War, Political Economy, and Palestine

So the Arab Gulf states and the Israeli regime have long been pillars of the US imperial project in the Middle East.

How is this relationship changing today in light of the current regional war, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the shifting global dynamics?

I think the first thing to say is you're absolutely right.

It is a long-standing strategy.

Uh, and I think what we've seen in the last two decades or so is an attempt by the United States to normalize the relationships between these two, these two pillars, the, uh, Arab Gulf states and Israel, normalize the political and economic and diplomatic relationships between these two pillars.

And this, I think, is something that clearly predates the genocide in Gaza and obviously the current war.

Uh, and I think understanding that trajectory of US strategy needs to be put in the context of the, of the bigger geopolitics, the geopolitical moment that we're living today.

In particular, I think we can identify the relative decline of American power globally.

In response to that, what the United States is attempting to do is to reassert its primacy in places like the Middle East.

And one way it sees of doing that is to bring together these two pillars under kind of a bigger American umbrella.

And this is in particular, uh, I think in response to the rise of challenges like China, in particular, and the centrality, uh, of the region's energy supplies for China.

China depends upon the Gulf States for about, uh, 60% of its oil and gas imports.

And I think it's a longer, the bigger part of this American strategy is to push back against China's connections and bigger influence in the region through this normalization project.

I can't agree more with, with Adam.

And so maybe I should turn to looking at it from the perspective of what Israel is trying to do because I think that the perspective that really hasn't been analyzed very much.

And on that front, there's two things.

The first is that prior to October of 2023, there was a real push within Israel to push forward this normalization project.

And the normalization project was in large part because they wanted to sideline Palestinians and instead send the message to the Israeli public that they never really need to do anything with Palestinians, but instead they can have peace, and they can have economic ties with the Arab world without ever ending the occupation, without ever getting rid of the colonial project, and of course, without ever addressing Palestinian refugee rights and the right for return.

And so that was something that existed before October of 2023.

In the aftermath of October of 2023, the Israeli public just, quite frankly, didn't care for normalization.

It wasn't something that was top of agenda, and it's still not something that is top of agenda.

And so instead, Netanyahu turned his sights on how to weaken the Arab states and how to weaken the impact and, uh, the economic, uh, effect of these states.

And so that's why, in large part, w- as we've seen over the course of the past few months with this war, a war that was pushed forward by, by Israel, that one of their goals has been to drive a rift betweenThese Arab states, and there has been a rift, uh, as well as to try to weaken them economically with the attempt to be that, that Israel becomes the regional power, and that the issue is no longer one of normalization, but instead of these countries being forced to deal with Israel because the only way that they can get to the United States is through Israel.

And so we've seen that this shift has happened over the course of the past few months, but it's in part because of the shift that Israel has been putting forward over the course of the past few years as well.