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Saudi-UAE notions of Islam are at the core of Israeli thinking on post-war Gaza
By James M. Dorsey
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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government is mulling a proposal for the post-war administration of Gaza that would put the battle to define moderate Islam in the 21st century on the front burner of Middle Eastern politics and allow the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to export their autocratic notion of ‘moderate’ Islam.
Potentially, the 32-page proposal, if successfully implemented, would give the two Gulf states a leg up in their propagation of a socially less restrictive, religiously more tolerant Islam that rejects democracy and political pluralism, advocated by Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest, most moderate Muslim civil society movement, in favour of a contested Islamic principle of absolute obedience to the ruler.
Entitled “From a Murderous Regime to a Moderate Society,” the proposal calls for a cultural and political revamp of Gaza and the creation of a “moderate Muslim entity” in the mould of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Some analysts believe that Mr. Netanyahu may refer to the proposal in his July 24 speech in Washington to both houses of the US Congress in the knowledge that there is little chance of it being accepted by the Gulf states without the Israeli government substantially reversing its policy towards the Palestinians. Mr. Netanyahu has made clear that he has no intention of doing so.
The proposal envisions a transition phase that would lead to “an autonomous Palestinian entity” or “demilitarized Palestinian self-rule” rather than statehood.
