Marco Rubio treats himself to a Middle East reality check

 

By James M. Dorsey

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Marco Rubio is likely in for a reality check when he visits the Middle East for the first time this week as US Secretary of State.

Mr. Rubio already knows what to expect when he lands in Tel Aviv, even though he was off touring Central America when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in town for President Donald J. Trump’s Gaza beachfront resort pitch.

Mr. Netanyahu hasn’t made Mr. Rubio’s mission any easier.

On the eve of Mr. Rubio’s trip, Mr. Netanyahu doubled down on his rejection of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a Saudi precondition for the kingdom’s establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel by suggesting Saudi Arabia was big enough to accommodate a Palestinian state on Saudi territory. 

Speaking from Washington, Mr. Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 12, “The Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia; they have a lot of land over there.”

Mr. Rubio has a laundry list of topics he wants to discuss during his stops in three key Gulf states: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

The list includes the second-phase Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Gulf funding for the Strip’s reconstruction, Saudi recognition of Israel, increased US-Gulf security cooperation, Chinese influence in the Middle East, and increased Gulf oil production.

Mr. Rubio is likely to discover that Mr. Trump’s plan to move most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians out of the Strip to Egypt, Jordan, and other countries willing to accept them is a showstopper.

 

The 1948 Nakba. Credit: Arab Center DC

No Arab state can afford to be seen as participating in a repeat Nakba or Catastrophe, the term Palestinians and much of the Muslim world uses for the 1948 expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians when Israel was established.

The Gulf states are likely to present Mr. Rubio with a stark choice: the key to much of what the Trump administration wants, including Gulf funding for Gaza, Saudi-Israeli relations, and increased oil production to lower the price of oil, is abandoning Mr. Trump’s resettlement plan, securing a Gaza ceasefire that involves a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, and a credible and irrevocable commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr. Trump’s plan creates a bottleneck for practical and political reasons.

Neither Israel nor Hamas has an interest in maintaining the Gaza ceasefire beyond its first phase if US policy recognises de facto Israeli sovereignty over Gaza in violation of international law.

Without a ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal, the Gaza war is likely to morph into a Hamas-led guerrilla war, which some Arab states may covertly support. The notion of reconstruction would be off the table. So would Arab support for a post-war transitional administration of Gaza.

As a result, Mr. Rubio is also likely to discover that leverage is a two-way street. Mr. Trump is unlikely to achieve his regional goals without the Gulf states. Moreover, Mr. Trump needs more than Gulf acquiescence; he needs Gulf states to put their money where their mouth is.

The Gulf states must play Mr. Trump’s game to deploy their leverage effectively. The president uses shock-and-awe therapy in which he takes on the role of the unpredictable madman who changes the rules and shifts discourse by intimidating his interlocutors and rivals.

In response, the Gulf states need to package assets they have already put on the table in a way that Mr. Trump can claim his theatrics have forced Middle Eastern states to take ownership and shoulder the cost of ending the Gaza war. This would allow the president to back away from his resettlement plan.

The packaging becomes more urgent with Jordanian King Abdullah scheduled to meet Mr. Trump this week in the White House and reports that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi could visit Washington later this month.

Mr. Trump’s 90-day freeze on US foreign aid hits Jordan hard. Unlike Egypt and Israel, Jordan was not exempted from the freeze. The United States gives Jordan some US$2 billion annually in direct budget support, military and economic aid, and refugee funding.

“In Jordan, we are talking about an existential threat, not a security threat. Jordan may not remain if the displacement project is implemented, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will move with all its momentum to perhaps become an internal Jordanian conflict,” said Oraib al-Rantawi, the director of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have the building blocks for a package that could persuade Mr. Trump to drop his resettlement plan.

The building blocks include Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s intention to invest US$600 billion in the United States over the next four years, the UAE’s interest in participating in an interim post-war administration of Gaza, possibly with boots on the ground, and Saudi and Emirati pledges to cooperate with the United States rather than China on artificial intelligence.

In response, the Gulf states need to package assets they have already put on the table in a way that Mr. Trump can claim his theatrics have forced Middle Eastern states to take ownership and shoulder the cost of ending the Gaza war. This would allow the president to back away from his resettlement plan.

The packaging becomes more urgent with Jordanian King Abdullah scheduled to meet Mr. Trump this week in the White House and reports that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi could visit Washington later this month.

Mr. Trump’s 90-day freeze on US foreign aid hits Jordan hard. Unlike Egypt and Israel, Jordan was not exempted from the freeze. The United States gives Jordan some US$2 billion annually in direct budget support, military and economic aid, and refugee funding.

“In Jordan, we are talking about an existential threat, not a security threat. Jordan may not remain if the displacement project is implemented, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will move with all its momentum to perhaps become an internal Jordanian conflict,” said Oraib al-Rantawi, the director of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have the building blocks for a package that could persuade Mr. Trump to drop his resettlement plan.

The building blocks include Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s intention to invest US$600 billion in the United States over the next four years, the UAE’s interest in participating in an interim post-war administration of Gaza, possibly with boots on the ground, and Saudi and Emirati pledges to cooperate with the United States rather than China on artificial intelligence.

Mr. Bin Salman could use some of that investment for the funding of the reconstruction by US companies of Gaza and the war-ravaged economies of Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, and Libya.

The Gulf states’ problem may be that even if they come to an understanding with Mr. Trump, Elon Musk’s wrecking ball destruction of the federal bureaucracy could leave the US government deprived of capabilities needed to assist in the reconstruction of not only Gaza but also other Arab states. These include mine clearance, rubble removal, restoration of water and sanitation services, and security force training.

Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari officials may take heart from Democratic Senator Chris Murphy’s prediction in their discussions with Mr. Rubio.

“I have news for you — we aren’t taking over Gaza. But the media and the chattering class will focus on it for a few days, and Trump will have succeeded in distracting everyone from the real story — the billionaires seizing government to steal from regular people,” Mr Murphy said on X.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.