Since the launch of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, Tel Aviv—heavily shielded by Western political pressure and strategic intimidation against any state rejecting its actions—has faced widespread regional rhetorical backlash. Almost all Arab states, including those with formal ties to Israel, have issued varying forms of public condemnation. Yet behind the theatre of diplomatic outrage, a far more cynical reality has solidified: the core normalizers—including the Abraham Accords signatories, alongside Jordan and Egypt—have fiercely protected their foundational ties to Tel Aviv, ensuring that the machinery of state relations remains fundamentally uninterrupted. 

In other words, business continued as usual, albeit with varying degrees of public caution. Shockingly, not a single normaliser country took concrete diplomatic or legal steps that could amount to the actions taken by non-Arab European nations.

While European governments like Spain and Norway formally recognised the State of Palestine, and Madrid officially intervened in the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, Arab capitals remained entirely absent from these legal mechanisms.

While European governments like Spain and Norway formally recognised the State of Palestine, and Madrid officially intervened in the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, Arab capitals remained entirely absent from these legal mechanisms.

Even the United Kingdom, a staunch Western ally of Tel Aviv, moved to partially suspend arms export licenses over international humanitarian law concerns. By contrast, the Arab normalizers refrained from any punitive measures—whether legal, economic, or diplomatic—that could fundamentally disrupt their bilateral frameworks with Israel.

READ: Israel plans wide Gaza operation amid ceasefires elsewhere

The profound irony lies in the stark divergence between rhetoric and responsibility. From the constituent members of the League of Arab States (LAS), the regional public naturally expected serious, immediate, and material reactions to the catastrophe in Gaza. After all, the Palestinian struggle is explicitly enshrined in almost every single LAS document as the supreme, ‘central cause’ of the Arab world—a boilerplate phrase mechanically inserted into nearly every summit declaration, including those........

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