Nearly a decade ago, in 2017, research conducted at the Association for Environmental Justice in Israel (AEJI) challenged a prevailing setup in Israeli policy circles. At the time, the dominant mindset framed climate change in a regional prism primarily as a commercial opportunity: Israel, with its technological prowess in drip irrigation and desalination, would export proprietary solutions to its water-scarce neighbors for short-term financial gain.

We argued then that a purely transactional, asymmetric approach was misguided. Real stability requires long-term, equitable, and strategic environmental partnerships.

Today, as our region navigates unprecedented geopolitical instability and the looming threat of renewed conflict, it is time to flip the question entirely: In a regional economic peace, what can the Gulf states offer Israel in climate and environmental resilience?

Breaking the Paradigm of Asymmetry

For too long, the Israeli discourse on regional environmental cooperation has suffered from a subtle patronizing bias—assuming technology flows strictly from West to East or North to South. Yet over the past decade, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, particularly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have evolved from capital investors into global powerhouses of climate........

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