Israel has portrayed pre-1948 Palestine as an empty, parched desert, and has suggested that after the establishment of the state of Israel that parched desert became a blooming oasis. For Israel and its supporters, what surrounds that oasis is a fearsome, degraded, and arid Middle East that is sinking in primitiveness and backwardness. Israel’s green image, which is set in contrast to a savage and undemocratic Middle East, has been central to its efforts to greenwash its settler-colonial and apartheid structure. Israel uses its expertise in agribusiness, afforestation, water solutions, and renewable energy technology as constituents of its greenwashing efforts and narrative globally.

The assertion of the environmental superiority of Israel over the rest of the Middle East (and North Africa) was reinforced after it signed the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan in 2020. The Abraham Accords are a US-brokered normalization deal that also seeks to reinforce (already-existing) normalizing relations with other Arab countries that are not officially part of the agreement, including those that have not yet formalized their long-standing relations with Israel, like Saudi Arabia and Oman, and those that have, like Egypt and Jordan. The coalition of these Arab states formed under the umbrella of the Abraham Accords has vowed to increase their collaboration with Israel on issues related to security, the economy, health, culture, and the environment, among others. In the last two years, under the deal, Israel and these normalizing Arab states have signed a number of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) to jointly implement environmental projects concerning renewable energy, agribusiness and water.