There is hardly any other country in which superlatives are more visible than in the United Arab Emirates, a country of superlatives: clean streets set in the sand, postmodern skyscrapers that win international architectural awards. The fact that the Gulf emirate is also increasingly playing a more important role in the political arena has often been ignored, especially by the West.
A new coup is a water facility on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Thanks to this innovation built by the Emirates, 4.5 million liters of drinking water can be pumped into Gaza every day. This is taken from the Mediterranean and the salt is removed from the water. The Emirates are familiar with this technology; after all, without this sophisticated technology, hardly a tree would grow in their bone-dry desert state. Now they are making their expertise available to the beleaguered Palestinians.
With the aid program, Abu Dhabi could further increase its international reputation here, on the newly flared conflict line in the Middle East. The project not only includes the desalination plant, evacuation flights for injured children out of Gaza are also organized, and a field hospital was built in the war zone. However, none of this would be possible without cooperation with Israel. Emirati officials repeatedly emphasize how important their cooperation with the former enemy is. It is said that this is the only way to help the Palestinians. And it should also show: the Emirates have influence.
The oil-rich Gulf country is currently in a rather complicated situation. After Abu Dhabi established official relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the so-called Abraham Accords, it actually believed that it had set the course for the future. But then Hamas invaded southern Israel on October 7 and carried out a massacre there. Since then there has been war and Israel’s army is penetrating deeper and deeper into the coastal strip.
The Emirates had hoped to join forces with Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in building a new Middle East in which politics would be a thing of the past and common economic interests would prevail above all else. Now they find themselves in the middle of bloody chaos.
The rulers in the Emirates are currently walking a tightrope. On the one hand, they don’t want to alienate their angry Arab brothers, but they are also determined to continue on the current path. Flights to Tel Aviv are currently reduced, and Israeli tourist groups are missing from the newly built synagogue in Abu Dhabi. The Israeli embassy is still operating normally.
The Emirates have actually had a good year. The economy grew by four percent, the leadership was already dreaming about economic areas of the future, concluded a free trade agreement with India and invited people to the COP environmental conference last fall. The high-tech nation of Israel was considered an important partner.
But now dark clouds are gathering. There are fires everywhere: In the Red Sea, the Houthis are disrupting international shipping, and in Lebanon and Iraq, militias are threatening the US with war. In the background, the ongoing conflict with Iran, which the Gulf states had reduced to a tolerable level, is flaring up again.
In addition, the images from Gaza are causing public spirit to flare up everywhere in the Middle East. The Emirate’s reputation has suffered because of its friendship with Israel. While Qatar is making a name for itself as the chief negotiator thanks to its ties to Hamas, the hands of the staunchly anti-Islamist Emirates are tied in this regard.
Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offended the Emir of Abu Dhabi when he reportedly asked him to please pay the salaries of Palestinian workers who were unable to return to Israel after October 7. In Abu Dhabi, where those in power are no longer interested in being seen as rich donor uncles, something like this doesn’t go down well. Just like Israel’s harsh warfare in Gaza. To the outside world, hardly anyone in the Gulf talks about the differences. Instead, faith in the new Middle East that has recently suffered scratches is upheld.
Some experts say that the “prototype of the new Middle East” is Dubai, while that of the old one is Beirut, Baghdad and broken Gaza. Where would you rather live? For the analysts in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it is clear where the real enemy is. “Of course we are shocked by what is happening in Gaza, it is human. But when the rulers in Abu Dhabi or Riyadh get up in the morning, they wonder less what Israel is up to and more about what Iran plans to do next.”
Many here see Iran as enemy number 1. “Israel is at least a rational actor or at least has a greater rational basis,” says an advisor to the ruling family. “Iran, on the other hand, is an ideological state.” Accordingly, there is disappointment in the Emirates with the attitude of the Americans, many of whom would like to take a tougher stance towards Tehran. At the same time, Abu Dhabi itself maintains good relations with rivals from the West, such as China and Russia.
There are still great hopes for the authoritarian Gulf state. Neighboring Dubai, just under an hour’s drive from Abu Dhabi, has long since become the dream city of many Arabs who are fed up with the chaos in their home countries. Politics play no role in the futuristic trading city that looks like it was built on Mars.
“It’s all about the money here,” says a Lebanese woman who came here to pursue a career. Hardly any place in the Middle East is as multicultural and diverse as Dubai. At the same time it seems like the final stage of capitalism. The war in Gaza seems light years away. Demonstrations are not allowed anyway, nobody talks about politics. There are only a few Palestine pennants hanging in the artists’ quarter of Azerkal.
Nevertheless, cracks appear. The Emirates complain that they currently have no partners on the Israeli side. They have just as much difficulty dealing with radical ideologues as the right-wing extremist Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich do in Israel. And the unpredictable ups and downs of democracy with its abrupt changes of course are also alien to the Gulf state, which is run like a multinational company.
Simply pursuing peace can become misleading. October 7 in the United Arab Emirates is seen as a battle between the new and the old Middle East. In Israel, this fight is probably between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but in the Emirates it is a battle between Dubai and the Iranian mullah city of Qom, between Dubai and the Caliphate.
All publishing rights and copyrights reserved to MENA Research Center.
