Islam, reform and the battle of narratives

Is a wind of change blowing in the Arab world and bringing Muslims and Jews closer together? Ed Husain made the case for this in an article in our Christmas special issue: a younger generation is tiring of the hardliners, he said, asking what all the angst has achieved and wondering if Israel might be a decent ally for the Arab world. His article explored what he described as new maps of the Muslim mind, with ‘old hatreds on the run’. It drew predictable criticism from some quarters: surely this is wishful thinking, and his narrative of reconciliation has no real support in the Middle East? But that critique was blown apart a few days ago when the article was tweeted by the Emirati foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, to his four million followers. His tweet was striking because it repeated the headline: ‘Islam’s reformation: an Arab-Israeli alliance is taking shape in the Middle East’.

Benjamin Netanyahu was delighted and not only tweeted it