Dr. Abdulrahman Al Dhaheri
When the United Arab Emirates established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020, the calculation went well beyond opening embassies or expanding trade and investment. The decision was part of a broader view of the UAE’s place in a region where the instruments of power were changing. Diplomacy, economics, technology and security were becoming increasingly intertwined, and influence could no longer be measured by military strength alone.
What followed, especially after the Gaza war began in October 2023, showed how difficult it is to separate relations with Israel from the wider Arab environment. For Abu Dhabi, the value of the relationship is not simply commercial or bilateral. It also lies in having a direct channel to a state deeply involved in some of the region’s most sensitive questions.
The UAE did not normalize relations with Israel in order to become part of an Israeli-led regional axis. That is an important distinction.
While developing ties with Israel, Abu Dhabi kept channels open with Iran, expanded relations with Turkey, India, China and Europe, preserved its strategic partnership with the United States, and remained firmly embedded in the Gulf and Arab political frameworks.
This is less a policy of blocs than a policy of multiple partnerships.
That helps explain what the UAE sees in its relationship with Israel. The economic, technological and security interests are obvious. But the broader political advantage is direct access to an actor that sits at the center of some of the region’s hardest disputes. Rather than simply absorbing the consequences of regional crises, Abu Dhabi wants to be close enough to influence them.
Then Gaza raised the political cost of that approach.
The continuation of the war, the heavy civilian toll and widening Arab and international disagreements over Gaza’s future and Palestinian statehood made relations with Israel more politically sensitive. The challenge for the UAE became more complicated: how to preserve the relationship without allowing it to define the country’s wider Arab policy or regional identity.
That is where the distinction between normalization and endorsement becomes essential.
Diplomatic relations do not require political alignment. Abu Dhabi can maintain official ties with Israel while disagreeing with the Israeli government over Gaza, settlements, Palestinian statehood and the future regional order. From the Emirati perspective, the existence of a direct channel can itself create room for dialogue and influence that states without formal relations do not possess.
But the more important question is no longer whether UAE-Israel relations will survive.
It is this: what kind of region does the UAE want to help build?
The broader pattern of Emirati foreign policy suggests an effort to encourage a region that depends less on open-ended conflict and more on economic connectivity, trade, infrastructure and overlapping interests. That helps explain Abu Dhabi’s focus on Gulf security, maritime routes, economic stability, countering armed groups and keeping communication open even with rivals.
Within that framework, Israel can be part of the equation, but it is not the equation itself.
The UAE cannot build regional influence around one relationship or one capital. Much of its political weight comes precisely from its ability to operate across circles that often pull in different directions: Washington and Beijing, Tehran and Tel Aviv, the Gulf and Asia, Western markets and emerging economies.
That ability to sit at the intersection of competing networks, rather than at the edge of a single camp, gives Emirati diplomacy room to maneuver beyond the country’s geographic and demographic size.
The wager, then, appears larger than normalization itself.
It is about turning a network of relationships into political leverage, and turning that leverage into a role in shaping the region’s next balance of power rather than merely adjusting to it after the fact.
The Palestinian issue, however, will remain the hardest test of this strategy.
As long as the conflict remains unresolved and Gaza remains a political and humanitarian wound, relations with Israel will continue to carry a cost for Arab states that normalized ties. But if a serious political process emerges around Gaza’s reconstruction, new security arrangements and a credible path toward Palestinian statehood, Arab-Israeli relations could eventually become part of a broader regional structure rather than a collection of isolated bilateral agreements.
That is where the Emirati wager becomes clearest.
Abu Dhabi does not want to choose between Israel and its Arab surroundings, nor does it want to lock itself into a single strategic camp. It wants enough room to engage with all sides, disagree when necessary, and remain present when the region’s rules are being rewritten.
Seen this way, the relationship with Israel is not the end point of the UAE’s regional strategy.
It is one instrument within it.