Hello and Shana Tova everyone! This diary is a rare opportunity for me to combine my two blogging obsessions: Israel-Palestine and electric vehicles. And the connection is natural. Well, to me at least.
When the crass Israel-UAE deal went public last month, I called out the media for going along with the White House’s framing of it as “historic” and a “breakthrough” towards Middle East peace.
After another Gulf oligarchy — Bahrain — joined the show and both signed a (still not-quite-clear) agreement with Israel in front of the White House last week in a pompous and ridiculously reckless ceremony, I stand by my words on the main count: this has nothing to do with peace.
Since its establishment, Israel has fought in at least six wars involving various Arab states, with perhaps another five if one includes two campaigns against Palestinian intifadas and periodic escalations with Gaza and the devastation wrought there. These wars have, cumulatively, involved tens of thousands of casualties.
Did Tuesday’s ceremonial treaty signings at least lay some of that to rest? Er, hate to break it to you, but again, nada.
(Daniel Levy, former Israeli government negotiator)
I am also seconded, among many others, by Palestinian writer Karim Kattan in occupied Bethlehem: (emphasis mine)
Yet the accords remain a fiction — the fever dream of dictators. In the seven-page document, far-reaching issues such as the peaceful uses of outer space are repeatedly mentioned, but one would be hard-pressed to find any mention of Palestine. It only appears as half of an infamous adjective, when the text refers to the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The rest of the agreement reads like a business proposal for cooperation between accelerationist theocracies that believe in colonizing Mars and the historicity of Abraham — but certainly not in the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, freedom or dignity. That erasure is an attempt to hasten the disappearance of Palestinians as a polity, a territory, and a nation.
Yet, the last sentence above describes the way in which the agreements are historic: they are part of Trump’s historic push to erase the Palestinians. From the 2017 appointment of a rabid pro-settler as ambassador to Israel and of smarmy Jared as envoy, through undermining humanitarian funding to Occupied Palestinians, through moving the embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, through Jared’s outrageous Piece Plan, and now these agreements — Trump has solidly established himself as the most rabid anti-Palestinian US president ever.
Saying he’s also “pro-Israeli” reflects a misguided zero-sum, short-sighted mentality. Palestinians and their cause are not going anywhere, and they are too numerous and resilient for Israel to keep sweeping them under the Occupation rug. What Trump has done for Israel is like splashing out on unlimited free heroin for your addict nephew.
But this is historic in another way: the last remaining shred of Arab unity towards Israel — the notion that formal relationships should be enacted only upon meaningful correction
of wrongs done to Arab entities — has now been flushed down a gilded sewer.
But…. what’s in it for the Gulf states? Breaking arab-world precedent for what exactly?
See below the fold.
Among state signatories, Israel’s regime is the deal’s clear winner. It gets substantial material benefits from opening up Gulf markets and air routes, enhancement of anti-Iran alliances, and a strategic coup in further isolating one of the world’s most isolated people who already chokes under its knee.
Very unfortunate timing for Bibi, though. His biggest ever policy achievement comes at the worst possible timing:
- he’d just squandered a relatively successful response to Covid’s first wave through a grossly reckless reopening. Reeling under a record-setting and world-leading second wave, Israel was dragged kicking and screaming yesterday into a second national lockdown, the public justifiably red-hot angry at Bibi more than anyone else.
- In his decision to continue governing after being formally indicted for corruption, Bibi broke a principle he himself had stipulated for others, triggering an endless series of angry mass demonstrations in front of his house and elsewhere.
So Israelis were not particularly elated at last week’s ceremonies. For Bibi, it was like rain on your wedding day.
On a personal level, Trump is ostensibly the big winner: being served up free campaign material of “diplomatic successes” blown out of proportion, and mostly eyeing Florida, where several percent of voters are aging Jewish-Americans with right-wing views on Israel. This might actually end up making a difference there. (as well as riling up the hypocritical Evangelical Right even further, if that is physically possible)
But I repeat my question:
what’s in it for the Gulf regimes?
The obvious answers were given: more business during an economic crunch can’t be bad. Some advanced US arms heading their way (which serve as yet another rain on Bibi’s parade, btw). But they do not suffice to explain why at least two, quite possibly more, Gulf oligarchies would try to prop up Trump’s re-election bid.
After all, these sheikhs are rich and well-connected enough not to be susceptible to any arm-twisting from Trump, a rather unpopular figure in the Arab world. So why become his campaign cheerleaders?
Here’s my explanation: the global oil economy is nearing its moment of truth. A Trump victory can postpone this moment by 4 years.
Covid has caused a drop of ~10% in 2020’s global oil consumption. One of the sector’s leading growth segments, flights, is not coming back to growth vs. pre-covid levels anytime soon, if ever. An increasing number of large oil companies begin to acknowledge what climate activists and honest investment analysts have told them for years: many of “their” oil reserves are for all practical purposes, stranded assets of little value.
Lest anyone think that for ground transportation, the lion’s share of oil demand, things will eventually go “back to normal”, enter the EV revolution, center stage:
- New stringent EU fleet-footprint regulations with real teeth started in January. Then Covid made Europeans rediscover the joy of clean city air, as well as give governments a rare political opportunity for a Green New Deal. Germany took it with both hands, and other European EV markets are soaring as well. Through July, the continent’s 2020 EV sales accounted for a record 8% of the auto market (vs. 3.6% in 2019). With the general market down ~30% so far, these kind of numbers make a visible dent in oil consumption as well as in automakers’ calculus, and change projections for how fast the fossil fleet will be retired (in short: much faster than predicted).
- China’s EV market whose incentives were actually cut in 2019 has taken a substantial Covid hit, but is now rebounding and will likely end the year in overall positive territory, near 6%. The enthusiasm gap vs. the general market (also recovering but expected ~10% down for the year) is not as big as in Europe, but China started higher and EV momentum there will clearly continue. This will be detailed in a separate diary.
US remains the last major global auto market where the oil economy can hold the line, or at least delay electrification for a few more years.
Trump — here, too, historic in being the most ardently anti-EV major US politician ever — has already put multiple thumbs on the scale against EVs. Likely related, 2019 EV sales here were down ~10% vs. 2018, and in 2020 it’s hard to even get numbers in the US — most automakers don’t feel like sharing them at all. Whatever numbers are available, aren’t looking good; we’re likely still hovering around 2% share and possibly less.
All signs indicate that a Biden administration, particularly if accompanied by a Senate majority, will quickly adopt European-style EV policies.
The US joining Europe and China in turning against the oil economy at a time when it’s on the brink, means much more to Gulf regimes than a few thousand Israeli tourists, or some Israeli products available in their already lavish shopping malls. This, to my understanding, is the main calculus leading one sheikh after another to go against the grain of what’s been considered acceptable in Arab politics.
I end with a personal tribute: in Judaism, it is said that only the most righteous depart on special days. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a fearless, trailblazing Jewish American luminary, had left us on the eve of the Jewish New Year. These are also our days of atonement, and I beg forgiveness of her soul for the sickening rush of political machinations that right-wing politicians have started immediately upon news of her death. I also beg forgiveness that we seem sadder by the potential political prospects of her death just before the election, than by her death itself. But that is human nature, I suppose, and I am no saint.
Rest in peace and ברוך דיין אמת, Justice Ginsburg. Thank you for all that you have done. May we rise to ensure that all your struggles, achievements and suffering have not been in vain.