Qatar, although much more careful with its public statements on Iran since its emergence as the region’s most energetic peace-broker, has also been caught out by leaked cables. Notably, in one from 2009 the Qatari prime minister characterised the emirate’s relationship with Iran as being one in which ‘they lie to us and we lie to them’.[725] Nevertheless, Qatar seems to have avoided falling into the front line role now occupied by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE. This is likely due to its particularly precarious situation: hosting major US military facilities while at the same time having to share its largest gas resource — the offshore North Field — with Iran. Similarly Oman has been more cautious in opposing Iran despite the presence of western bases on its soil and its very high spending on western armaments. Speaking in 2008 in a private conversation with a senior US Navy official, Oman’s Sultan came across as more pragmatic than his neighbouring rulers, while his public statements have been similarly realistic. This is unsurprising given that he is by far the longest serving ruler in the region and has had considerable experience of dealing with pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. Moreover, with Oman’s Musandam Peninsula stretching into the strategic Strait of Hormuz, his is the Gulf monarchy closest to Iran, and — perhaps most importantly — as with Qatar, Oman shares a major offshore gas field with the Islamic Republic. Indeed, 80 per cent of the Henjam field lies in Iranian waters, and the National Iranian Oil Company has earmarked $800 million for the field’s development[726]—an investment Oman is unlikely to be able to match. Tellingly, in his 2008 conversation Qaboos bin Said Al-Said commented to the US official that the ‘Iranians are not fools’ and claimed that ‘Tehran realised there are certain lines it cannot cross [i.e. direct confrontation with the US]’. Most significantly, on the subject of the Gulf monarchies and Iran he stated ‘Iran is a big country with muscles and we must deal with it’ but that ‘as long as the US is on the horizon, we have nothing to fear’.[727]
Another interesting stance on Iran, although now having little bearing on the region’s security situation, is that of the Sharjah and Dubai ruling families. As one of the Persian Gulf’s most established ports Sharjah has long been home to a substantial Iranian-origin community and, despite having lost one of its outlying islands to Iran in 1971, relations have remained fairly warm. The Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum has always maintained an office in Tehran and in 2001 the company signed a $1 billion 25 year agreement with the National Iranian Oil Company to pipe some 500 million cubic feet per day of Iranian natural gas to the emirate.[728] Similarly, as the region’s biggest port, with a long history of laissez-faire policies, Dubai has been home to substantial Iranian-origin communities for over a century, and has a well documented track record of supporting, or at least remaining neutral with regards to Iran. Even when Abu Dhabi and most other Gulf monarchies openly backed Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Dubai’s ruler remained famously impartial, with the city’s port facilities remaining open to Iranian vessels and its radio station continuing to broadcast the Iranian version of the news. As the relevance of Dubai’s foreign policies have declined following the integration of its armed forces into the Abu Dhabi-led UAE Armed Forces in the 1990s and — as many have speculated — following the bailouts of its economy by Abu Dhabi in recent years, it had been assumed that the emirate’s stance on Iran would eventually fall into line with that of Abu Dhabi. To some extent this has been true, with Dubai’s ruling family having had little choice but to accede to Abu Dhabi’s desire to make the UAE conform to US-led sanctions on Iranian trade. Since about 2008 it has become much harder for Iranian businessmen to transfer money in and out of Dubai, or in some cases even to open bank accounts. Nevertheless such restrictions are viewed as harmful to Dubai’s livelihood, and the emirate’s ruler has publicly stepped out of line on Iran, arguing in a December 2011 CNN interview that Iran is not trying to acquire nuclear weapons ‘despite Western suspicions that it is trying to develop them’ and asking, rhetorically, ‘What can Iran do with a nuclear weapon?’[729]
Israeclass="underline" the unholy alliance
Perhaps even more controversial and risky than hawkishness towards Iran has been the discreet strengthening of political and economic relations between some of the Gulf monarchies and Israel. Seemingly a function of reinforcing relations with their Western security guarantors and hardening the anti-Iran front, but also a consequence of building lucrative trade links with one of the region’s most advanced economies, some Gulf rulers appear willing to co-operate and collaborate secretly with Israel. This is an especially dangerous policy, given the Gulf monarchies’ long history of boycotting Israel, their public alignment with the Arab ‘Refusal Front’,[730] and — as discussed — their provision of substantial development aid to Palestine. Moreover, their national populations are for the most part anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, with the topics of Israel and Zionism often stirring strong emotions. Certainly, many Gulf nationals grew up watching the Palestinian Intifada on television[731] and the liberation of Palestine definitely remains a shared ideal among the region’s youth. It is likely too that most of the expatriate populations in the Gulf monarchies share similar views. And there are of course substantial, long-serving communities of Palestinians in every Gulf monarchy. In some cases there are even naturalised Palestinian-origin Gulf nationals who were born in refugee camps serving as senior advisors to rulers’ courts and occupying other powerful positions.
Since their independence and the drafting of constitutions or, in Saudi Arabia’s case, the promulgation of its Basic Law, there have been legal articles and clauses in the Gulf monarchies which have required government personnel, businesses, and even individual residents to boycott all connections with Israel. In the UAE’s case for example there has always been an Israel Boycott Office squirreled away somewhere in the federal government, and since 1971 federal law number 15 has stipulated that ‘…any natural or legal person shall be prohibited from directly or indirectly concluding an agreement with organisations or persons either resident in Israel, connected therewith by virtue of their nationality or working on its behalf’.[732] For many years, however, the boycott office’s work has extended far beyond a straightforward embargo on trade between UAE-based companies and Israel. Notably, telephone calls to Israel have been barred, websites with an Israeli suffix have been blocked by the state-owned telecommunications company,[733] and Israeli nationals have not been permitted to enter the UAE, nor — in theory — have any visitors been allowed to enter the UAE that possessed Israeli visa stamps in their passports.[734]
Up until 2003 Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up was frequently publishing anti-Semitic material and hosting internationally condemned anti-Semitic speakers.[735] According to the US Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the UAE authorities also reportedly fail to prevent anti-Semitic cartoons from being published in the two bestselling state-backed Arabic newspapers—Al-Ittihad and Al-Bayan.[736] The cartoons often depict Israeli leaders being compared to Hitler, and Jews being portrayed as demons. In January 2009, at the height of the Gaza conflict, the UAE’s bestselling English language newspaper, Gulf News, not only featured such a cartoon (featuring an Israeli soldier with a forked red tongue),[737] but also published a Holocaust revisionist piece which claimed ‘…it is evident that the Holocaust was a conspiracy hatched by the Zionists and the Nazis, and many innocent people gave their lives as a result of this inhuman plot… the Holocaust was a major crime in history and the Israeli culprit is at it again today’.[738]
730
73. Roy, Olivier,
732
75. See Hall, Marjorie J.,
734
77. In practice it is possible to enter the UAE with Israeli passport stamps, but no effort has been made to clarify the situation.
735
78. Davidson (2008). pp. 199–200. Until its closure in 2003 the ZCCF hosted a number of anti-Semitic speakers including members of the International Progress Organisation.
736
79. US Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 2007 report on the United Arab Emirates.
737
80.