I was stationed in Bahrain for a while. They are all doing this stuff, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Dubai, and Oman. They figured out that the oil won't last, there's no money in a theocracy, and a happy population doesn't hold revolutions. They have no quarrel with Israel and generally stay out of that fight. They also want to stay out of wars with their neighbors and give more powerful countries elsewhere a reason to step in and squash the more warlike and terrorist supporting countries like Saddam's Iraq or Iran.
Bahrain has nightclubs, allows alcohol in hotel bars and the clubs, has more freedom for women, wants to be the banking and Las Vegas of the Muslim world (the Saudis start arriving every Wednesday to party-- "Allah doesn't see outside the kingdom" while holding a hand over their eyes is the running joke. They put in a Formula 1 track and are on the circuit now, that sort of thing. Dubai caters to the uber rich. Kuwait wants to up its intellectual game with universities and research. They're all doing this sort of thing to bring in money and make connections outside the Arab world.