UAE, Bahrain Unsure What To Do With Leftover Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories

In contrast, Egypt and Jordan have refrained from total normalization of ties, and continue to traffic in antisemitic and anti-Israel conspiracy theories.

Manama, September 30 – Two states that established formal relations with Israel after decades of explicit support for its enemies, including the dissemination of propaganda to undermine the Jewish State’s legitimacy, now find themselves with a surplus of such material and no clear disposition for it.

The Persian Gulf nations of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates normalized ties with the Jewish State at a ceremony on the White House lawn last week, ushering in a new era in regional politics, diplomacy, culture, and history, and presaging the establishment of such ties between Israel and other once-hostile governments in the Middle East and beyond, but also confronting those countries with the dilemma concerning what to do with the significant volume they have accumulated of conspiracy theories positing a Jewish-Zionist cabal behind all or most of humanity’s misfortunes, and for which they now have no use.

Diplomatic sources in both countries and in nations such as Oman, Saudi Arabia, and several African states expected to follow the UAE-Bahrain lead in the coming weeks and months voiced their concern over how to handle the conspiracy theory glut, and the economic impact it will have as more and more countries normalize with Israel and thus reduce demand for the propaganda, driving down the price even as supply remains copious.

“Pakistan, Iran and Turkey are the obvious markets for the material,” acknowledged one source who insisted on anonymity, “but they have enough domestic production as to render export to those countries uneconomical. To the glut we already have, add the anticipated influx over the near-to-medium future, and we’ll have to start paying others to take the conspiracy theories off of our hands because simply storing it is more expensive than that.”

Since the announcement of the agreement to establish ties last month, the UAE has revamped its educational materials to eliminate references to Jews as a foreign presence in the region, and purged other official documents of such an attitude. The move in the Emirates alone has freed up an unprecedented quantity of antisemitic bilge, a volume for which observers can identify no available market for at least the next twelve months.

Experts noted that countries that signed peace treaties with Israel earlier, namely Egypt (1978) and Jordan (1994), refrained from total normalization of ties, and continue to traffic in antisemitic and anti-Israel conspiracy theories. “The expected wave of normalization is going to crash the market for this material,” predicted Hetsa Ubikush, a Turkish analyst. “That’s one of the primary reasons Turkey, for example, isn’t about to join the normalization party anytime soon. We have enough economic problems as it is, with our currency in a nosedive, a drain on our treasury from involvement in three or four wars, and ongoing uncertainty on the energy front. I’m sure other countries have similar considerations.”

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