The Arab–Israeli Diplomatic Normalization and Its Implications for South and Southeast Asian Muslim Countries

In the late 2020, Israel made astonishing diplomatic breakthrough by establishing successive diplomatic relations with a number of core Arab Muslim states namely Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. The implication of the historic Abraham Accords Peace Agreement was a clear win for Israel over the Arab world since 1948 as the Accords opened possibility for Israel to win over even the most powerful Arab state—the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, the normalization not only overturned the Arab–Israeli relations but also has the potential to impact the four South and Southeast Asian Muslim states (hereafter SSEMS), namely Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, for various reasons. Unpacking this political dynamic is important as more dramatic changes are expected to take place in the coming years. This chapter argues that the SSEMS are likely to recognize Israel and normalize their diplomatic relations in future under the changing domestic and international circumstances. Firstly, the Palestine issue, the core of Arab–Israeli enmity, is an Arab issue in the first place which is now compromised by the key Arab powers on which the non-Arab SSEMS have little leverage if any. Secondly, since most of these countries maintain a large labor and export market in the Gulf monarchies, Israel is likely to diplomatically manipulate the Arab states to persuade the SSEMS countries to follow suit. Thirdly, most of those states are highly dependent on financial, political and military support from the major Western powers and International financial institutions which Israel can conveniently utilize in its favor against those four nations. And finally, there are indications that some of these four states have already informally extended undisclosed non-political relations and goodwill gesture to Israel which can be gradually formalized under changing circumstances.