While the war with Iran is not yet over – and the possibility of renewed hostilities still lingers – one conclusion is already clear: Israel’s standing in the Gulf has been significantly strengthened.
The report revealing that Israel transferred an Iron Dome battery to the United Arab Emirates at the outset of the war, reportedly along with personnel to operate it, should not have come as a surprise. For years, Israeli defence systems have reportedly been quietly embedded across the Gulf. Systems like SPYDER and Barak have played a central role in protecting strategic assets in the region.
Which is why, what has changed is not the cooperation itself – but its context.
Publicly, relations between Israel and the UAE – the strongest in the Gulf – have not always been smooth. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, has yet to make an official state visit to the UAE since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, and Emirati officials have – when needed – made their frustration with controversial Israeli policies public.
But beneath all of that, something more durable has taken shape.
Economically, culturally, and most importantly militarily, ties between Israel and the UAE have remained robust – even during moments of tension. Trade has expanded, tourism has grown, and intelligence and defence cooperation has only deepened. The one country whose airlines have continued to fly to Israel over the last two and a half years with barely an interruption is the UAE. That is because the relationship was never meant to be transactional. Once Abu Dhabi made the strategic decision to normalise relations, it did so with a long-term view in mind, rooted in shared concerns about regional stability, technological advancement, and more.
That reality was underscored this week by Anwar Gargash, a senior adviser to the UAE president, who noted that Israel is no longer seen as a threat by most Gulf countries. While commitment to the Palestinian issue remains, he predicted that interest in Israeli defence technology would grow.
Gargash has been remarkably consistent on this point. Earlier in the war, as Israeli and American forces were still striking Iranian targets, he argued that Iran’s aggression would not weaken Israel’s position in the region – but strengthen it. For countries that already have relations with Israel, he added, those ties will deepen. For those that do not, new channels may open.
At the time, it seemed like a bold assessment. The region was on edge and the UAE was under missile and drone threat. Yet Gargash understood something fundamental and that logic today extends beyond the UAE.
Perhaps even more telling has been the silence of other Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait – throughout the conflict. These are countries that do not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel. Historically, they have not hesitated to criticise Israeli military action.
Despite the fact that Israel – alongside the United States – initiated the war against Iran, and despite the fact that these Gulf states came under retaliatory fire, there was no wave of public condemnation. No emergency summits denouncing Israeli actions. No coordinated diplomatic pushback. That absence of criticism is not accidental.
It reflects a quiet, if unspoken, realignment. Gulf leaders understand that Iran poses as much of a threat to them as it does to Israel. They recognise that Israel’s actions, while taken first and foremost in its own defence, degrades a common adversary – one that has invested heavily for years in missile programs, nuclear weapons, and regional destabilisation.
As a result, their perspective is fundamentally different from that of critics of the war in Washington or Europe, where debates over the legitimacy of the conflict continue to dominate the discourse. In the Gulf, the question of whether the Iranian threat is “imminent” is not theoretical. Missiles and drones have already fallen in their territory.
That is why for Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and beyond, the calculation is simple – a weaker Iran is a safer Middle East.
That explain why, behind the scenes, Gulf leaders have reportedly urged Washington to sustain pressure on Tehran and not to agree to a premature deal. For them, the risk of war is real, but so too is the risk of allowing Iran to emerge from the conflict intact and emboldened.
None of this means that normalisation with Saudi Arabia is imminent. The political obstacles remain significant, not least the unresolved Palestinian issue, which continues to serve as both a domestic and regional constraint for Arab leaders. Nor does it mean that these countries will publicly embrace Israel or shift their rhetoric overnight.
But something important has been reinforced.
The Gulf states have once again been reminded that when the region is under threat, there is one country that is both willing and capable of acting. Israel is seen as a country that not only defends itself, but takes action that alters the strategic balance for others as well.
That realisation does not make headlines but quietly leads to defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, in decisions not being criticised, and in deeper ties behind closed doors. And that, perhaps more than anything else, is the real story of this war.
Yaakov Katz is a co-founder of the MEAD policy forum, a senior fellow at JPPI, and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. His latest book is While Israel Slept
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