Transcript: How united are Arab and Muslim leaders on Gaza?

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘How united are Arab and Muslim leaders on Gaza?’

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Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about the Arab and Islamic world and the war in Gaza. My guest is Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House here in London. The Arab and Islamic worlds are united in their denunciations of Israeli actions in Gaza and in their calls for an immediate ceasefire. But can they turn words into action?

Audio clip
(Protesters chanting in foreign language)

Gideon Rachman
The war in Gaza has provoked mass demonstrations across the Muslim world, with huge crowds turning out in capitals as far apart as Jakarta, Cairo and Istanbul. Arab and Muslim leaders have also been active. There was an unprecedented summit meeting in Riyadh earlier this month, which brought together the leaders of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. The pictures coming out of the summit certainly suggested unprecedented unity. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia personally greeted President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran. Here’s Mohammed bin Salman addressing the summit.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in audio clip
This is a humanitarian catastrophe that proves the failure of the international community and the Security Council to put an end to Israel’s gross violations of international laws and the international humanitarian law and proves the dual standards adopted by the world that will undermine peace and security of the world. This requires us to concerted efforts.

Gideon Rachman
Others present at the meeting included the leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, who until recently has been something of a pariah in the Arab world. Another guest was President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey. He has long had uneasy relations with both MBS and Assad. I was in Turkey over the weekend for a meeting organised by Chatham House and the (inaudible) Group. After the discussions, I sat down with Dr Sanam Vakil of Chatham House. I started by asking her about that summit of Arab and Islamic leaders. Are they really as united on Gaza as they seem?

Sanam Vakil
Well, the optics would suggest they are united. But from that summit and the statement that emerged along with some of the reporting, there is not as much unity as there should be. Of course, there has been unity over prioritisation of humanitarian aid, calling for a ceasefire. But there are divergences among Arab states in particular. Alongside Iran, for example, there were calls led by Algeria to boycott Israel more broadly, impose an oil embargo. The Iraqis have a particularly interesting stance where because of their close ties with Iran, they are also being quite critical of Israel and also prioritising a ceasefire and humanitarian aid but would like harsher measures taken. Whereas you have a bloc of five Arab states — Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia — that perhaps see themselves as more moderate and have direct or indirect ties with Israel and hope to play either an immediate or longstanding role in helping the Palestinians, providing humanitarian aid, but also being part of what will be a political settlement.

Gideon Rachman
And how realistic do you think those aspirations are? Do you think at the moment they’re feeling a bit impotent or they’re just standing on the sidelines waiting for their moment?

Sanam Vakil
I think that they are taking their time. They don’t want to be at the front and centre of this crisis. Of course, they’ve been called out by their people for not having prioritised the Palestinian issue. We’ve seen protests across the Arab world in support of Palestine and against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. So I think they’re playing a short-term multilateral game. And longer term, I think that these countries will be very important in incentivising and perhaps even underwriting a political settlement. The west is not necessarily prioritising this conflict. There’s distraction with Ukraine. There is elections coming in many countries next year. And so I think that many Arab states will have a responsibility and an opportunity through this crisis should they take it.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And how much or little is it actually a threat to them domestically? I was very struck in the beginning of the conflict when emotions were running high, and they’re still running very high, for obvious reasons. The Egyptians authorised the demonstration and then it sort of spilled into kind of having an anti-Sisi regime character to it. So did they feel they started walking a tightrope?

Sanam Vakil
Well, of course they’re not all in the same predicament. I think that the Jordanians and the Egyptians are in much more of a position where they have security concerns. Jordan has a very large Palestinian population that is rightfully incensed. Queen Rania has been advocating in favour of humanitarian aid and a ceasefire very regularly. And the Egyptians, because of their shared border and their long history, are also in an uncomfortable position nor do they want the Sinai to become the new home of Palestinians in Gaza. So the protests that we have seen have been quite interesting and you spoke rightly to the fact that Egyptians took the opportunity to actually almost thank the Palestinians for their right to protest. And they very quickly pivoted and complained about bread and the economy and all of their own challenges. And this is a tricky time for Sisi. He’s supposedly embarking on elections in December, and he is indeed walking a tightrope, as are the Jordanians. Broadly, the Gulf states have different dynamics.

Gideon Rachman
Don’t have many demonstrations there.

Sanam Vakil
No, I mean, there were some protests in Bahrain. I think that in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the outpouring of anger is very much managed, contained on social media, channelled in more, let’s say, constructive ways to provide aid and to express frustration in very carefully constructive dialogue. They’re not breaking ties, the Emiratis, they’ve said it front and centre. Normalisation will continue, but, you know, they all see a pragmatism in these dynamics that will be important to continue regardless of this crisis.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. Over here in Turkey, which Erdoğan has over his many years in power often been very strident in his condemnations of Israel over Gaza, previous Gaza conflicts. And he seemed to be actually kind of slightly warming to Netanyahu. But then, bang, this happened and we’ve had huge demonstrations here in Istanbul. What role, if any, do you see the Turks play?

Sanam Vakil
Well, Erdoğan played a very interesting flip-flop over the past month because he was quite cautious. And then he clearly took a much more strident and critical position of Israel, also withdrawing their ambassador. And restoring ties after the rupture was quite difficult, finding the right entry point. So this is quite a move. And it comes on this backdrop of a broader regional diplomacy. Everyone’s normalised ties with each other. So the fact that Erdoğan has taken this position is really reflective of popular anger here in Turkey, frustration that is longstanding, that goes back to previous wars — 2009, 2014.

Gideon Rachman
And we heard a lot of it at this conference. I mean, almost to a man and a woman, the Turkish participants were saying, you know, how can the west lecture us on Ukraine and let stuff about what the Israelis are doing go by?

Sanam Vakil
This definitely exposes western countries and policymakers to criticism of double standards and hypocrisy that have long existed but are being made worse by the war in Ukraine that is wholeheartedly defended by the west and what is perceived in the Middle East to be a green light to Israel to kill Palestinians without respect for international law and human rights. And so that is unleashing all sorts of grievances.

Gideon Rachman
True. And another aspect of that summit in Riyadh was Iran and the president of Iran actually being escorted in by Mohammed bin Salman. What do you make of that?

Sanam Vakil
Really rather extraordinary. I was in Riyadh in mid-October, and there was some speculation in meetings I had. You know, the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement is new. It’s only a number of months old. And I was told that the ball is in Iran’s court. It was Raisi’s turn to reciprocate because Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan, had been to Tehran already. And I was surprised that the opportunity came so quickly. It really speaks to, I think, Iran’s pragmatism right now, recognising that after many years of very tense and difficult ties with the Gulf states and particularly Saudi Arabia, I think they acknowledged that these diplomatic ties are fragile and it’s important to keep them going despite all of the concerns in the region. So I think it was the perfect opportunity for Raisi, the president of Iran, to come to Riyadh because it was under the cover of these double summits. He had some pomp and circumstance, but it wasn’t the full state visit. And they could, you know, show solidarity on humanitarian issues where, of course, Iran plays a broader incendiary role in supporting Hamas and other groups that could destabilise the region further.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And digging into that a bit, there was a very interesting article in the FT by my colleague Najmeh based in Tehran saying that the reaction of the Iranian public was rather different to this, partly because of the hostility of quite a lot of them to their own regime and the way they feel the regime has instrumentalised the Palestinian issue. Is that something you see as well?

Sanam Vakil
Absolutely. Najmeh is a fantastic correspondent and I think she has a really unique perspective in reflecting what is taking place in Iran. Iranians have long been very frustrated that the regime doesn’t reflect or respect their views on foreign policy. There has been a sort of longstanding chant that Iranians use in protest, as they say, not Gaza, not Lebanon, I give my life for Iran. And it really speaks to the decades-long frustration of Iranian resources being channelled abroad rather than spent back home. So that distance between the Iranian street, if you will, and the regime, I think, is quite profound. And of course, in the backdrop of Iran’s protests of last year after the death of the young Mahsa Jina Amini, Iranians are looking for other alternative avenues to distance themselves from the regime that really is holding steadfast against popular frustration. They’re not showing any willingness to reform anywhere, and it creeps out in all sorts of ways.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And that does actually raise an interesting question to me, because the question the public posed — why are you pouring all these resources into Gaza, Lebanon, etc — is a valid one. It’s a longstanding Iranian policy, is that one kind of takes it for granted. But what is Iran’s stake in being the centre of the axis of resistance, as they call it?

Sanam Vakil
It’s a really tricky issue to explain simply. So let me try to make it simple, (laughter) but apologies if my answer is longer than you’d like. It definitely goes back to the Iranian revolution. The ideological nature of the revolution being very anti-American and many of the regime’s leaders seeing the role of the United States and by extension Israel’s presence in the region as being connected to imperialism and colonialism. So there is that ideological worldview hanging there.

And then a second layer emerges from Iran’s experience during the Iran-Iraq war. It felt very much surrounded and isolated by its neighbours. And of course, the west sort of piled in and supported Saddam Hussein in this eight year-long war. And through that experience, they came out having survived and the revolution relatively consolidated. They began to develop relations with non-state actors, recognising that there weren’t too many states in the Middle East that were feeling comfortable with the Islamic Republic and its radical Islamic political system. And so they strengthened their ties and nurtured their ties first with Lebanon’s Hizbollah group.

And over four decades they found opportunities in weak states to also develop relations with political groups, military groups. And it turns out over the years, these sort of hodgepodge of groups in multiple countries ranging from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Yemen have broadly come together as the axis of resistance. And they’re not necessarily ideologically connected by religious faith, but they’re ideologically connected in their opposition to Israel and the role of the United States and the west. And it helps protect Iran. The presence of these groups around Israel and near American military bases in the region, they help protect Iran from being directly attacked within Iran, and that has been known as Iran’s forward defence strategy.

Gideon Rachman
And is that Iran’s forward defence strategy partly what was provoking or at least persuading the Gulf states to go with the Abraham Accords in Bahrain, the UAE, and with the big question until this blew up, the Saudis seemed to be on the brink of also normalising relations. How much of that was about Iran?

Sanam Vakil
Well, certainly the Iran security question is the one that hangs as a thread through all of these conflicts, including the Palestinian one. And it was a driver of normalisation for the Bahrainis and the Emiratis with Israel. But there is an element to that that is broader and it’s tied to the role of the US in the Middle East. And there has been a prevailing view among American partners in the region that the US is deprioritising the Middle East, focusing on its domestic dynamics and issues, focusing on China. And that has left a security vacuum. And so these countries have been looking to solidify their relations with the US and see relations with Israel as the perfect way to do that.

Gideon Rachman
Right. And one of the other interesting guests at this conference in Riyadh was President Assad of Syria. And there’s a certain irony in him signing up to a denunciation of bombing and human rights abuses. But he was there. Does that signal that he’s now made it? He is safe, he’s back in the fold?

Sanam Vakil
I think on the surface, yes, it looks like Assad is here to stay. He has survived the isolation and the efforts at unseating him. But I think his road back and the sort of rehabilitation of Bashar al-Assad isn’t going to be warm and result in investment in Syria or strengthened bilateral ties across the Arab world. I think that this outreach to Bashar al-Assad was really led by the UAE. Again, seeing that the severing of ties across the region that was not just with Syria but also with Iran, there was a period of tension with Turkey. No direct dialogue worked against Emirati interests. And so they sort of paved the way at reconciliation. And it’s underpinned by pragmatism and a security vacuum and looking to directly try to problem-solve some of the challenges, which include also the export of Captagon, the drug being produced in Syria being used to bankroll the Assad regime. And that has posed a sort of domestic challenge across many borders . . . 

Gideon Rachman
(Inaudible) kind of fentanyl.

Sanam Vakil
Exactly. And ultimately thinking that over time, through greater investment, you know, perhaps there could be a more balanced relationship with Syria that could serve Gulf interests and maybe, you know, quite reductively, people have also thought that balanced relations would help Bashar al-Assad also diversify his relations away from Iran and Russia and other countries that are involved.

Gideon Rachman
Last question on the Gaza conflict itself, which has framed, you know, so much of these discussions. I should say we’re talking on a Saturday. This won’t go out till a Thursday. And I hesitate because we always feel to be a day away, an hour away from another really appalling thing happening that could reframe the whole conflict. But with that proviso, do you have a sense that the west’s misgivings about what Israel is doing, which have always been I think in the background, even though I don’t think that many people here in Turkey would necessarily accept that, but that they’re becoming more open and that you hear sometimes people saying Israel’s window is closing in Gaza. Is that an accurate or do you think actually, given how enraged Israel is, that they’re gonna keep going for quite a while?

Sanam Vakil
To be very honest, Gideon, I think it’s really hard to say. I hope the window is closing because I really fear that too many lives have been lost at this point and I think that ordinary Palestinians shouldn’t be paying this price. But I do very much worry. I know that the window is closing from the west’s perspective, but I very much worry that in this climate in Israel today, which is extraordinarily defensive, that they will continue regardless and radicalise. And it is also taking place in the context of increasing violence in the West Bank. And over 100 people have died over there. At the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu is under huge pressure continuing the war. I mean, sorry to sound conspiratorial, but continuing the war is a sort of lifeline to his political survival.

Gideon Rachman
I don’t think that sounds conspiratorial at all. I think, you know, the same thought has occurred to me that the day the war ends, the inquest in Israel begins and the beginning of Netanyahu’s political career.

Sanam Vakil
Yes. Yes. And next Saturday, there will be protests in Israel calling for Netanyahu’s — and, if you will, I think right now, if he doesn’t get these hostages released and we’ve heard much reporting that a deal is on the table, so why these poor individuals haven’t been released is beyond me. So western pressure doesn’t necessarily guarantee a sort of cease and desist on the Israeli side. And my biggest concern is that Israeli society and the Israeli political leadership is not ready to cease and desist because of the horrors of October 7th, but also because of the failures on their end of October 7th and a whole strategy that has effectively collapsed. And that is clear on the Palestinian side. But more broadly, part of the discussion that they are not having that they will also have is that the Iran strategy has also failed. So the two pillars, Iran and Palestine, are collapsing and they need a whole new plan going forward.

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Gideon Rachman
That was Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House in London, ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Please join me again next week.

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