(Israel Hayom) Dr. Nirit Ofir - For the past two decades, Israel has not been considered totally off-limits by the Arab world. It started with a trickle of businesspeople who held dual citizenship going to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the early 2000s, Israeli experts teaching courses in Qatar, and Prof. Ron Rubin setting up a satellite campus of New York University in Abu Dhabi. Now Israel is openly heading toward formal relations with the Gulf. The upheavals of the past decade caused the ruling powers in many Muslim and Arab states to become aware that Israel is no longer the Zionist enemy that threatens to destroy the Arab world, but rather an oasis of calm in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are losing status, mostly because of the split in the PLO and the fact that the vast sums of money Gulf states have sent the Palestinian people are being wasted on illicit gifts for PA officials and terrorism. The writer is a research fellow at the University of Haifa's Ezri Center for Iran and the Gulf Studies.
2019-07-18 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive