How Arab Security Sectors Can Advance a Peace Between Peoples
Terrorism knows no borders—and the struggle against it calls for neighboring countries to cooperate for the sake of regional and global security. Regions including Europe have come to recognize this reality, with dozens of governments forging unprecedented partnerships in policing, intelligence, and counterterrorism over the past decade. In the Middle East and North Africa, jihadist carnage and Iranian expansionism have also inspired some unlikely alliances. Arab governments have recently made common cause not only with each other but also with the neighboring state of Israel in order to make their counterterrorism efforts more effective. Security cooperation has reached new heights between Israel and Egypt and Jordan, its formal peace partners, while new relationships are beginning to grow elsewhere in the region as well.
In one crucial facet of counterterrorism, however, no substantial partnership between Israelis and their Arab neighbors has yet been forged: the struggle to end the pervasive use of media, school systems, and religious pulpits to spread radicalism and hate. This gap does not stem from ignorance of the general problem. To the contrary, widespread concern about extremist indoctrination has led a number of Arab governments and NGOs—as well as outside stakeholders worldwide—to seek remedies to these challenges, ranging from new educational programs promoting tolerance to the rehabilitation of former jihadists.
These efforts have taken a variety of shapes. Some are multilateral: The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (previously the Tony Blair Faith Foundation) has engaged governments and civil society organizations in numerous Muslim-majority countries, while the UAE-based Hedaya center, a public-private partnership, has forged collaborations from New York to Jakarta. Other efforts are unilateral: the Saudi security sector has used state television to develop an immensely popular program called Humumna, which strives to dissuade young viewers from joining extremist groups.
Israelis in government and civil society alike have much to contribute to such efforts, and are indeed engaged in some of the educational initiatives stemming from North America and Europe. But as far as Arab countries are concerned, there has been no cooperation on this key issue to speak of. The reasons for this lack of collaboration should come as no surprise: some of the same Arab security and intelligence systems that now work with Israel in repelling jihadists and Iran have themselves been major propagators of antisemitism and hostility to Israel for decades. With respect to the latter, the demonizing narrative they propagate far exceeds any rational criticism of the Israeli government or its policies. Rather, it ascribes an inherent evil to the country and its people, calling in substance for both to be eradicated.