Perhaps the most consequential outcome of the events of 7 October 2023, has been the unmasking of Israeli plans, the collapse of a façade it maintained in the Middle East region for decades. Israel is no longer seen merely as an occupying power in Palestine, an occupation that distorts history, manipulates geography, and commits grave crimes against civilians. It has also emerged, with increasing clarity, as a disruptive regional actor, one that works deliberately to weaken the region’s centers of power in pursuit of its own dominance and control over the Middle East.

For years, especially in the past decade, the United States and Israel have invested heavily in portraying Iran as the region’s principal strategic adversary. This narrative has delivered tangible gains for Israel. It has helped isolate and constrain Iran as a competing regional power, while simultaneously diverting the attention of influential Arab states, particularly in the Gulf, away from Israel itself. In doing so, it has drawn these states into a prolonged confrontation with a historic rival, reshaping regional priorities in ways that ultimately serve Israel’s long-term strategic interests.

Significant and telling developments in recent days point to a growing Arab awareness of the dangers posed by Israel’s deepening penetration of the region. The Saudi strike against forces backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Yemen came as a clear expression of this shift. Despite the overlap between Saudi and Emirati objectives in Yemen, most notably their shared opposition to the Houthis, Riyadh appears to have made a deliberate decision to contain and isolate the Emirati presence there.

The relationship between Israel and the UAE is no longer concealed. It predates the 2020 normalisation agreement between the two countries, but since that moment it has moved decisively public and official. The UAE has increasingly assisted Israel in advancing its strategic objectives across the region in return of Israeli favours, even when doing so has come at the expense of Arab allies. Against this backdrop, Saudi Arabia has opted to block what it views as a dangerous Emirati footprint in Yemen, even if that choice carries costs for the broader campaign against the Houthis and Iran.

This recalibration raises a question that would have seemed implausible not long ago: have the UAE, and Israel behind it, come to be perceived as a greater threat to Saudi Arabia and the Arab world than Iran itself, particularly at a moment when Riyadh is engaged in negotiations with the Houthis and Iran aimed at de-escalating the conflict in Yemen?

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These developments are also directly linked to the war in the Sudan, which erupted in 2023. From a strategic standpoint, Sudan commands a long and consequential stretch of the Red Sea coastline, alongside other critical considerations. That presence on the Red Sea carries particular........

© Middle East Monitor