It's funny that people speak of the #UAE "betraying" the #Palestinians. The UAE is probably one of the most #totalitarian states on the planet, complete with a #MinistryOfHappiness.

It is also one of the most inegalitarian societies on this planet, both in terms of the distribution of wealth and rights. UAE's nominal #citizens (they aren't actually citizens) are only 1/10th of the total population, and half of those aren't even adults.

Its nominal citizens lack any political rights. Legislation is issued in the personal name of the ruler. It is autocracy in its purest form, with no attempt even to hide behind empty democratic slogans such as those of the communist and socialist regimes.

Policy is made entirely for the benefit of the ruling family, with the UAE's nominal citizens only receiving scraps from the table of the #AlNahyan who reward their friends and punish their enemies.

Obviously, only #sycophants can flourish in such a society, and so no one should be surprised at the contempt they have for #Palestinians and any #Arab or #Muslim who dares to live as a #freeperson.

The #UAE calls itself #LittleSparta but Sparta fought its own wars. It didn't hire mercenaries or seek outside powers to protect it. The UAE would rather be a protectorate of a foreign power than live as equals with #Arabs and #Muslims

Of course, the situation for #expats is entirely different, and their status in the UAE is intimately connected to which foreign passport they have, and the color of their skin. The #whitemale from #AngloSaxon countries is at the top of the expatriate racial hierarchy.

Dark-skinned Muslims from the subcontinent are at the bottom of this racial hierarchy. But no one enjoys real rights against the despotism of the state.

Unlike #Egypt, whose despotism is a failure of will, and not the result of principle, #UAE's despotism is principled and constitutive of its politics as necessary to keep under control the 90% expat population that actually makes the country function.

The one thing good that can be said about the #UAE is that it so perfectly manifests the evils of #despotism and #apartheid that it lays bare all for all the choices we face as humans: do you cooperate with this evil for a few dollars, or do you just say "no"?

The amazing thing is that a large number of otherwise decent, upright people have been willing to give up so much in terms of political dignity to enjoy the consumption benefits of a #petro_utopia.

A refusal to deal with the #UAE would strip it of any pretenses that it is more than what it actually is: a state with outsized rents that enable it to buy virtually anything or person it wants, but whose only end is to ensure that those rents remain exclusive to themselves.

A state such as the #UAE is incapable of anything smacking of #loyalty because it can only see itself. And that is why its alliance with #Israel is so natural and so easy.

#BirdsOfAFeatherFlockTogether, but #Israel at least as democratic with respect to its #Jews, reserving its #oppression and #despotism for #Arabs. The #UAE therefore surpasses #Israel in its taste for arbitrary domination and contempt for humanity.