Peace Process

Former diplomats and experts discuss what steps each party should take after the historic White House signing ceremony, and how to bring the Palestinians and other actors into the fold.

The announcement of a peace deal between Israel and Bahrain suggests that the Gulf island kingdom has reassessed the danger of opposition from both its majority Shia population and its Sunni community.

Netanyahu’s strategy of bypassing the intractable Palestinian issue has paid substantial dividends worldwide, but a peace treaty ‘domino effect’ is unlikely in the near term given various calculations in Riyadh and other Arab capitals.

With careful diplomacy, blunt discussion of national interests, and reciprocal steps on the ground, a group of like-minded Arab states could advance Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking while still preserving the API’s core.

Far from producing a melting pot of coexistence and equality, forcing Israelis and Palestinians into a single state would only inflame the conflict and trigger an endless struggle over dominance.

The new season of the Decision Points podcast with host David Makovsky focuses on key Israeli and Arab leaders.

Some Gulf governments have welcomed the paradigm-changing Israel-UAE agreement while others have not, and those who follow Abu Dhabi’s path will do so based on their own interests and timetables.

Statements and actions by Israel and the UAE show how much regional decisionmaking is still shaped by U.S. assurances that enable parties to calibrate their cost-benefit analyses—an approach that could serve as a template for potential future Israel-Gulf ties.

Emirati leaders apparently understood that this move would preserve the two-state option and preempt Iran from exploiting the annexation issue—while also opening access to previously off-limits U.S. weaponry.