by MOHAMAD HASAN SWEIDAN
West Asian exports to Israel have skyrocketed since 2020. These are the Arab and Muslim governments that put goods on Israeli shelves, despite their public stances supporting Gaza.
Israeli import data reveals that a number of Arab countries play a significant role in buoying the occupation state’s trade volume, despite attempts by other regional nations to weaken Israel’s economy.
Since this decade’s onset, Israeli ports have been teeming with the arrival of goods from across the region. Each shipment not only boosts the occupation state’s economy, but also weaves a narrative that goes beyond trade statistics as these economic interactions carry a hidden stream of political significance.
Although not an Arab country, Turkiye was the first Muslim state to establish diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, and today leads the pack of West Asian states boosting Israeli imports. In 2020 alone, the value of Turkish exports spiked to $5.7 billion, constituting 6.2 percent of total Israeli imports that year.
Iron and steel ($1.06 billion), plastics ($464.67 million), electrical and electronic equipment ($346.83 million), vehicles ($331.48 million), machinery ($298.89 million), metals ($261.66 million), and building materials ($188.39 million) form the cornerstone of Turkish exports to the Zionist entity.
In second place is the UAE, which normalized ties with Tel Aviv as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, and was the first Arab state to sign a free-trade agreement (2022) with Israel as part of a plan to boost mutual trade to $10 billion annually. The Persian Gulf state’s exports were valued at $1.89 billion in 2022, accounting for 2.1 percent of all Israeli imports.
Particularly intriguing is the 1543 percent surge in the value of Emirati exports to Israel since the normalization agreement. Noteworthy export categories include precious metals and stones ($525.32 million), iron and steel ($483.95 million), electrical and electronic equipment ($210.71 million), and oil ($94.55 million).
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