the two countries.
Senior UAE officials sent clear signals last week that the Persian Gulf country would not be attracted to the Netanyahu campaign for re-election, a rebuke that has shaken its much-vaunted foreign policy credentials.
Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister for the longest time, has always portrayed himself as the only candidate who can protect Israel’s security and ensure its survival in what has been mostly a hostile region. He praised peaceful relations with moderate Arab states, including Jordan and the Emirates, as crucial to defending Israel’s borders and as a support against Iran’s ambitions in the region.
But tensions with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates undermine Netanyahu’s attempts to present himself as a Middle East peacemaker as part of his attempt to remain in power while on trial on corruption charges.
The first signs of trouble came after the cancellation of plans for Netanyahu’s first open visit to the Emirates. Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached a historic agreement last August to normalize their relations, the first step in a broader regional process that came to be known as the Abraham Accords and which was a striking foreign policy achievement by the Trump administration.
Netanyahu was due to fly to the Emirate’s capital, Abu Dhabi, on March 11, for a quick meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the country’s de facto ruler. But the plan went awry amid a diplomatic dispute with Jordan, one of the first Arab countries to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
The day before the scheduled trip, a rare visit by the Crown Prince of Jordan to the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – one of the holiest sites in Islam – was rejected because of a disagreement between Jordan and Israel over security arrangements for the prince.
This led Jordan, which borders Israel, to postpone permission for the departure of a private jet that was waiting to take Netanyahu to the Emirates. When permission came, it was too late and Mr. Netanyahu had to cancel the trip.
Mr Netanyahu said later that day that the visit was postponed “due to misunderstandings and difficulties in coordinating our flights” resulting from the disagreement with Jordan. He said that he had spoken to the “great leader of the United Arab Emirates” and that the visit would be rescheduled very soon.
Netanyahu told Israeli Army Radio last week that his visit to Abu Dhabi has been postponed several times in recent months “due to blockades and other reasons”.
But he made things worse by publicly bragging, after his phone call to Prince Mohammed, that the Emirates intended to invest “the vast sum of $ 10 billion” in various projects in Israel.
“It was clear to Prince Mohammed that Netanyahu was only using him for electoral purposes,” said Martin S. Indyk, a distinguished member of the Council on Foreign Relations who was previously a special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
The Emirates threw aside their usual discretion and did not hide their discontent.
“From the point of view of the United Arab Emirates, the objective of the Abrahamic Agreements is to provide a robust strategic basis for promoting peace and prosperity with the State of Israel and throughout the region,” Anwar Gargash, who served until last month as UAE minister of foreign affairs and who is now an adviser to the country’s president, wrote on Twitter.
“The United Arab Emirates will not participate in any internal electoral campaign in Israel, now or never,” he added.
Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the Emirates’ minister of industry and advanced technology, told The Nation, an Emirati newspaper, last week that the Emirates was still examining investment prospects, but that they would be “commercially oriented and not politically associated” . The country is “at a very early stage in the study of Israel’s laws and policies,” he said.
Netanyahu’s aborted attempt to visit the United Arab Emirates before the Israeli election on Tuesday also altered the Arab country’s plan to host an Abraham Accord summit in April, according to an individual briefed on the details of the episode. .
That meeting would have brought together Mr Netanyahu, leaders of the Emirates and Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – the other countries with which Israel has signed standardization agreements in recent months – and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
Mr. Indyk described Mr. Netanyahu’s relationships with Prince Mohammed of the United Arab Emirates and King Abdullah II of Jordan as “broken” and in need of repair.
In the exciting first months after the agreement between Israel and the Emirates, technology executives and Israeli tourists invaded Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the country, despite restrictions on the pandemic. Now, analysts said, the honeymoon is over, although there is no indication that the normalization agreement is at risk of collapse.
The relationship is essentially “suspended,” said Oded Eran, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and a former Israeli ambassador to the European Union and Jordan.
In addition to the Netanyahu election campaign, Eran said, the Emirates were upset because, as part of the normalization agreement, Israel abandoned its opposition to the purchase of F-35 fighters and other advanced weapons from the United States by the Emirates, but that transaction is now stalled and under review by the Biden administration.
In addition, he said, Emirati leaders are concerned about what could happen after the election in Israel. Netanyahu said his goal is to form a right-wing coalition with parties that prioritize the annexation of West Bank territory in one way or another.
“They are not canceling the deal, but they do not want it at the moment,” said Eran of the Emirates. “They want to see what the new government’s agenda will be.”
Netanyahu’s political opponents took advantage of the diplomatic disaster.
“Unfortunately, Netanyahu’s conduct in recent years has caused significant damage to our relations with Jordan, causing Israel to lose considerable defensive, diplomatic and economic assets,” said Benny Gantz, Israeli defense minister and center political rival.
“I will personally work alongside the entire Israeli defense establishment to continue strengthening our relationship with Jordan,” he added, “while deepening ties with other countries in the region.”
Netanyahu said that four more countries were waiting to sign normalization agreements with Israel, without specifying which ones.