UAE-Israel Alliance: Backing Autocracy and Pushing for Yemen’s Division
A French researcher identified three main factors in the UAE’s strategy in the Middle East, based on an alliance with Israel and spreading normalization with it, supporting tyranny through dictatorial regimes, and pushing for the division of Yemen.
In an interview with Orient XXI, researcher Stéphane Lacroix explained that the UAE’s policies do not contribute to regional stability but serve as a destabilizing force, fostering chaos and disruption.
Lacroix emphasized that, from the Emirati perspective, stability can only be achieved through authoritarianism. The UAE supports a model that opposes the Arab Spring, favoring strongmen rule by leaders like Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whom they back with significant effort.
Lacroix further noted that the UAE’s model emphasizes economic liberalism and free markets to enhance trade, coupled with a strategic openness to Israel. They view integrating Tel Aviv into this approach as advantageous, anticipating that normalization with Israel will bring the desired economic gains.
Lacroix pointed out that it is noticeable that achieving such a desired result involves waging wars at an intensive pace. The Emiratis are participating in the war in Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and elsewhere.
Lacroix warned that the rulers of the Emirates contribute to supporting political regimes that commit gross human rights violations, as is the case in Egypt, where in just one day in August 2013, after Sisi’s coup, a thousand Muslim Brotherhood supporters were liquidated by the Egyptian police.
Moreover, this Emirati model presupposes that the establishment of a state of authoritarianism accompanied by economic liberalism is sustainable.
Lacroix remarked, “I find it hard to believe that this approach can be broadly applied across the region, given its complexity and fragmentation. The Arab Spring has shown that imposing such a model may ultimately result in greater destabilization rather than achieving stability.”
The French researcher also pointed out that since 2011, the UAE has been actively pursuing a regional campaign against political Islam movements. This intervention first became evident in Egypt, where Abu Dhabi played a crucial role in the military’s removal of President Mohamed Morsi in early July 2013.
The UAE’s intervention also extended to Libya, where it backed General Khalifa Haftar in his campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood, even conducting airstrikes in support of his efforts.
In Tunisia, the UAE opposed the Brotherhood-affiliated Ennahda party, led by Rached Ghannouchi, which came to power in 2011. The UAE supported the rival Nidaa Tounes party, linked to Beji Caid Essebsi, but later reproached it in 2017 for not aligning with UAE interests.
In Yemen, the UAE’s involvement has become a critical issue, though its objectives differ from those of Saudi Arabia. While both nations officially claim to fight alongside the Houthis and support the legitimate government, their goals are not entirely aligned.
In reality, the UAE’s primary objective is to rid Yemen of political Islam, leading it to support any anti-Brotherhood forces, even if this means backing militias with Salafi affiliations that it otherwise opposes, according to Lacroix.
Lacroix emphasized that the UAE’s strategy diverges from that of its Saudi ally. The UAE aims to partition Yemen by establishing a separate state in the south, which would bring the region under Emirati influence, given the UAE’s support for the separatist movement there.
He concluded that the idea that dominates all of Abu Dhabi’s thinking is that the separatists are enemies of political Islam movements and therefore play into the UAE’s hands and that the secession of southern Yemen will allow it to form its Emirati protectorate.
