Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 06/2014

Quiet Partnerships for a New Era: Emerging Opportunities for Arab-Israeli Cooperation

Alon Paz

January 2014

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Abstract

The uprisings in the Maghreb, Egypt, and the Levant have transformed the region's security landscape and spawned new challenges for Israel and its Arab neighbors. Jihadist groups have established themselves in ungoverned spaces; Iran is expanding its influence in the Levant at a time when many fear that ongoing nuclear negotiations may confirm its status as a nuclear threshold state; and the very existence of the state system that has underpinned the region's security architecture since World War II is at risk of being undermined by instability and violence. The problems that Israelis and Arabs face are too large for any single nation -- even a great power -- to address alone. Rather, they require a degree of cooperation among regional states if they are to be managed, if not resolved.