On September 15, representatives of 57 countries gathered in the Qatari capital, Doha, to participate in an “Emergency Arab-Islamic Summit” called in response to Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha on September 9. The countries participating were members of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The communiqué issued by the summit called the Israeli attack a “flagrant act of aggression against an Arab and Islamic State,” and referred to “Israel’s continued aggressive practices, including crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation and siege.” The summit failed to call for any specific military or economic moves against Israel. Nevertheless, it is the latest indication of Jerusalem’s beleaguered diplomatic situation, deriving from the two-year war that began with Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023.
This rather rosy view failed to take into account the built-in legitimacy gap and lack of soft power in the region with which Israel, as the Middle East’s sole non-Islamic state and one of three non-Arab states, must constantly contend.
Prior to the Gaza war, a common and somewhat complacent Israeli depiction of the central strategic dynamics of the region held that the Middle East was defined by a contest between a radical alliance led by Iran, and a coalescing counter-alliance of pro-Western states, including Israel, the key Gulf Arab states, and Egypt. This account usually also noted an emergent Sunni Islamist third bloc, comprising Turkey, Qatar and a number of Muslim Brotherhood influenced movements across the region. In this view, the Abraham Accords of 2020, and most centrally the establishment of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, formed a crucial building block in the establishment of the pro-Western counter-alliance.
This portrayal of regional dynamics was by no means entirely inaccurate. But as has now become plain, it failed to account for a number of crucial factors and dynamics. In particular, this rather rosy view failed to take into account the built-in legitimacy gap and lack of soft power in the region with which Israel, as the Middle East’s sole non-Islamic state and one of three non-Arab states, must constantly contend.
The Iran-led regional bloc and its ambitions were real enough. Consisting of Teheran itself, the Assad regime in Syria, Hamas-dominated Gaza, Hezballah-dominated Lebanon, the Shia militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen, this gathering had been the main beneficiary of the instability that swept the Arabic-speaking world after 2010 and the brief “Arab Spring.” Using a sophisticated combination of political subversion and paramilitary muscle, Iran appeared over the last decade to be moving forward on all fronts.
Teheran’s forward momentum has now been halted. Indeed, the main strategic result of the Gaza war so far has been the drastic weakening of the Iran-led bloc, at the hands of Israel and with U.S. support and assistance. Israel has pulverized Hamas in Gaza and Hezballah in Lebanon. The Twelve-day war in July subjected Iran’s nuclear program and its military infrastructure to massive damage. The Iraqi Shia militias failed to come to their allies’ aid. The Assad regime fell as a result of the inability of other components of Iran’s alliance to intervene on its behalf because of the damage inflicted by Israel. Jerusalem also struck hard at the Houthis in response to their largely ineffectual efforts to launch missiles and drones at Israel. After two years of war, Iran and its proxies’ image of invulnerability and implacable forward momentum has been decisively dismantled.
But while Israel’s ability to deploy raw military power has been amply demonstrated over the last two years, its diplomatic position, far from improving as a result, has become strained. It may be presumed that observers in the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia shed no tears at the weakening of Iran and the decimation of Hizballah. But with their own populations according to all available polls deeply sympathetic to the Palestinians of Gaza, and with nothing to be gained from overt identification with Israel at the present time, they are lining up, at least publicly, with Qatar and the public consensus of the Arab and Islamic world.
While Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have sought in the last decade to support regional stability and draw closer to the West, Doha has made alliance with Islamist and radical forces.
Qatar is a rival state to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It has followed a quite different and opposing regional strategy in recent years. While Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have sought in the last decade to support regional stability and draw closer to the West, Doha has made alliance with Islamist and radical forces. But it should not be concluded from this that Saudi and Emirati concerns are false, or only superficial. Israel’s display of hard power in Doha worries the Gulf Arabs, who have no similar ability to project power of their own. It is only 15 years since Israel’s killing of a senior Hamas operative in the UAE.
The notion of a loose alliance of pro-Western regional states thus appears to be on hold, at least for the duration of the fighting in Gaza. Hopes that Saudi Arabia might join the Abraham Accords will also need to be placed on ice, again at least for the duration of the Gaza fighting.
Israel and Gaza are not the only elements to note here. There is a broader sense that the U.S. itself has little interest in guaranteeing the security of Gulf states, or in leading a regional alliance against Iran. Rather, the U.S. appears interested in backing independently strong allies in the region, including Israel, while focusing on ensuring its own direct security interests. The U.S. failure to respond to Iran’s attack on Saudi oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in 2019 was well noted by Gulf states. Washington’s preference for reaching its own separate agreement with the Houthis regarding their attacks on shipping in the Gulf in May 2025 further confirmed the sense that no West-led regional alliance was likely to coalesce. With Israel clearly determined to ensure its security using its own strength, and the U.S. preferring a light regional footprint, the Gulf states are seeking to hedge their bets and remain within the loose Arab and Islamic consensus.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, the hedging is taking a proactive and practical form. In the diplomatic arena, Riyadh, along with France, is leading the international push for a recognition of Palestinian statehood. More tangibly, in the security realm, Saudi Arabia this month concluded a defense pact with Pakistan, suggesting that the search for security guarantees beyond reliance on the U.S. and the West is a real one.
The lighter Western involvement in Mideast diplomacy and security, and the absence of a unified pro-U.S. bloc, are opening the way for the entry of new players. Most significantly, the Chinese role is now discernible, and growing. China brokered the diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March 2024. The Pakistan-Saudi defense pact would certainly not have been concluded without Beijing’s knowledge and involvement, given the central importance for Pakistan of its defense relationship with China. Chinese purchase of Iranian oil enabled the Iranians to wait out the first Trump Administration’s strategy of :maximum pressure” on Teheran. The Chinese appear also to have concluded their own private agreement with the Houthis, ensuring the safety of their own shipping on the vital Gulf of Aden-Red Sea route. Unlike in the American case, the Chinese agreement appears to include the provision of military equipment to the Houthis, including components for drones.
Israel appears determined to push forward and complete the destruction of Hamas in Gaza. Once this is achieved, if it is achieved, the work of the diplomats can begin again.
None of this presages disaster. The communiqué issued in Doha was declarative in nature, without practical effect. The Abraham Accords have not collapsed. Bilateral trade between Israel and the UAE, Morocco and Bahrain has increased significantly since 2023. The underlying interests which made the accords possible have not gone away. The Iranians and their ambitions have not disappeared, though they have been significantly weakened. The rise of Turkey in alliance with Qatar and with Sunni political Islam across the region is a similar common concern for Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.
But the Middle East today is what happens when there is no hegemon, no perceived final arbiter. The strong countries—Israel, Iran and Turkey—are in open competition. Weaker and more fragile states, with no hard power option of their own, seek to hedge their bets, wait out the storm, and look for new partners. Rising global powers, specifically China, look to exploit the areas of vacuum created, building their own channels of influence.
In the longer term, the foundations of common interest that underlay the Abraham Accords may still form the basis for a coming together of states jointly opposed to political Islam and jointly committed to prosperity and development. The UAE, in particular, appears set to play a major role in a post-Hamas Gaza. For now, though, with war still raging, forward progress is on hold. Israel appears determined to push forward and complete the destruction of Hamas in Gaza. Once this is achieved, if it is achieved, the work of the diplomats can begin again. For now, as the old Soviet saying has it, when the cannons roar, the muses are silent.
