For decades, one of the main assumptions underpinning Arab–Israeli diplomacy was that critical resource interdependence could help stabilise cold peace, particularly for countries below the level of the Abraham Accords. Far from being simply technical arrangements, pipelines, power grids and water agreements were intended to make peace materially useful and politically sustainable.
Within this logic, Israeli gas exported to Egypt and Israeli water supplied to Jordan became part of a wider model of pragmatic cooperation in a region where formal peace agreements often remained politically and socially unpopular. That model has not collapsed. The peace treaties between Israel, Jordan and Egypt remain intact, and security cooperation continues in important ways. Yet, a new resource politics is emerging across Israel’s relationships with both its Southern neighbours.
(Urban Coningham and Alaa Zoubi – RUSI)
The Global Eye is in partnership with SIOI
