At Brussels Signal Ralph Schoellhammer argues that Americans are being misled into thinking that Arabs in the Middle East support Hamas when the reality is that they actually support Israel because they recognize that Iran, for which Hamas is a proxy, is the greater danger:
If one views the Arab-Israeli conflict through the ongoing campus protests at US universities, one could easily get the impression that Israel might be winning militarily, but it is losing the battle for global public opinion. However, anyone who has the slightest understanding of the Middle East knows that the language spoken there is one of power, not popularity.
Contrary to popular belief, the fate of Palestine and its people is not the number one issue for most Arab States, and despite the rhetoric of their propaganda there is a growing willingness to find a lasting arrangement with the state of Israel.
This has been clear since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020 normalizing relations between Israel on side and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on the other. A few months later, Sudan and Morocco joined the accords, marking what has been a tectonic shift in the region – and if it would not have been for the deep-seated prejudice against Donald Trump in the media, should have secured the US President a Nobel Peace Prize.
While I think he has a point I don’t think he’s got it quite right. I think there is a broad gap between popular opinion among Arabs in the Middle East, sometimes referred as the “Arab street”, and the views of the leaders of Arab countries in the Middle East. I think that Mr. Schellhammer interprets the views of the Middle Eastern leaders correctly:
Certainly, public opinion in Saudi Arabia and other places remains staunchly anti-Israel, as recent polling has shown: “Only 14% of respondents agreed to allow Israeli civilian airplanes to fly over Saudi Arabia, and just 13% would permit Israeli sports teams to participate in events in Saudi Arabia, and a mere 7% would welcome Israel’s prime minister to an international conference in Saudi Arabia.”
These views notwithstanding, the reform oriented Arab leaders from Jordan to Saudi Arabia are well aware that the potential peace dividend that could come from the combination of Arab capital and Israeli high tech could be a key element in their modernization plans, and they refuse to make everything contingent on the question of Palestinian statehood.
There is a reason for this and it is not rooted in economic interest as the author avers but in the threat that Islamist radicals pose to the leaderships of Arab countries. Consequently, the basic question is less one of what Arabs believe but of whether the leaders of authoritarian Arab countries will remain in control.
If they do you can expect some modernization of Arab countries in the Middle East somewhat along Chinese lines. If they don’t I suspect we will see increased support for Islamist radicals like Hamas and Hezbollah at the expense all else.