When I walk home at night, I appreciate talking on the phone. My first pick is always one of my dearest Kuwaiti (insomniac) friends. I met him when I had the chance to join the Embassy of France in Kuwait for a six- month internship. I still can’t believe that we’ve become so close, even though we come from opposite ends of the world and have been raised in such different ways. I’ve never felt so connected to someone. Kuwait can be a very welcoming country to foreigners, if they respect a few essential rules.
The recipe of our friendship hasn’t any surprising ingredients: attentiveness, open-mindedness, and support for each other. It’s about seeing the human being behind the label of our nationality. It sounds simple, yet nowadays it may be more complicated than we think, in times when ultra- nationalism and extremism are ever growing while trying to ensure that everyone titles its nation “correctly”. Now is the time to remember that we are all humans. That’s why the Abraham Accords are so meaningful to me.
When my friend and I talk, we love to imagine what the Middle East would look like if there were to be a regional peace, if we could find a equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and live together side by side. Whilst it may sound like a utopia to some, believing is the first step in achieving a lasting peace.
We usually prefer video calls so I can show him the beauty that is Jerusalem. “I want to visit,” he says. We discuss the practicalities of visas, flights and border security. I’m looking forward to the day when he would just have to hop on a direct flight and be able to hug me three hours later. The peace that the Abraham Accords has brought has a powerful impact on everyone’s life, not just for a happy few. The day they were announced, I finally felt that we were coming closer to this idea of the “New Middle East” opening up a discussion on ways to reach this goal.
When the Abraham Accords were announced, I had already worked for a year on my master thesis about relations between Israel and the Gulf countries. Towards the end of 2019, and early 2020 I had led interviews with people from Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar without knowing what I was allowed to ask and how direct I could be. The Abraham Accords has helped my research by enabling me to talk frankly with nearly forty people, both supporting the Accords and opposing them.
I hope the Abraham Accords will bring even more than the normalization of diplomatic relations and active cooperation between the signatories. I am confident that they will lead us down a common path towards regional peace.
It is not enough to wait and see, we should all make peace our own agenda, even in our everyday life. That’s the reason why I’ve joined the UAE-Israel Business Council and the Gulf-Israel Women’s Forum, to actively participate in initiatives that contribute to open dialogue and the building of joint projects that support peace.
The road may be long and winding, but it doesn’t mean we should not make the journey. I want to be optimistic. I want to continue to meet with people who both agree and disagree with me, people who challenge my beliefs and people from whom I can learn. As such, I’ll continue to call my friend at night, from the Gulf and elsewhere, to remind me that we are actually closer than we initially thought.
Published in the Abraham Accords Anniversary Brochure of the UAE-Israel Business Council in August 2021. The link to the whole anniversary brochure: https://bit.ly/3jlCMV0
The Middle Eastern 