Israel–Kuwait Relations

Kuwait and Israel have no diplomatic relations, and Kuwait’s leaders had not recognized or engaged with Israel as of a January 2026 Congressional Research Service account.[1][2] This formal separation coexists with occasional reports of private visits, indirect trade, and participation in multilateral talks; none of these amounts to official recognition or an exchange of diplomatic or trade offices.[2][4]

Kuwait’s policy has combined participation in the Arab boycott of Israel, strong support for the Palestinian cause, and a stated willingness to pursue regional peace under conditions tied to the Palestinian track and other Arab–Israeli negotiations.[1][5] The government supported the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, while retaining the primary boycott and opposing normalization absent a comprehensive settlement.[1][6] Kuwait’s approach has thus included both limited changes to indirect boycott measures and a continuing refusal of direct relations.

Policy is shaped not only by government diplomacy but also by Kuwait’s parliament and public opinion. Congressional and policy analyses describe the National Assembly as influential in opposing normalization, while survey results show broad resistance to commercial and security cooperation with Israel.[7][3] Private contacts and individual calls for dialogue have appeared periodically, but the evidence in the sources does not establish a Kuwaiti government decision to normalize relations.

Kuwait’s relationship with Israel developed within the Arab League boycott framework. The League Council formally declared the Arab boycott in December 1945, before Israel’s establishment. The boycott had three components: a primary boycott of direct commercial and financial dealings with the Jewish community in Palestine and later Israel; a secondary boycott targeting companies that invested or traded in Israel; and a tertiary boycott targeting companies that dealt with companies subject to the secondary boycott.[8]

The boycott could affect Kuwaiti companies even when their transactions did not involve direct trade with Israel. In a case from the 1970s, Kuwait International Investment Company worked with Warburg and Rothschild on a $75 million international bond issue intended to raise capital for Volvo and the state of Mexico. The Arab League’s Central Boycott Office ruled that the arrangement with a blacklisted underwriter violated the boycott and forced the Kuwaiti company to withdraw.[8]

The 1991 Gulf War and Kuwait’s liberation from Iraqi occupation were followed by a change in treatment of companies doing business with Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported that Kuwait’s government ended its boycott of such companies, citing “considerations of national interest,” because many of their goods and services were needed for postwar reconstruction.[9] A separate policy account says Gulf states abolished indirect boycotts in September 1991, while other sources date Kuwait’s announcement or the wider Gulf Cooperation Council decision to 1993 or 1994.[10][11] These accounts concern indirect restrictions, not the primary boycott or diplomatic recognition.

In June 1993, Kuwait announced that it would stop applying the secondary boycott to firms doing business with Israel and the tertiary boycott to firms doing business with companies covered by the secondary boycott. The U.S. State Department reported that Kuwait continued the primary boycott of goods and services produced in Israel and revised commercial documents to remove direct references to the Israel boycott.[11] A Congressional Research Service account says Kuwait and other Gulf Cooperation Council states ceased enforcing the secondary and tertiary boycotts in 1994, a date that may reflect the later GCC-wide action rather than Kuwait’s earlier announcement.[4]

A separate regional thaw followed the 1991 Madrid Conference, encouraged in part by U.S. diplomacy. After the Oslo Accords, the Gulf Cooperation Council agreed in October 1994 to end its boycott of states and companies that maintained economic ties with Israel, while representatives said the direct boycott of Israel would remain until a comprehensive peace agreement.[6] Gulf states froze the Madrid-era normalization process in March 1997, following the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and subsequent regional developments. The 2009 analysis expected Kuwait, together with Saudi Arabia, to be slower than other Gulf states to make gestures toward Israel.[6]

A 1996 statement by Kuwaiti Information Minister Sheikh Saud Nasir al-Sabah framed normalization as conditional. Kuwait supported the Arab–Israeli peace process and, the report said, had no direct conflict with Israel; it also appreciated Israel’s restraint during the Gulf War. The minister said Kuwait would not normalize relations until negotiations between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon were resolved, and that Kuwait was concerned about Jerusalem.[5] He said Kuwait would accept arrangements agreed to by the Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. The report quoted the stated condition as “all issues are satisfied,” after which Kuwait would follow the Arab community in pursuing a normalization policy “satisfactory” to the United States and Israel.[5]

Kuwait took part in multilateral working-group talks with Israel between 1992 and 1997, but did not host them. The talks addressed arms control, water resources, refugees, and other subjects connected to Arab–Israeli peace negotiations.[4] Kuwait did not follow Qatar and Oman in exchanging trade offices with Israel and retained the Arab League’s primary boycott on trade with Israel.[4]

The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative became a recurring reference point in Kuwait’s stated approach. The initiative was announced at the Arab League summit in Beirut on March 27–28, 2002, and was approved unanimously, according to the cited account. It proposed full Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories occupied since June 1967 and acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for normal relations as part of a comprehensive peace. The account notes that the final text used “normal relations,” rather than “full normalization,” the wording in the Saudi crown prince’s initial proposal.[12] The CRS reports that Kuwait supported the initiative.[1]

Arab leaders met in Kuwait on January 19, 2009, for a previously scheduled summit on Arab cooperation. The Arab Peace Initiative was not withdrawn at the meeting. The cited account quotes Saudi King Abdullah warning that “the choice between war and peace will not always stay open,” and says Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa repeated the sentiment; these were reported statements by those leaders, not a Kuwaiti government declaration.[12]

In 2014, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khaled al-Hamad al-Sabah traveled from Jordan to Ramallah to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, then made a side trip to Jerusalem’s Old City to pray. The Washington Institute described the visit as a rare, high-profile breach of the longstanding Arab boycott on visits to the city’s Muslim shrines and reported that it was coordinated with Israel, although no Israeli government or Jerusalem municipal representative met the minister.[13] The CRS account gives a different Kuwaiti government framing: it says Kuwait stated that the visit was not coordinated with Israeli officials and described the Old City as part of occupied Palestine.[4] The sources therefore differ on the coordination, while agreeing that the minister visited Jerusalem.

Kuwaiti officials also participated in a U.S.-sponsored Middle East conference in Warsaw in February 2019, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kuwaiti officials denied that attendance meant Kuwait would build more public ties with Israel.[4] Kuwait, by contrast, did not attend the U.S.-sponsored Bahrain workshop on Israeli–Palestinian peace proposals in June 2019.[4]

Kuwait opposed the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In 2018, while holding a seat on the UN Security Council, it blocked U.S.-backed efforts to censure Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas over a speech the CRS report characterized as antisemitic, and to condemn Hamas attacks on Israel.[4] These actions formed part of Kuwait’s wider diplomatic support for Palestinian positions.

Kuwait’s partial retreat from secondary and tertiary boycott enforcement did not end its restrictions on direct trade with Israel. The primary boycott remained, and later sources describe prohibitions on Israeli products and commercial dealings involving Israeli persons or entities.[11][7] A 2022 INSS account reported that Kuwait prohibited Israeli products and barred entry to holders of Israeli passports and passports bearing Israeli stamps. It attributed the persistence of opposition to normalization in part to strong pro-Palestinian sentiment and to a parliament with substantial authority and influential opposition parties.[7]

Sources describe several legal and administrative measures, but their accounts should not be treated as a single verified statement of current law. A 2020 Washington Institute analysis attributed Kuwait’s anti-normalization framework to a 1964 parliamentary law, an Emir’s June 1967 declaration of war that it said remained in force, and parliament’s adoption of an Azharite fatwa committee finding that relations with Israelis are haram. The analysis described punishments ranging from imprisonment to execution for acts it classified as normalization and reported that MPs launched further legislative action in 2018 to prohibit internet connectivity between Kuwaitis and Israelis.[14] The bundle does not include the underlying Kuwaiti legal texts, so these legal descriptions remain attributed to that analysis.

The 2022 INSS account said Kuwait’s government had blocked an attempt to impose criminal sanctions for establishing ties with Israel, despite repeated parliamentary opposition to normalization.[7] This suggests that parliamentary resistance and executive action were not always identical. The same analysis described Kuwait as barring Israeli products and passport holders; a 2022 Kuwaiti customs official, as reported by the Jewish Virtual Library, said the country would continue banning products linked to Israel and warned retailers that carrying them could bring “stiff penalties.”[7][15]

The practical effects of the boycott have also reached transport and commercial services. The Jewish Virtual Library reports that Kuwaiti law prohibits local companies from doing business with Israeli citizens, including carrying Israeli passport holders on Kuwait’s national airline. In 2020, Kuwait Airways agreed to pay a $700,000 fine to the U.S. Office of Antiboycott Compliance after refusing to carry passengers with Israeli passports on flights from New York to London; $100,000 was suspended for three years and could be waived if the airline committed no further violations.[16]

In October 2015, Kuwait denied an entry visa to an Israeli judge scheduled to take part in the Asian Shooting Championships. The International Olympic Committee subsequently revoked the event’s status as an Olympic qualifier.[16] In January 2014, Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity and Water said it would not attend a renewable-energy conference in Abu Dhabi because Israelis were participating, describing its decision as consistent with a commitment to “boycott all forms of interaction with the Zionist regime.”[17]

In May 2021, Kuwait’s parliament passed a bill described by the Jerusalem Post as restricting forms of contact with Israel and outlawing expressions of sympathy with Israel. In December of that year, Public Works Minister Rana Abdullah Al-Fares ordered that commercial vessels carrying goods to or from Israel could not enter Kuwaiti territorial waters, including vessels carrying Israel-origin goods onward to another country. The report also described existing restrictions on agreements and commercial or financial dealings involving Israeli people, organizations, and goods.[18]

Education has been another reported dimension of nonrecognition. The U.S. State Department’s 2020 human-rights report said Kuwaiti authorities censored most English-language educational materials that mentioned the Holocaust and required references to Israel either to use “Occupied Palestine” or to be removed.[19] The Jewish Virtual Library similarly reports that teachers were told to expunge references to Israel or the Holocaust from English-language textbooks.[16]

The absence of diplomatic relations has not prevented every reported commercial transaction. A 1999 Globes report said Israeli flower exporter Bikel Flowers exported to Kuwait through third parties, mainly in Europe. It placed those sales within the company’s annual exports, which were worth millions of dollars, but did not state a Kuwait-specific figure. The report described mechanisms by which such trade could be routed through third countries, with paperwork naming the intermediary country as origin and payments made through intermediaries.[20] A 2000 Globes article said indirect trade might exist but that it had found no evidence for it, illustrating the limits of public information about transactions conducted through third parties.[21]

A 2025 Calcalist report described another alleged route around boycotts and the absence of official relations. It said Israeli desalination company IDE worked on projects in Kuwait through Swiss Water, a Swiss-owned intermediary. According to the report, Swiss Water competed in tenders without clients knowing the Israeli connection, while IDE supplied technology and carried out the projects. It identified two Kuwait projects but did not give their names, dates, or individual values; it said contracts in the broader arrangement were worth tens of millions of dollars per project.[22] The account appeared amid a dispute between IDE and Swiss Water, including mutual claims in the UK Commercial Court and arbitration, and does not establish official bilateral cooperation.[22]

Reports of private visits have similarly remained distinct from state-level engagement. In 2019, Israeli television reported that a group of Kuwaiti businessmen had visited Israel for several days in a private capacity, with special permission to enter from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. The group reportedly toured religious, educational, and cultural sites, including the Mahmood Mosque in Haifa, the University of Haifa, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. The report did not identify the visitors or say whether they met Israeli officials, and characterized the trip as private rather than a diplomatic initiative.[23]

Kuwait’s public denials have accompanied some reports of alleged quiet contacts. In April 2014, after Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman claimed that Kuwait and other Gulf governments were in quiet contact with Israel, a Kuwaiti diplomat told the state-run Kuwait News Agency that the claims were baseless and that there were “no meetings, official or unofficial contacts, public or secret.” The diplomat added that Kuwait would be “the last country to normalize relations with Israel.”[24] In 2020, unnamed senior Kuwaiti officials were quoted by al-Qabas as saying the country’s stance had not changed after the UAE’s normalization announcement, and that Kuwait would accept only what the Palestinians accepted.[25]

Kuwaiti individuals have at times publicly advocated dialogue. In 2005, columnist Nabil al-Fadhl argued that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza challenged the notion that Israel was continually expanding, and asked why Kuwait should not normalize relations if Palestinians, Egypt, and Jordan had done so. Lawyer and political analyst Hassan al-Issa called for opening a “window for dialogue,” while arguing that Palestinian leaders should be consulted and that Israel would need to withdraw from the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Jerusalem for broad Arab recognition. The report said Kuwait was not then ready to deal with Israel and that the government continued political and financial support for the Palestinian cause.[9]

In 2019, Kuwaiti media personality Fajer al-Saeed publicly advocated Arab–Israeli ties and trade, describing normalization as a personal wish rather than an accomplished act. She said her views had changed after Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination and funeral and argued that without a neighboring Palestinian state, “there won’t be peace.” The report said she received threats over her statements.[26] A 2018 Globes opinion article also reported that an unidentified former Kuwaiti government minister had said in a public television interview that Arab governments should recognize Israel diplomatically; the article did not present the remark as a change in official policy.[27]

A 2015 Globes commentary argued that Israel and Kuwait shared foreign-policy concerns, including opposition to Iran’s regional influence and concern about the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations. It suggested such concerns could provide incentives for intelligence, defense, or security cooperation, but did not document any specific agreement or operation.[28] A 2023 conference account likewise mentioned Kuwaitis among people from countries without agreements with Israel who could take part in people-to-people cooperation; it described the possibility of contact, not an official bilateral relationship.[29]

Public opposition to normalization is a prominent feature of the sources’ accounts. In a Washington Institute survey of a representative random sample of 1,000 Kuwaiti citizens conducted in March and April 2023, 14% rated formal relations between several Arab countries and Israel as a somewhat or very positive development for the region. Ninety-five percent disagreed with business deals with Israeli companies even if the deals helped Kuwait’s economy, and 89% strongly disagreed.[3]

The same survey found that 92% disagreed at least somewhat with cooperation with Israel against Iranian threats. Views of a specific diplomatic agreement were divided: 45% regarded the Lebanon–Israel maritime-boundary agreement as somewhat or very positive for the region, while 53% viewed it negatively. More than two-thirds considered Hamas rocket attacks against Israel somewhat or very negative for the region. The reported margin of error was approximately three percentage points.[3] These results describe responses to particular questions at a particular time; they do not by themselves measure every dimension of Kuwaiti opinion.

Parliamentary activity has reinforced the political salience of the issue. The CRS account says the National Assembly and government endorsed anti-normalization measures beginning in 2020, while the INSS analysis describes repeated parliamentary opposition and substantial influence for opposition parties.[2][7] In October 2023, 45 of Kuwait’s 50 National Assembly members issued a public statement urging countries not to normalize relations with Israel.[30] The statement included the generalization that “Jews usually renege on their promises.” The U.S. State Department characterized the wording as antisemitic.[30] This was a statement by lawmakers, not a finding about all Kuwaiti citizens or a substitute for the government’s formal diplomatic position.

Kuwait’s position has also been discussed against changes elsewhere in the Gulf. After the UAE announced normalization with Israel in August 2020, unnamed Kuwaiti leaders were quoted by a newspaper as saying Kuwait’s stance had not changed and that it would be “the last to normalize relations.”[31] The CRS report notes that, after the UAE and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in September 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump said Kuwait might join them fairly quickly.[31] Kuwait did not do so in the period covered by the subsequent sources: as of the January 2026 CRS report, its leaders had not recognized or engaged with Israel.[2]

A 2020 analysis reported that Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia were officially silent when the UAE–Israel normalization announcement was made. It also described Emir Sabah as having defended the Palestinian cause throughout his public life and reported that Kuwaiti representatives at Non-Aligned Movement meetings criticized what they called Israeli indifference to Palestinian suffering. The analysis said many Kuwaiti officials wanted any possible normalization explicitly tied to progress on the Palestinian track.[32] The political debate therefore includes both individual calls for dialogue and sustained official and parliamentary resistance.

Kuwait’s statements concerning Israel have repeatedly linked relations to Palestinian statehood and Jerusalem. In 2014, the foreign minister’s visit to Jerusalem’s Old City brought attention to this linkage: the minister prayed there after meeting Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, while Kuwait’s government later described the Old City as part of occupied Palestine and denied coordination with Israeli officials.[4][13]

Following the outbreak of fighting in October 2023, Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry called for an end to violence and protection for Palestinians, and affirmed support for an independent Palestinian state “on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.” The statement, as reproduced in a policy analysis, blamed escalation on Israeli actions and warned that continuing violence would undermine peace efforts and a two-state solution.[33] The CRS report says Kuwait’s initial response to the October 7 Hamas-led attack attributed it to Israeli violations and attacks on Palestinians. In its subsequent response to the war, Kuwait condemned Israeli military actions, called for accountability for alleged violations of international humanitarian law, and demanded an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian aid, while reiterating support for a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.[2]

Kuwait also opposed proposals concerning Gaza’s future. In 2025, it joined other Arab states in rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s statements about relocating Gaza’s population and redeveloping the territory under U.S. auspices. Kuwait warned that transferring or uprooting Palestinians threatened regional stability and prospects for peace and coexistence, and joined other Arab League states in endorsing Egypt’s counterproposal in March 2025.[2]

Other diplomatic actions reflected Kuwait’s support for Palestinian representatives. In 2018, Kuwait used its seat on the UN Security Council to block U.S.-backed efforts to censure Mahmoud Abbas over a speech the CRS report characterized as antisemitic, and to condemn Hamas attacks on Israel.[4] Kuwait also opposed the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and did not attend the U.S.-sponsored Bahrain workshop on peace proposals in June 2019.[4] These positions are part of the broader context in which Kuwait has conditioned regional normalization on a settlement of the Palestinian issue.

Accounts of Kuwait’s boycott policy differ over dates and what particular decisions covered. The U.S. State Department dates Kuwait’s announcement ending application of the secondary and tertiary boycotts to June 1993, while a CRS account says the GCC states ceased enforcing those components in 1994.[11][4] A separate policy account places the abolition of Gulf states’ indirect boycott in September 1991.[10] These may refer to Kuwait’s postwar policy change, its public announcement, and a subsequent regional decision, rather than one identical event. The sources agree that Kuwait retained the primary boycott, and none equates the relaxation of indirect restrictions with diplomatic recognition.[4][11]

Reporting on informal contact also varies. The Washington Institute described the 2014 Jerusalem visit as coordinated with Israel, while the CRS account says Kuwait’s government denied coordination with Israeli officials.[4][13] Reports of private Kuwaiti business visitors in 2019 do not establish official relations.[23] Accounts of indirect commercial activity also differ in the amount of detail or evidence they provide.[20][21]

Finally, some descriptions of anti-normalization law and enforcement come from policy or advocacy analyses rather than Kuwaiti legal texts.[7][14] The reported survey results reflect specific questions and a particular date.[3] Official statements on the 2023 war and the Palestinian issue represent Kuwaiti government positions as reported by the cited sources.[33] These distinctions are important when separating documented diplomatic status from interpretations of law, individual contacts, and political commentary.

The World Jewish Congress traces Kuwait’s modern Jewish community to 1776, when Jews arrived from Basra. By the end of the nineteenth century, an estimated 100 to 200 Jews lived in Kuwait, where a Jewish quarter developed and community members participated prominently in textile trading and other commerce. Economic pressures and political changes contributed to the community’s decline during the early twentieth century, and by the outbreak of World War II virtually no Jews remained.[1]

The World Jewish Congress reports that Kuwait no longer has a functioning Jewish community. It identifies the Jewish section of a cemetery on Khalid Ibn Al Waleed Street in Kuwait City as the community’s remaining tangible legacy.[1] This history is distinct from the modern state-to-state relationship, but it forms part of the broader Jewish context in Kuwait.