Eleanor Beevor
Kuwait is not normally inclined to take front and centre on the stage of international relations. But as tension over the future of Israel-Palestine ratchets up, and the American-led “new deal” is soon to be unveiled, it has been left with little choice. And as a result, it has found itself going up against its closest allies - America, which sponsored Kuwait’s post-Gulf War recovery, and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
On May 7th, Al Rai reported details of a spat between President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US, Salem Abdullah al-Jaber Al Sabah. According to an American diplomatic source cited by the newspaper, Kushner reprimanded the Ambassador for personally embarrassing him and some close US allies.
This was because Kuwait, currently serving as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, had tabled a Security Council motion calling for “special protection” for Palestinian civilians. This was in the wake of the killings of 120 Palestinian protestors by the Israeli Defence Forces in the Gaza strip since March.
Both parties deny that the meeting was a confrontational one. However, it is also reported that Kushner told Ambassador al-Sabah that he had been preparing a joint Arab-American statement on the deaths in Gaza, alongside Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Kuwait’s proposed motion would undermine such a statement.
This is partly because the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council are appointed by geographic region, with the nominal view that they will represent regional concerns on their neighbours’ behalf. But the evident problem is that Arab states’ views on Palestine have never been more divided.
Reshaping regional alliances is the emerging trilateral partnership between America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, (and with the United Arab Emirates following close behind). Whilst an American-Israeli alliance goes back decades, the Saudi position has undergone a radical shift. The ambitious young Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has made clear that countering Iran is the most important end, and that all means are justified in doing so. His warm rhetoric towards Israel has won him the hearts and minds of the ardently pro-Israel Trump administration.
Al Bawaba asked Dr. Kristian Ulrichsen, an expert in Gulf political economy at Rice University’s Baker institute for Public Policy, whether Kuwait was now significantly diverging from the rest of the GCC in regard to Palestine. He said:
“As Kuwait holds one of the rotating seats on the UN Security Council it is understandable that it has taken the lead in responding to recent developments in the Palestinian territories. Whereas historically Kuwait and Saudi Arabia shared a similar position on Israel-Palestine that was more hard-line than some of the other Gulf States such as the UAE or Oman, it is the Saudis under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who arguably have diverged from the Kuwaitis rather than the other way around.”
Historically, Arab leaders had tended to maintain frosty relations with Israel and vocal support for Palestine, if only to keep up appearances. And so Prince Mohammed’s unashamed about turn has Riyadh, and the rest of the Arab world nervous. King Salman was forced to reiterate a declaration of Saudi support for a Palestinian state after Prince Mohammed’s interview in The Atlantic, in the Prince said that Israelis had a right to live peacefully in their own land. It goes to show that even the most authoritarian Arab states handle the Palestinian question with kid gloves.
The GCC remains at the center of Middle East politics. /AFP
However, unlike Saudi Arabia, Kuwait’s population has a degree of freedom with which to express displeasure at their government’s foreign policy. This means that major Kuwaiti shifts on the Palestinian question are not an option. Professor Steffen Hertog, an expert in the politics of the Gulf region at the London School of Economics, told Al Bawaba:
“The Kuwaiti government is under stronger popular constraints, due to the semi-democratic nature of the country and an abiding strong current of Arab nationalism. This is especially strong among the older generation, including some parliamentarians. Kuwait has always been the hub of Arab nationalism on for the lower Gulf, as early as during the 1930s unrest in Palestine.”
This need to stay in step with popular opinion on Israel-Palestine will inhibit Kuwait following the Saudi route, even if it wanted to. Still, this will not entirely free the emirate from a need to balance interests. As a member of the GCC, it is (in theory) meant to be developing an ever closer union of Gulf states. But that membership is also unlikely to determine a new position for Kuwait.
The GCC was intended, one day, to mimic the European Union. It was meant to become an entity with a single market, freedom of movement, and as broad a foreign policy consensus as possible. But presently, the GCC is more divided than it has ever been, given that two of its members were instrumental in the blockading of their fellow member Qatar.
Kuwait has tried to mediate between Qatar and the upholders of the blockade, though to no avail yet. Indeed, Kushner also reportedly told the Ambassador that the US had intervened to prevent the GCC also blockading Kuwait. To what extent this is true is unknown, but it is clear that the GCC is a house divided against itself.
Dr. David Roberts, an expert in the international relations of the Gulf at King’s College London, told Al Bawaba that this degree of division is not, in fact, a new phenomenon.
“The GCC States have long been highly argumentative amongst each other. Almost all bilateral relations have been punctuated with moments of real tension in recent decades. The GCC papered over some of these cracks. It managed to forge agreements on the low-hanging fruit: uncontroversial topics of alignment. However, whenever it came to an issue of political relevance, it broadly failed to forge a consensus. So, while this latest Gulf crisis is certainly the most serious issue the GCC has faced, it is not as if the GCC was ever a particuarly effective organization to begin with.”
Kuwait will still have blowback to contend with. But the question is whether their attempts to protect Palestine will have any effect. The motion that they proposed to the UN Security Council was instantly vetoed by the United States, as is the right of any of the Permanent Five Members. However, a near-identical motion to ensure protections for Palestinians was forwarded to the UN General Assembly on June 14th. It passed with 120 member states in favour, with 8 against and 45 abstaining.
However, a General Assembly vote does not have anything like the decisive power of the votes passed by the Security Council. The General Assembly will now recommend that the Secretary General makes proposals for protecting Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza within sixty days. And, according to the Spokesperson for the Representative of the General Assembly, it represents an “important expression of political will”. But the vote will not force any binding commitments.
Palestine needs all the friends it can get at this time, and the General Assembly vote will still no doubt be a welcome development for them. But its friends will be going up against a new, determined and extremely powerful alliance of interests. Still, despite the power the Saudi, Israeli and American alliance wields, Kuwait goes to show that the rest of the Arab world is not about to unquestioningly follow their lead.
