Barely days after Israel and Hamas signed a cease-fire to end the recent cycle of violence, a museum in Dubai called Crossroad of Civilizations featured an exhibition dedicated to the history of the Holocaust and the horrors of antisemitism. Soon after, on June 2, Israeli and Emirati businessmen at Dubai’s Global Investment Forum discussed bilateral trade as their governments signed a double taxation avoidance treaty, and the Emiratis invited Israel to set up shop in a free trade zone.
Israel’s disproportionate use of force against the Palestinians bothered its newest Arab partners but not enough to question the normalization of relations created by last year’s Abraham Accords. Those diplomatic deals triggered billions of dollars of economic activity and bolstered national security for Israel and the four Arab countries involved. No one was interested in sacrificing those gains, even during a war that killed around 250 Palestinians, including 66 children. It was an early test of the theory that peace in the Middle East would be attained not in exchange for land but for the sake of business and mutual protection against common enemies.
