For decades, Kuwait has charted a neutral course in many of the Middle East’s intractable conflicts. But the death of its longtime ruler leaves his successor with a dilemma: whether or not to normalize ties with Israel without statehood for the Palestinians.
Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, who died Tuesday, was a veteran diplomat who remained a steadfast supporter of the Palestinians even as Arab backing for their vision of an independent state waned. The recent U.S.-brokered normalization of ties between Israel and two Arab Gulf states—the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—has heaped pressure on others, including Kuwait, to follow suit.
After an Oval Office meeting earlier this month with Sheikh Sabah’s eldest son, a former defense minister who is a leading contender to become the next crown prince, President Trump said Kuwait would be the next country to forge formal relations with Israel. But a week later at the United Nations, Kuwait’s prime minister reiterated the country’s insistence that peace with the Palestinians precede normalization with the Arab world.
Unlike most of its neighbors, Kuwait must balance pressure from the U.S., its top security guarantor, against the peaceable ties it maintains with neighboring Iran as well as pro-Palestinian popular opinion that is amplified by a local media and parliament that are both among the region’s most powerful.
On Tuesday, Kuwait’s parliament endorsed Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah as the new ruler and announced a 40-day mourning period for his predecessor.
A senior Kuwaiti royal said he expects Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. to try to pressure Kuwait to follow their lead more, especially on regional issues where Sheikh Sabah sought to play the middle. But he said the new emir was heavily involved in his predecessor’s decisions and doesn’t advocate unilateral normalization with Israel.
“Kuwait wants a neutral position,” the person said. “We won’t support and praise what is happening but we won’t criticize it either.”
The new emir will soon begin deliberations with other leading members of the ruling family to select senior officials, including a new crown prince—a process that could take weeks, or possibly months.
The choice of crown prince is significant, since Sheikh Nawaf is already 83 and in poor health. Among the leading candidates are Sheikh Sabah’s eldest son, 72-year-old Sheikh Nasser al-Sabah; and his nephew, former Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed, 79.
According to a 2008 WikiLeaks cable, Sheikh Sabah had entrusted his son, who was then head of the Royal Court, with “maintaining a discrete and confidential liaison relationship with a dual national Israeli representative based elsewhere in the Gulf.”
Sheikh Sabah returned to Kuwait in October 2019 after undergoing medical tests in the U.S.
Photo:
KUNA/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Such secretive contacts between Arab states and Israel have proliferated, but only recently began evolving into normalization. Following the U.A.E. and Bahrain, Sudan has publicly contemplated normal ties. Saudi Arabia is unlikely to follow soon, given tensions atop the ruling family there, but could push other countries where it has influence to do so.
While neighbors might poke and push Kuwait to see what they can come up with, “we’re not a country that shifts overnight,” said Bader al-Saif, assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. “It just doesn’t work like that. There’s a process.”
Given strong public opinion against normalization, he added, “No incoming ruler will shoot himself in the foot by doing this.”
The senior royal said such a step would require shutting down public discourse completely and thus isn’t feasible.
After re-establishing the line of succession, Sheikh Nawaf’s agenda will likely be topped by parliamentary elections slated for the end of the year and domestic priorities like fighting corruption and reinvigorating an economy weighed down by mounting debt, low oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic.
Sheikh Sabah had sought to entrench his careful approach to foreign policy—he tried for years to mediate the Gulf rift over Qatar—by cultivating a cadre of diplomatic royals and technocrats.
But the risk that Sheikh Nawaf turns out to be more pliable to the demands of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. could further escalate tensions with Iran, London-based research consulting firm Capital Economics wrote in a note.
Because Kuwait is seen as the most pro-Palestinian of the Arab Gulf countries, a deal with Israel could help cement the Jewish state’s acceptance in the region, but its domestic politics and diminished status relative to powerhouses the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia make Kuwait less of a priority for the Jewish state, said Yoel Guzanksy, former head of the Gulf desk on Israel’s national security council and now at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
“I don’t see it coming,” he said. “It’s going to be suicide internally.”
—Felicia Schwartz contributed to this article.
Write to Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com and Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com
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