Washington encourages Israel-Arab alliance

WASHINGTON: With a new leader in the White House bent on disrupting the status quo, could it also be time for a fresh approach to Middle East peace?

The United States this week encouraged a "regional" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, backing a proposal for the Jewish state to unite with Arab powers against Iran, their common foe.

The first meeting at the White House between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took place on Wednesday, with the proceedings dominated by the US leader backing away from longstanding American policy of calling for a "two-state" solution.

Trump’s aides contributed to the confusion by stating that Washington remained committed to the two-state solution that remains a staple of Mideast diplomacy, but added that the administration was also open to alternative solutions.

Netanyahu was more specific in proposing a regional alliance to help attain peace in the Middle East -- a proposal that Trump called "a terrific thing" during their joint news conference on Wednesday.

"We think the larger issue today is how do we create the broader conditions for broad peace in the Middle East between Israel and the Arab countries," Netanyahu said on Thursday on MSNBC.

"That’s something that may have a new opportunity because of the fact that many of the Arab countries now see Israel not as their enemy but as their ally in confronting the large threat of Iran and the Islamic State group -- that is, the twin Islamist forces that threaten all of us. That is bringing us closer together and may also help pave avenues for peace."

Trump affirmed that the United States would work "very, very diligently" on a "great peace deal" -- with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is Jewish, expected to lead the American effort.

The US president said Netanyahu’s proposal for a regional alliance was something that "hasn’t been discussed before," noting it would take in "many, many countries and it would cover a very large territory."

More specifically, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Israel, lawyer David Friedman, has pushed for cooperation between Israel and Sunni Arab nations in opposing Iran.

"The Gulf states, the Egyptians, the Jordanians and the Israelis are all united, perhaps inadvertently so, but they’re all united in a common concern about Iran. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism," Friedman said during his Senate confirmation hearing, during which he was grilled on his right-wing views.

US experts said the alignment of interests between Israel and Arab countries against the Iranian regime should be supported by the Trump administration, which has already broken from the policies of predecessor Barack Obama who had signed the landmark deal giving Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

"Trump has the potential to pull off a major diplomatic coup between Israel and the Gulf states in countering Iran’s threat," Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, told AFP.

So sensitive is the issue that Israeli authorities rarely -- if ever -- specifically name Arab countries when speaking publicly on the subject, with the exception of Egypt and Jordan which have peace deals with Israel and maintain diplomatic relations. Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar do not have diplomatic relations with Israel -- although that does not prevent them from sharing informal links.