In the summer of 2011, I was aboard a ship bound from Athens
for the Gaza Strip. I was covering the second Gaza flotilla for The Nation. A
year before, Palestinian solidarity activists sent several aid ships to Gaza to
highlight Israel’s maritime blockade of the Palestinian territory. The Israeli
navy intercepted the ships, commandos boarded the vessels, and several
activists were killed by soldiers. Given the international outcry, activists
arranged another flotilla in 2011, but the boats never left port.
اضافة اعلان
Before the boats entered the open ocean, the Greek navy
intercepted the ships. According to activists and sources inside the Greek
government, Israeli officials threatened to derail talks concerning prospective
gas pipelines between the two countries if Greece failed to prevent the
activists from setting sail. Israel didn’t want a repeat of the first flotilla
and had no problem threatening a significant economic deal with Greece, even
though the Greek economy was in free fall at the time.
This story highlights the complex nature of regional
economic deals with Israel. Since the discovery of massive natural gas fields
off Israel’s northern coast, there have been myriad efforts to export that gas
to Europe. Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Lebanon have tried to hammer out some
infrastructure to benefit all parties involved. Yet, politics has always found
a way to intrude.
Israel’s willingness to put political interests ahead of
trade should be top of mind for American officials punting a new economic
corridor linking India with Europe through the Middle East. US President Joe
Biden unveiled the plan at the recent G20 summit in India. If implemented, the
project will be a serious challenge to China’s ascendant trade and investment
strategy, which has brought several countries into the Chinese sphere of
influence over the past decade.
Under the Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese have
invested heavily in regional trade infrastructure with the goal of making
economic inroads that led to Beijing. Through various state-owned companies,
the Chinese have also lent substantial money to countries in Asia, the Middle
East, and Africa in a further bid to create a new Chinese-led global economy.
While China has sought deeper influence in global affairs
for years, smaller countries increasingly seek non-Western alliances to serve
their political and economic futures. The recent expansion of the BRICS
grouping of nations to include vital American allies like Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates exemplifies how geopolitical and economic cooperation
among emerging countries is shifting away from the American-led model of the
past five decades.
Yet, the Chinese economy is in a prolonged slump, and the US
appears to sense an opportunity to play China’s game by creating its own trade
project. Connecting India with Europe through the Middle East is a logical
place for America to lean on its partnerships and exercise soft power. The US
desperately needs to underline its position as the world’s superpower through
fresh economic initiatives that remind nations of the value of working with
Washington. The India-Europe economic corridor is one such initiative. Yet, the
plan is fraught with hazards primarily due to America’s key allies in the
project.
Cooperation among these allies in the Middle East will be at
the heart of this trade plan. The Abraham Accords, which normalized relations
between the UAE and Israel, were a significant step in creating a new economic
bloc in the Middle East that could enable a trade corridor to take shape. The
prospect of a Saudi Arabia-Israel normalization agreement is equally vital to
enabling new trade infrastructure conditions. Yet, this agreement is proving to
be elusive.
Given that Saudi Arabia and Israel are America’s most
important allies in the region, the failure of a normalization deal would be a
significant blow to America’s prestige and power. Saudi Arabia and Israel both
have growing relations with China and, at least in the case of Israel, a track
record of ignoring Washington’s direct requests. America has a lot to lose if
this trade deal falls apart.
Israeli trade deals don’t generally unfold due to sound
economic interests alone. Instead, Israel leans on its financial clout to
advance geopolitical objectives. This was evident in its behavior with Greece
around the Gaza flotilla and Israel's record of economic partnerships with some
of the world’s most authoritarian regimes.
Consider Israel’s growing relationship with China. Since
establishing relations with Israel in 1992, China has sought to entrench its
ties with Tel Aviv in technology and innovation. This helps the Chinese
knowledge economy and adds an essential node to China’s ongoing competition
with the US. In recent years, China has directly invested in Israeli
infrastructure, including major port facilities in Haifa, which would likely be
a vital part of America’s India-Europe economic corridor proposal. China could
seek to torpedo America’s trade corridor plan through its investments in
Israel.
The balance of power is slowly shifting away from the West
towards countries in the emerging world. Smaller countries like Israel and the
UAE are discovering that they have much more to gain by keeping their
geopolitical and economic options open in this new landscape of geopolitics. If
the US wants to remain the world’s sole superpower, it needs to hammer out
substantial trade deals and remind its key allies that Washington can be relied
upon.
Joseph Dana is a writer based in South Africa and the
Middle East. He has reported from Jerusalem, Ramallah, Cairo, Istanbul, and Abu
Dhabi. He was formerly editor-in-chief of emerge85, a media project based in
Abu Dhabi exploring change in emerging markets. X: @ibnezra
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