RESPONSIBLE sections of the western media have reported that Israel has deployed its Iron Dome and Iron Beam anti-missile defences in the UAE during this period of intense armed hostilities, currently paused, in the Gulf. Along with the equipment, military personnel have also been sent to the Arab Gulf country. These systems have been sent, for the first time, by Israel outside its territories. Neither Israel nor the UAE have denied the reports; hence, there is no reason to doubt their veracity.
The US, under the Trump 1 administration, brokered the normalisation of UAE-Israeli ties in 2020. This was under the rubric of the Abraham Accords. Under their agreement, Israel and the UAE established diplomatic, commercial and security ties. Observers are tracing the deployment of the Iron Dome and the Iron Beam systems to the normalisation of Israel-UAE ties. However, the reasons lie deeper in history.
The implacable enmity between Israel and Iran goes back to the beginning of the Khomeini Revolution in 1979. In the past 47 years, Iran has refused to recognise Israel’s right to exist. That was a position taken by all the Arab states until Egypt recognised Israel in 1978, under Anwar-us-Sadat, in the Camp David Accords. The Arab states considered it a sellout, as did Khomeini. This was different from the Shah of Iran’s approach to Israel; the Shah fled Iran in January 1979. Khomeini returned to the country in February that year and soon took it in his iron grip. That system has continued under the Vilayat-e-Faqih framework.
The UAE’s animosity towards Iran has historical roots. It arose from the traditional cultural superciliousness of Persians towards the Arab bedouin and the disdain with which the Shah treated them. This was exhibited when he occupied the Greater and the Lesser Tunbs and Abu Musa just days before the UAE was formed in December 1971. The Tunbs were disputed between Iran and Ras al Khaimah and Abu Musa between Sharjah and Iran. The Iranian action further embittered relations, but the extent and persistence of negativity became clear when in early 1997, the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (and now Foreign Minister) Abdullah bin Zayed conveyed an astonishing position to India’s then External Affairs Minister IK Gujral. I know this personally and it would be timely to disclose it in more detail than he has done earlier.
Gujral visited Tehran and decided to spend a few hours in Abu Dhabi to meet his counterpart on his way back to Delhi. In Tehran, apart from bilateral ties, he focussed on the situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban had captured Kabul some five months before his visit. Both Iran and India along with Russia were assisting the anti-Taliban alliance. While an exchange of views on Palestine took place, the situation in the Gulf and Iran-Gulf relations were not on the agenda; there was no need for them to be so.
After the Abdullah-Gujral meeting had gone on for some time, after discussions on bilateral ties, the former asked to meet the latter alone. All officials present, including me, left the chamber. Gujral and Abdullah were together for around 20 minutes. Gujral came out and looked troubled. When some of the accompanying officials were alone with him and could talk to him in confidence, they asked what had happened. His words are embedded in my memory. He said that Abdullah had cautioned him on Iran and then had added these words: “We can imagine ourselves to be in the same trenches with Israel against Iran"! In the context of the times, this was a bombshell.
While it was known that Sheikh Zayed, UAE President and Abu Dhabi ruler, as well as some rulers of the six other UAE sheikhdoms did not have positive feelings for Iran, the possibility of their making common cause with Israel against Iran had never been contemplated in Delhi. A little under three decades later, Israel and the UAE have made common cause against Iran and how!
The UAE has moved away in its approaches to society and diplomacy from other Arab Gulf states in recent years. A substantial degree of antipathy has emerged between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), the current Abu Dhabi ruler. UAE senior officials have openly complained that none of the other Arab Gulf states came to their country’s support when it was facing a far higher degree of missile and drone attacks by Iran since the beginning of the present conflict.
This is not far from the facts. In a kind of response, the UAE left OPEC and OPEC+. Having the sixth largest oil reserves and producing over 3 million barrels per day of oil, the UAE is a significant factor in the hydrocarbons world. It will try to chart its own path, but OPEC+ countries will continue to dominate the oil markets. It is likely that the UAE will get more elbow room for taking independent decisions on its oil production, but it will have to align itself on other issues with OPEC +.
MBZ adopted a more liberal social policy, allowing other faiths to open their places of worship. At the same time, Dubai became one of the world’s important financial centres and developed its tourism industry. In taking these steps, the UAE abandoned the exclusivist approaches of Wahhabi Islam and moved in unprecedented directions. While MBS has also softened the rigours of Wahhabism in society, he has not, and indeed cannot, follow MBZ’s example. The House of Saud is in the vanguard of Wahhabism. Will MBS and other Gulf rulers now subtly preach that MBZ has gone too far?
It is important that Indian analysts in government and outside extend their study of the Arab peninsula to its theological moorings, the tribal roots of its societies and polities and its internecine quarrels which impact the policies of its countries. The lesson from these studies will reveal that it will be shortsighted for India to give primacy to one state as it is doing today.
