Israel’s Bad Bet on ‘Friends’ in the Middle East
JERUSALEM—Last year Oman’s Foreign Minister Yousuf bin Alawi told a gathering of Middle Eastern leaders in Bahrain that it was time to treat Israel like part of the Middle East. His speech came in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Oman.
This year, when Jordan’s King Abdullah spoke after being honored at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he said that unless the U.S. could help solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute Israel would not be fully integrated with its neighbors.
The two statements frame a debate that is fundamental to Israel’s relations with the the Arab and non-Arab Muslim-majority countries in this region.