By Matthew Mainen
As the rightwing Likud party’s Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to assume the Israeli premiership for the second time in his career, he inherits a Middle East drastically different than that inherited during his first tenure (1996-1999). At the time, Israel was battling a Hamas heavily funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. In Israel recent operation against Hamas, however, it received some of its strongest tactic support from Saudi Arabia, who perceives Hamas as an Iranian proxy.
As Saudi Arabia continues its efforts to thwart Iran’s unrelenting campaign to usurp its religious and political authority over the Arab world through outlets like the Palestinian refugees, the monarchy also has on the table a peace initiative with Israel. As the proposal stands now, however, there is little chance of it being embraced by a rightwing Israeli government.
The peace plan offers Israel recognition and full diplomatic relations with the Arab world in exchange for Israel withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders and the creation of a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem. While the outgoing centrist Israeli government endorsed the spirit of the proposal, concrete steps were not taken to make it a reality for the obvious reason that returning to previous borders would require Israel to cede its most treasured part of Jerusalem, and an influx of several million Palestinian refugees would destroy the Jewish character of Israel and cannot be accommodated by a future Palestinian state.
Before burying the peace plan in light of Netanyahu’s rightwing victory, Saudi Arabia must consider a last ditch effort that would almost certainly solidify the peace proposal as well as serve its own interests by significantly containing Iran’s influence in the Arab world.
By absorbing a substantial portion of Palestinian refugees currently residing in Iranian strongholds (Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza), Saudi Arabia will not only leave Israel in a position where it will be forced to reciprocate with concessions, but the monarchy can also cut the line between Iran and the Palestinians refugees, a major front in Iran’s expansionist ambitions.
The pervasive belief among Arab states has been that an equitable resettling of the Palestinians would destroy their national identity and eliminate a major justification for the war against Zionism, which has served as the crux of Arab unity. It is for this reason that Palestinians are the only people in Saudi Arabia banned from acquiring citizenship through its residency program.
Now, however, as states like Saudi Arabia have entered into a de facto alliance with Israel, the utility of the unification via standing strong against the Jewish state has greatly diminished as a new unifying point, standing strong against Iran, has taken its place. The Palestinian refugees are well aware that their suffering is no longer needed as a battle cry for Arab nationalism as it has been replaced by the more pressing matter of the threat posed by Iran.
It is not surprising that the Palestinians, feeling abandoned, have been so willing to serve Iran’s ambitions, despite not only a difference in national identity, but also in the branch of Islam practiced. Saudi Arabia is beginning to learn that allowing the Palestinian refugees to continue live in their current conditions is only pushing them into the hands of Iran.
To destroy Iran’s incursion into the Arab world through the Palestinian refugees, Saudi Arabia must pry them from Iran’s grip and rescue them from the squalor of the refugee camps, the main recruiting ground for militant groups. This can best be accomplished by placing the refugees outside of Iran’s reach and into Saudi Arabia and other rich Gulf states like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Unlike where the refugees currently reside, these rich Gulf states have the room and resources to economically develop the refugees and drastically improve their living conditions. This process can begin with a sustainable targeted replacement of a portion of the Gulf Trio’s over 10 million foreign workers.
Once the problem of the refugees is solved by resettlement, Saudi Arabia will have removed a vital outlet of incursion into the Arab world from Iran as well as making a final resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict far more attainable than it is today.
Matthew Mainen is a policy analyst at the Institute for Gulf Affairs.
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