Testing EU-Israel relations

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 9 June 2026

 A major EU summit, a meeting of the full European Council, is scheduled for June 18–19 in Brussels. The European Council brings together the heads of state or government of the 27 EU member states.  According to the draft agenda and a report in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, EU leaders are expected, under the Middle East subject heading, to accuse Israel of a long list of misdemeanors and worse, and issue a series of rebukes and censures.   

The Telegraph apparently gained access to “draft conclusions” to be discussed at the summit.  They reveal an extensive list of charges that EU leaders intend to aim at Israel, starting with condemnation of the “persistent and devastating” humanitarian crisis in Gaza and proceeding to a declaration of support for Lebanon’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

The bloc’s 27 prime ministers and presidents will apparently express “serious concern” about “continued ceasefire violations” in Lebanon, and call for a “permanent end” to hostilities. They will commit the EU to the welfare of the Lebanese people and their state-building efforts, and offer to provide emergency aid to the more than one million displaced by the conflict.  The possibility may also be raised of sending a mission of civilian and military experts, as well as financial support, to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

The EU seems unaware that the Lebanese government is as anxious to degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities as Israel, which explains the recent Lebanon-Israel ceasefire negotiations.  Any intervention by the EU seems even less appropriate in light of the agreement reached on June 3 between Lebanon and Israel, when they moved from their previously announced truce toward an actual implementation framework for a ceasefire.

The ceasefire will come into effect, the agreement specifies, provided there is a “complete cessation” of fire by Hezbollah and the withdrawal of its operatives from the sector south of the Litani River.  Once those conditions are met, Israel commits to halt its offensive operations.

The agreement envisages the LAF exercising sole security control in ”pilot zones” in southern Lebanon from which all non‑state actors, explicitly including Hezbollah, are to be excluded.  Any sort of intervention by the EU would appear to run counter to that provision.

The details obtained by the Telegraph indicate that EU leaders are about to call on Israel to reopen border crossings to Gaza, allow in “unimpeded” humanitarian aid “at scale”, and permit the UN, its agencies and non-governmental organizations to work freely there.  “Freely” presumably means not checking whether staff have Hamas connections.

They will further demand the immediate repeal of the new “discriminatory” death penalty law for terrorism introduced in March, because they fear it will be used exclusively against Palestinians.

EU chiefs will condemn Israel’s “mistreatment” of activist detainees following the interception of the Global Sumud lotilla, which attempted to break the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.  They will, moreover, apparently call for EU sanctions to be prepared “against extremist ministers”.

This probably refers to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, widely criticized for posting a video of himself taunting the detained campaigners as they knelt with their hands tied behind their backs.

The EU will apparently tell Israel to stop the expansion of settlements, condemn “unlawful, unilateral actions”, and urge it to protect Palestinians from settler violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

 In a direct rebuke to Benjamin Netanyahu, the EU will also say it “firmly rejects Israel’s announcement that it will seize 70 per cent of Gaza’s territory.”

In short it looks as though those who regard Israel as the fount of all evil are about to have a field day.

The summit will be chaired by the Council’s president, Antonio Costa. 

Both Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EC, and its High Representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, will be present.  The EU-Israel relationship has been under significant strain ever since May 20, 2025, when the EU began conducting a review of whether Israel is complying with the human-rights obligations contained in Article 2 of the long-standing EU–Israel Association Agreement.

            The relationship is now characterized by three simultaneous trends:  Continued strategic and economic cooperation; growing criticism from many EU governments regarding Gaza and settlement policy; and increasing willingness to use sanctions and other restrictive measures against Israel.

For the past sixteen years Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, consistently blocked EU measures directed against Israel. That veto disappeared following Hungary's change of government in April.  As a result, EU foreign ministers agreed in May 2026 to impose sanctions on the more extremist Israeli settlers and related organizations, while simultaneously expanding sanctions against Hamas figures.

There is still no consensus among member states for the most far-reaching criticisms or anti-Israel measures. Countries generally favoring stronger pressure include Spain, Ireland and Belgium, and also to varying degrees, France and some Nordic countries. These governments have been among the strongest advocates of sanctions, trade measures, or review of the Association Agreement.

Countries generally favoring caution include Germany, Italy and several central European governments.  These states often support criticism of settlement violence and humanitarian concerns, while remaining cautious about broader economic or diplomatic penalties.

Realistically, the political mood across much of Europe is too far gone for the EU’s strong criticism of Israel, as predicted by the Telegraph, to be completely averted.  But forewarned is forearmed.  Back from her ambassadorial post in the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, the new head of Israel’s hasbara (public relations), now has the opportunity for a pre-emptive strike. 

She and her team have the chance, ahead of a storm of adverse criticism, to explain that Israel is engaged in protecting itself and its people against forces intent on their destruction.  Iran has explicitly declared its purpose is to eliminate Israel and its population from the Middle East, and its proxies have demonstrated their willingness to carry through on that intention.  Hamas committed a genocide of its own on October 7, 2023; Hezbollah refuses to abide by the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire deal and continues to strike into northern Israel; the Houthis proudly wave a flag inscribed with “Death to Israel; a curse upon the Jews”.

The EU must be made to understand that Israel will not subscribe to its own annihilation.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 9 June 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-898692

A new Sunni axis

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 2 June 2026

           “Sunni axis” is a term that is gaining currency.  It refers to a new security alliance of Sunni states that seems to be emerging.  At its heart is a Pakistan-Saudi Arabia mutual defense pact signed on September 17, 2025  – the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA).

            One noteworthy feature of the SMDA pact is an explicit collective‑defense clause that closely echoes NATO’s Article 5, namely that “any attack on one country will be viewed as an attack on both.” This has led some commentators to dub the agreement an Islamic NATO.

            This Pakistan-Saudi arrangement, according to Pakistani ministers, is not only capable of being expanded, but action is in hand to do so. Turkey and Qatar have been mentioned as the first states to turn the bilateral pact into a collective‑security grouping.  Egypt is a fifth potential member.

   Back in January Turkey was said to be in advanced discussions to join the SMDA pact. It seemed a natural and appropriate extension of an existing partnership. Turkey is Pakistan’s second‑largest arms supplier, and the military‑industrial connection is flourishing in terms of aircraft, drones, and naval assets.  

In an interview with Reuters, reported on January 15, 2026, Pakistan’s Minister for Defense Production, Raza Hayat Harraj, said: “The Pakistan–Saudi Arabia–Turkey trilateral agreement is something that is already in the pipeline.” 

His words presaged an axis that grouped key Sunni powers (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, potentially Egypt) on one side of a regional balance, with Iran’s mainly Shi’ite, but essentially anti-Israel, network (Iran, Iraq‑based pro-Iran militias, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc.) on the other.

However, something of a change of tone seemed to emerge in a interview given to the Bloomberg news agency by Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif on May 13. While discussing the idea that Turkey and Qatar may join the mutual defense cooperation pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Asif said “if Qatar and Turkey also join this existing agreement, it will be a welcome development” – a comment that clearly viewed their participation as a possibility rather than “in the pipeline,” as his ministerial colleague had claimed back in January.

Whether there has been a cooling of enthusiasm on Pakistan’s part is difficult to assess.  It is just possible that the glitch is caused by the prospect of a tighter Turkish-Saudi connection.  They remain, in many arenas, competitors for leadership of the Sunni world. Moreover, despite the recent rapprochement,  relations have been anything but warm over some of the past eight years. 

It was on October 2, 2018 that Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.  Turkey reacted with fury.  In a series of speeches and leaks, Turkey’s President Erdogan called the murder “savage,” said it was ordered from the “highest levels” of the Saudi state, and demanded the extradition of the Saudi suspects.

Turkish authorities opened a criminal investigation, searched the Saudi consulate and the consul’s residence, and leaked detailed allegations to the media about Khashoggi’s strangling, dismemberment and the pre‑planned nature of the operation.  Turkey then launched a trial in absentia of 26 Saudis, deepening the rift with Saudi Arabia, which insisted its own courts had jurisdiction.

 The thaw took a few years to develop.  Finally on April 7, 2022 an Istanbul court halted the trial and transferred the Khashoggi case to Saudi Arabia.  On the 28th Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia, met King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and said he hoped “to launch a new era”.  On June 21, 2022, MBS paid his first visit to Turkey since 2018.

On the face of it, Turkish-Saudi relations should be firmly re‑established, but negotiations aimed at bringing Turkey into the Pakistan–Saudi security pact have been dragging on now for half a year, and the arrangement is still not ready to be implemented.  Instead, the political narrative has drifted toward a flexible framework in which Turkey​ would be less than a full partner.

If ​actually completed on the lines originally envisaged, the new Sunni axis would amalgamate four formidable components: Saudi and Qatari financial resources and arms‑procurement; Turkey’s NATO‑standard conventional forces and advanced defense‑industrial base; Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent and ballistic‑missile capabilities; and Egypt’s massed conventional army, control of the Suez corridor, and diplomatic weight in Arab and Gulf security affairs.

​These powerful elements could theoretically give it the ability to deter conventional attacks and influence conflicts across the Middle East and beyond.  In reality, however, ​converting the security pact into a tightly disciplined combat-ready military alliance is less than likely.  Internal divergences, domestic constraints, and each state’s ties to Washington, Beijing, Moscow and Brussels would rule​ it out​.

Even so, several interested parties and groupings perceive this Sunni axis as at least potentially threatening.

Iran and its allies would naturally be apprehensive about the emergence of a Sunni power bloc​ opposed to the Iranian regime’s bid for regional and religious dominance in the Middle East, and widely seen as a counterweight to Iran’s Axis of Resistance.

Indian analysts have already warned that a consolidated Pakistan–Saudi–Turkey security structure, backed by oil wealth and Pakistani nuclear capability, would upset the current security balance and challenge India’s defense environment.

Some Israeli strategic commentators believe that a more cohesive Sunni military grouping involving Turkey and Qatar could constrain Israel’s operational freedom.  Both Turkey and Qatar have a history of supporting Hamas.

Some eastern Mediterranean states, such as Greece, Cyprus and Armenia, are already at odds with Ankara, and view with concern the prospect of Turkey being backed in the future by Gulf money and Pakistani deterrence.

​But all this calculation seems premature.  Extending the Pakistan-Saudi defense and security pact to embrace other Sunni states, such as Turkey, Qatar and Egypt, ​seems far from imminent. Even Turkey, apparently on the verge of full accession back in January, is still hovering in the wings, talking about ​the possibility.

In short, if the enhanced ​alliance emerges it would ​indeed be a significant new factor in the region’s political alignment. Even in prospect it is enough to shape calculations in Tehran, New Delhi, Jerusalem and Washington. 

But ​a new Sunni axis simply does not yet exist.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Will a new Sunni axis reshape the Middle East?" 2 June 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-897859

The bid to recapture Lebanon’s sovereignty

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 26 May 2026

Ever since he was elected Lebanon’s president in January 2025, Joseph Aoun has emphasized that his primary aim is to end the humiliation of Hezbollah acting with impunity as “a state within a state”.  The nation, he decided, will no longer allow its sovereignty to be leased out to Iran or its proxy.  He will reclaim it.

​National sovereignty was being flouted on a daily basis by Iran’s ambassador-designate to Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Sheibani​.   Not yet formally accredited, ​he had distinguished his brief period in office by ​continually interfering in the​ nation's internal politics.  Moreover, he used his diplomatic cover to support Hezbollah’s military operations.  On March 24 the government declared him persona non grata and gave him until March 29 to leave the country.

"The ambassador will not leave Lebanon,” an Iranian diplomatic source told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the 28th. This decision, he informed them, was in accordance with the wishes of Hezbollah and the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri.  Berri, a Shi’ite Muslim, is a known supporter of Hezbollah. 

So Sheibani remained in his residence in Beirut, and on March 30 Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, told a press briefing in Tehran: “Our embassy in Lebanon remains operational.”

No greater affront to a nation’s sovereignty could be envisaged. Iran was telling the world that the Lebanese government was not the master in its own house.  Aoun took action.  He wrote to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the Security Council President. 

The complaint, which was filed officially on April 21, accused Sheibani of taking action, including issuing statements to the media, that amounted to direct interference in the nation’s internal affairs. It went on to charge Iran with multiple violations including "interfering in Lebanon's sovereign decision-making and entangling the state in a war it never chose". Moreover Lebanon accused Iran of "deploying Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps personnel in Lebanon under the guise of diplomatic activity.”

The letter challenges Iran’s accounts to the UN about Israeli strikes in Beirut, arguing that Tehran’s narrative is “full of falsehoods”.  And it accuses Iran of violating the Vienna Convention and international diplomatic norms by refusing to comply with Lebanon’s sovereign decision to expel Sheibani.  The 1961 Vienna Convention sets out the rules governing diplomacy between states.

Lebanon invited the UN to recognize and condemn these actions as breaches of international law, and to confirm that its order to expel Sheibani is legally valid and must be respected.  A response is awaited.  Unfortunately, effective action from the Security Council on this issue, as on so many, is less than assured. 

This effort to assert Lebanon’s national sovereignty is only the most recent of Aoun’s attempts.  Parliament elected him on January 8, 2025, after more than two years of a presidential vacancy.  With the restoration of national sovereignty his priority, in August 2025 Aoun and his cabinet instructed the army to develop a comprehensive plan to bring all weapons in the country under the control of state security forces, thereby ending Hezbollah’s autonomy.

 One month later Lebanon’s army chief, Rodolphe Haykal, presented the cabinet with a multi‑phase, region‑by‑region plan for disarming Hezbollah and other non‑state armed groups, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that all military hardware in Lebanon would be held exclusively by the state.  It began with a first phase aimed at removing Hezbollah’s weapons south of the Litani river by the end of 2025.

The cabinet authorized the army to begin enacting it at once. But it soon became clear that government forces lacked the capacity to implement the scheme. The army made some progress in dislodging Hezbollah from areas of southern Lebanon, but the plan was basically unviable. The state could not regain national sovereignty without help.

So from March 2026 Aoun began pushing the idea of face‑to‑face ceasefire talks with Israel, as part of a broader strategy that would ultimately bring Hezbollah’s weapons, and therefore Hezbollah itself, under state control.

The first 2026 Israel-Lebanon ceasefire deal was agreed on April 16, announced by US President Donald Trump following discussions with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Aoun. Initially set to last ten days, the ceasefire was subsequently extended by three weeks on April 23, and then, on May 15, by an additional 45 days. 

There had been no official contact between Israel and Lebanon for four decades, so these negotiations were to be welcomed.  But what is the point of a ceasefire between two countries not in conflict with each other?  It is not the Lebanese armed forces but the uncontrollable Hezbollah that, at Iran’s behest, is attacking northern Israel, while Israel is trying to degrade its capacity to do so.

Aoun is in a difficult position.  On May 18 Lebanon’s al‑Jadeed TV channel published “a rare glimpse into Lebanese public opinion,” undertaken by the Beirut‑based statistics firm Information International.  It showed that Hezbollah still enjoys the support of much of the Muslim population – as against Christian, Maronite and Druze citizens, who are overwhelmingly opposed – and Aoun is fearful that too obvious an alliance with Israel could stir up civil conflict.  So for public consumption he steers clear of any suggestion of a Lebanon-Israel collaboration to disempower Hezbollah. He presents it as an effort to end further civilian casualties and structural damage.

In reality, however, preventing further devastation within Lebanon is dependent not on a pointless ceasefire agreement, but on Hezbollah’s actions, and Aoun has been unable to dissuade Hezbollah from continuing its armed attacks.  The ceasefire has therefore had no effect on Israel’s response.  On May 17 the media reported IDF strikes at nearly 100 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

Israel also acts, when the opportunity arises, to eliminate known senior Hezbollah officials.  For example on May 6, in an airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, Ahmed Ali Balout, was targeted and killed.

          It may be inexpedient for Aoun to admit it, but the truth is that the more Israel weakens Hezbollah, the more the president moves towards his objective of re-establishing Lebanon’s sovereignty over the terrorist organization.

Published in the Jerusalem Post titled "Recapture Lebanon's sovereignty", and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 26 May 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-897227

Published in Eurasia Review, 3 June 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/30052026-the-bid-to-recapture-lebanons-sovereignty-oped/

 

Two states – Macron’s final effort

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 19 May 2026

France has announced that it will host an international meeting in Paris on June 12, 2026, dedicated to realizing the two‑state solution.  With barely a year left in office, French president Emmanuel Macron is making a final bid to become the power broker who secures a sovereign state for the Palestinian people.  

This will be Macron’s second attempt at seizing the initiative in the Israel-Palestinian dispute.  

On July 28–30, 2025 in New York Macron co‑chaired a UN conference on implementing the two‑state solution.  It was resumed during the UN General Assembly’s high‑level week in late September 2025, and it was there that Macron announced France’s recognition of a State of Palestine.

Macron is following a well-trodden path.  For decades French leaders have tried to position France as a prime mover in solving the Israel-Palestinian issue.  Time and again they have attempted to convene multilateral conferences to resolve the question. Their initiatives have invariably proved ineffective.

French presidents have aspired to lead the game in the Middle East ever since France assumed its colonial role there, after the First World War.  At first, following Israel’s independence in 1948, France emerged as one of its strongest allies in Europe. The close military and political ties binding the two countries culminated in joint operations against Egypt during the 1956 Suez crisis.

Following Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, though, France’s then-president, Charles de Gaulle, dramatically changed policy. He condemned Israel as the aggressor, imposed an arms embargo, and reoriented French diplomacy toward the Arab world.

De Gaulle sought influence in the Middle East by trying to act as an independent power broker, balancing the US and the USSR.  In pursuit of this strategy France became a leading European advocate of a pro-Arab – and later pro-Palestinian – stance.

In 1980 France was central in an early European bid to shape a comprehensive peace process – the Venice Declaration, which pushed for Palestinian self-determination.

It is certainly true that while long advocating the creation of a Palestinian state, France has consistently defended Israel’s right to exist in security – though, belying the famed logicality of French thought, the possible incompatibility between these two positions has never been acknowledged.  

 A certain inconsistency is also apparent in the planned June event in Paris.  In a televised address on March 3, Macron emphasized that Middle East peace “can only be achieved through diplomatic talks,” yet this forthcoming meeting is framed as a gathering featuring charitable and humanitarian bodies and networks. 

The opening move, reported by France’s Le Monde on April 30, was a video message from the French foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, played to a gathering of several hundred peace activists in Tel Aviv – the "People's Peace Summit".   It had been organized by "It's Time", a grouping of ​some 80​ Israeli peace​ and civil society organizations working to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict through a two-state political agreement.                           

"Your presence here,” said Barrot, “is an act of resistance against fatalism and resignation."

​  His choice of audience indicates that the French intend to draw heavily on established Israeli and Palestinian peace NGOs, dialogue groups, and civil‑society networks for their June gathering.  So far France has not released a list of the bodies invited to attend, nor a formal participants list, but it can be assumed that a core of Israeli and Palestinian civil‑society organizations have indicated their willingness to engage.

​  As for the agenda, based on official statements the meeting is explicitly “dedicated to the long‑touted two‑state solution,” tying France’s recognition of Palestine to a structured set of discussions on how to realize that vision politically and practically.  The design is for “Israeli and Palestinian civil societies” to make their voices heard.  So the meeting will not, apparently, be a direct one-track negotiation, but rather panels and working groups highlighting joint initiatives, confidence‑building projects and peace education.

 France’s view of itself as a possible facilitator of an Israel-Palestinian accord has led it into ​less than productive actions on more than one occasion.​ ​ In July 2008 former French President Nicolas Sarkozy induced more than 40 heads of state, including Israel’s then-prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the president of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, to attend a summit in Paris.  There he pushed through a concept grandiosely titled the “Union for the Mediterranean”.  ​It initiated some​ useful​ practical developments in its early years, but ​it attracts little public attention nowadays, ​and it is far from flourishing. ​ In 2024 its secretary-general stated that "the sole viable vision for the region" was the two-state solution. 

 In 2009 ​Sarkozy offered to host another international conference in order, as he said, to facilitate the peace process.  ​Newly elected US President Obama, however, intent on pursuing his own initiative, rejected the overture.​  Nothing daunted, Sarkozy tried again in January 2010 and was again rebuffed.

This nostrum of a Paris-based international conference seems to have become an idée fixe in French thinking.  It reappeared in December 2014, when then-President François Hollande took the lead in drafting a Security Council resolution outlining proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian final-status deal, initiated – of course – by an international peace conference to take place in Paris.

That came to nothing, but on January 15, 2017 Hollande actually achieved France’s long-held ambition.

He hosted an international peace conference in Paris attended by representatives from about 70 countries including then-US Secretary of State, John Kerry. Nothing of substance resulted.  The final communiqué reaffirmed support for a two-state solution, but the occasion was rather like a performance of Hamlet without either the prince or his father’s ghost.  Neither Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, nor PA president Mahmoud Abbas, had been invited.

The French have a saying: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more things change, the more they're the same).  Here we are in 2026 with France’s current president organizing a broadly based  conference seeking to rally international partners around the two-state solution.

The underlying reality, though, remains.  Whatever the French leadership may believe, France is not a principal in the perennial Israel-Palestine issue.  Its opinion, and therefore its influence, has historically counted for little.  That remains as true in 2026 as it always was.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "France’s latest bid to broker Israel-Palestinian peace not likely to work," 19 May 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-896508

Published in Eurasia Review, 22 May 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/22052026-two-states-macrons-final-effort-oped/

Israel and the UAE – brothers-in-arms

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 12 May 2026

  On May 4 Iran fired 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles, and four drones into the United Arab Emirates. This latest attack came in response to President Donald Trump’s effort to ensure free navigation for commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

            Initially kept secret, and later disclosed only through limited specialist reporting, is the interesting information that IDF personnel operated Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system to intercept the incoming Iranian missiles, but from within the UAE.  Not much has been made of it in the media, but this was the first time that Israel’s advanced technology has been deployed and used operationally in combat on foreign soil.

It proves, if proof were needed, that Israel–UAE military cooperation is a rapidly maturing strategic partnership.  Embedded in the Abraham Accords framework, the collaboration is driven above all by a shared perception of the threat posed by Iran. 

Early in the war, at the request of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed in a direct conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel quietly deployed an Iron Dome battery plus IDF personnel to the UAE.  Reports indicate that Israeli crews have since intercepted dozens of Iranian missiles and drones aimed at UAE targets.

   In parallel, the IAF carried out strikes on short‑range missile launch sites in Iran that were assessed as threats to the UAE and other Gulf states, linking Israeli offensive operations directly to Emirati defense.  On May 14 the Jerusalem Post reported that Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UAE and met with Zayed while the fighting was going on.  The meeting yielded a “historic breakthrough” according to Netanyahu’s office.

   Yet even before the current Iran war, there was a clear trend of growing military and defense‑industrial cooperation between Israel and the UAE.

It was back in August 2025 that the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a survey titled: “Israel-UAE Defense Cooperation Grows under the Abraham Accords”. It included reference to a possible forthcoming deal in which the UAE’s Edge Group would procure the Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from the Israeli company Elbit Systems—including transfer of technology and localized production.

That would, it said, potentially​ shift ​"the geopolitical balance in the Gulf.” If this deal was indeed finalized, ​it has not, on the grounds of industrial confidentiality, been made public​. Reports have appeared, though, of multi-million dollar sales of the Hermes UAV to undisclosed customers.   

What is known is that since normalization in 2020, the UAE has acquired Israeli‑made Barak and Spyder air‑defense systems, embedding Israeli technology in its force structure.  In October 2022 an Israeli‑made Barak system was deployed in the UAE, and by 2023 the two states conducted their first bilateral naval exercise and unveiled a jointly developed unmanned surface vessel.

In 2025, UAE Mirage 2000‑9s flew alongside Israeli and US aircraft in a multinational exercise in Greece, signaling that Emirati participation in exercises that openly include Israel has become routine.

Put together with the deployment of an Iron Dome system within the UAE itself, what emerges​, if not quite a mutual defense treaty​, is ​close to the ​collaboration expected in a ​signed and sealed security partnership​.

Way back in 2017, three years before the Abraham Accords, a senior UAE military figure publicly described the UAE and Israel as “like brothers”.  In an interview with the US outlet Defense & Aerospace Report, UAE Major General Abdullah al‑Hashmi went on to describe the US as the “older brother”, overseeing any differences between them.

​So can Israel and the UAE fairly be called “brothers‑in‑arms”?

Israeli and Emirati forces have now fought on the same side in the same live theatre, with Israelis directly defending Emirati territory from Iranian attack and coordinating offensive action against Iranian launch sites.​  The UAE hosts and operates Israeli air‑defense and early‑warning systems and trains regularly with Israeli forces, which is the kind of shoulder‑to‑shoulder activity many would intuitively associate with “brothers‑in‑arms”.

​The cooperation​, though, is framed around the specific threat posed by Iran. There is no formal or explicit public commitment that either state w​ould come to the other’s aid in future conflicts. Above all, the relationship remains constrained by wider Arab public opinion, and the UAE’s need to preserve maneuvering room with other regional actors. ​

​All the same Israel and the UAE have crossed a previously unbridgeable Rubicon.   Israeli troops, Iron Dome, and even – it is reliably reported – state-of-the=-art Israeli prototype Iron Beam and Spectro systems have been deployed in combat from Emirati soil, with real‑time Israeli intelligence guiding UAE and coalition responses.​  All of which makes it politically and operationally easier, next time, to set up joint structures previously almost unimaginable – the permanent basing outside of Israel of some Israeli systems, joint missile‑defense planning, and regularized trilateral planning with US Central Command. 

​In fact that model is already ​beginning to appear, in uneven ways, across the Abraham Accords bloc​.  It could, if the war drags on, become the basis of a looser regional security architecture focused on Iran and its projectiles rather than on broader Arab–Israeli peace.

Among the Abraham Accords states, the UAE and Bahrain are emerging as front‑line adopters of the new model.  They openly normalize with Israel, quietly integrate Israeli air‑ and missile‑defense, intelligence, and naval cooperation, and plug this into US‑led multilateral drills and emerging regional defense schemes aimed squarely at Iran and its projectiles.

By contrast, Morocco ​- and ​Sudan before the civil war - were “selective adopters”​,  taking Israeli UAVs, air‑defense systems, intelligence and doctrine sharing, but applying them primarily to their own local rivalries like Algeria and Western Sahara.

​Introduced in the US Senate in March 2026 ​was  an ​Abraham Accords Defense Cooperation Act​. ​If passed it would create a formal Pentagon‑run “US–Abraham Accords Defense Cooperation Initiative”, deepening military cooperation with Abraham Accords countries specifically to deter Iran and its proxies.​ 

​The Bill is still at the very start of the legislative process, but commentators believe that  current political dynamics in Congress give it a real—though by no means guaranteed—chance of being folded into this year’s annual US defense Bill.  

So ​a possible outcome of this Israel-UAE “brothers-in-arms” moment is a US‑enabled security ecosystem in which Israel and the UAE collaborate closely when Iran is the adversary, and other Accords states plug in more selectively – in short, a tighter, closer, more secure partnership.


Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Israel and UAE: A brothers-in-arms alliance against Iran's growing threat", 12 May 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-895776

Published in Eurasia Review, 15 May 2026:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/15052026-israel-and-the-uae-brothers-in-arms-oped/

Gaza’s future on hold

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 5 May 2026

On April 19 the New York Times, citing two senior Hamas officials, reported that Hamas is prepared to hand over to the Palestinian administrative committee the thousands of automatic rifles and other weapons used by its police and internal security forces in Gaza.  The officials framed this as a significant concession because Hamas, having re-established its authority over roughly half of the Strip, had so far adamantly refused to surrender its weapons. 

The Palestinian administrative committee (formally the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza) is one of the bodies created under the Board of Peace, the high powered controlling group led by US President Donald Trump, set up to oversee the ceasefire arrangements.

What is apparently on offer ​falls well short of the full disarmament and demilitarization specified in the Trump 20-point peace plan for Gaza, which requires Hamas’s military wing​ to be disarmed and disbanded.

The offer conveyed by the Hamas officials presupposes that both the Board of Peace and its Palestinian administrative committee are up and running.  That, however, is nowhere near the present position. While both bodies formally exist on paper and have begun limited activity, neither yet operates as a fully functioning, governing authority in Gaza. The Board of Peace is still consolidating its role and membership, while the Palestinian committee is only partially active.

The Board held a first convening session on February 19, at which members and observers pledged roughly 17 billion dollars in reconstruction funding (10 billion from the US, 7 billion from member states).  At that meeting Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician who has been given the title of High Representative for Gaza, said the process of recruiting a new transitional Palestinian police force had begun and "just in the first few hours we have 2,000 people who have applied". 

That hopeful beginning did not lead on to a successful outcome. The plan envisaged a new 5,000-member police force operational in Gaza by late April, but recruitment proceeded at a snail’s pace because of the vetting required to exclude applicants with Hamas connections and past members of the security forces of the Palestinian Authority.  According to the most current assessment, the transitional Palestinian police force is not even close to being deployable.

Mladenov has said the Palestinian police force must be the primary law-and-order agency in Gaza, ​but supported by the International Stabilization Force (ISF), another body under the overall authority of the Board of Peace.  ​Created ​by UN Security Council Resolution 2803​, the ISF is described in the Gaza peace plan as a multinational agency charged with overseeing the disarmament of weaponized groups​ and ​liaising with both Israel and Egypt to ensure the security of Gaza.  ​It is intended to act in conjunction with the newly trained and vetted Palestinian police force.

​What of the Board of Peace?  It exists, and is functioning mainly as a diplomatic and financial coordinating body concerned with organizing pledge conferences, framework decisions and appointments, but it is not yet a fully operative administrative government in Gaza in the conventional sense. It is eventually envisaged as having sweeping legislative and executive authority over Gaza’s transition.

The top​ tier of the Board of Peace is composed of Trump and senior international figures, some named explicitly and others, at the moment, merely invited.  Among the named members are US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and President of the World Bank Ajay Banga.  ​No less than ten heads of state have accepted the invitation to join the Board;  others are still considering.

Immediately beneath the top tier is the operational body known as the Gaza Executive Board.  Some members, like Witkoff, Kushner and Blair, are drawn from the main Board.  A whole range of others including diplomats, ministers and generals come from countries including Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and the Netherlands. It is described as in a “formation” phase.

Beneath the Executive Board is the 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee – one of the basic new bodies envisaged in the Gaza peace plan​. Explicitly described as “apolitical”, it is intended to stand apart from Hamas, Fatah and other factions, and its members are to be “independent technical experts” or “qualified” professionals, not party functionaries. The committee ​was to be the lowest tier of the new Gaza governance structure, tasked with day‑to‑day administration and service restoration. 

It has in fact been formally constituted, and is headed by Dr Ali Sha’ath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister.

The committee has issued a mission statement describing itself as ​charged with “restoring ​fundamental services” in Gaza and “rebuild​ing civil institutions,” with priority on security, electricity, water, healthcare, and education. Although ​it has indeed engaged in early administrative and planning work, so far it has had a minimal effect in control​ling Gaza’s territory, security, and political life.

 Not one of these bodies, however, from the Board of Peace down, is yet a fully empowered governing institution in Gaza. In fact there is no single Gazan authority that can say it has both the mandate and the tools – police, budget and bureaucracy – to govern in a comprehensive way.

The failure to disarm Hamas – let alone wrest the governance of nearly half of the Gaza Strip from its hands – inhibits all efforts to restore normality to the daily life of its inhabitants.  The possibility, yet to be tested, that Hamas is prepared to surrender its stock of small arms is encouraging, but the body it is prepared to deal with – the Palestinian administrative committee – is not yet fully functional.  

Has Gaza a hopeful future under the terms of Trump’s peace plan?

Confidence in a post-Hamas structure needs to be earned.  Mistrust in the imposed conditions of the peace plan could be allayed by providing greater transparency about the governance architecture, perhaps by inviting ​some appropriate Palestinian​s ​onto the Board of Peace.  Perhaps Gaza’s governance could eventually be linked to a wider national framework and future elections.  The partially operative institutions that already exist could play a constructive transitional role.

Gaza’s future may be on hold, but despite disruptive efforts like the Global Sumud Flotilla, happily scotched, the green shoots of hope have started to sprout.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Gaza peace plan faces delays as Hamas only signals partial disarmament", 5 May 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-895060 

Published in Eurasia Review, 8 May 2026:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08052026-gazas-future-on-hold-oped/

Some straight thinking about Lebanon

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 29 April 2026 

          On the evening of April 23 newscasts reported that, following talks at the White House, US President Donald Trump had announced that the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, due to end on the 27th, would be extended by three weeks. Discussions would continue. The same bulletins carried news of a heavy rocket strike by Hezbollah into northern Israel. 

          No-one could deny that face-to-face Israel-Lebanon negotiations are long overdue – most would say by many decades. The two countries have been technically at war for 78 years. Lebanon’s participation in the attack by the joint Arab armies in 1948 on the new-born state of Israel has never been formally resolved, as it was with Egypt and Jordan.

          For the same reason no mutually agreed international border exists between Lebanon and Israel. The old British Mandate-era lines were never re‑demarcated after 1948. The current provisional land boundary is the UN’s “Blue Line”, endorsed in UN Security Council Resolutions. A joint agreement on an internationally recognized border is long overdue.

          Both these matters are certainly in need of resolution. But the current negotiations are presented by Trump and much of the media as talks leading to a deal that would require Israel to cease military operations within Lebanon, and Hezbollah to cease launching rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel.

          Not many voices are raised to point out that this agenda is a fiction. The Lebanese delegation is not in a position to negotiate on behalf of Hezbollah. In fact Lebanon is at the table precisely because the government is unable to control Hezbollah, which retains enough power within Lebanon to continue acting as a “state within a state”. What Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, and his government want – without being able to acknowledge it openly – is Israel’s support, and perhaps help, in eliminating Hezbollah’s ability to act unilaterally in support of Iran’s revolutionary regime.

          According to the terms of the November 2024 Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire agreement, negotiated via US mediators, Hezbollah forces were to have moved out of the region between the Litani river and the Blue Line by January 26, 2025, and been replaced by the Lebanese army.

          Achieving this desirable state of affairs – an objective first set out in UN Resolution 1701 back in 2006 – has been frustrated for 20 years by a combination of Hezbollah’s dominance within Lebanon, and the weakness of successive Lebanese governments in countering it.

          The 2024 deal proved equally ineffective in curbing Hezbollah, but it did produce one positive result. Ever since Lebanese President Michel Aoun’s term ended in November 2022, parliament had repeatedly failed to elect a successor, largely because Hezbollah and its allies blocked agreement. After the ceasefire Hezbollah allowed Joseph Aoun to be elected President and the new government to be installed.

          The new government immediately began conducting negotiations with US Special Envoy Tom Barrack aimed at disarming Hezbollah, establishing the state’s monopoly on weapons, and asserting government control in Lebanon.

          On August 5, 2025 the Lebanese cabinet instructed the army to develop a comprehensive plan to bring all weapons in the country under the control of state security forces, thereby ending Hezbollah’s autonomy.        

        One month later Lebanon’s army chief Rodolphe Haykal presented the government with a scheme designed to ensure that, by the end of 2025, Hezbollah would be fully disarmed and military hardware would be held exclusively by Lebanon’s state forces. The cabinet authorized the army to begin implementing it at once. Hezbollah leaders immediately made it clear that they opposed being disarmed.

          The army made some progress in dislodging Hezbollah from areas of southern Lebanon, but it soon became clear that the government simply lacked the power to implement the plan. So from March 2026 onward Aoun began pushing the idea of face‑to‑face talks with Israel as part of a broader strategy that would ultimately bring Hezbollah’s weapons, and therefore Hezbollah itself, under state control.

          For presentational purposes the opening steps would be about ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal. Hezbollah’s disarmament would be presented as the logical next stage. The obvious fact that the government was in no position to offer an Hezbollah ceasefire was conveniently sidelined.

          The reality is that the government will be able to undertake Hezbollah disarmament only once it has brought the organization fully under state control, and this will only be possible with Israel’s help and support. How else is Hezbollah to be brought to its knees? Aoun implicitly recognized this when, on March 9, he issued his four‑point proposal calling for “direct discussions with Israel under international auspices”.

          In a national televised address, Aoun defended direct talks with Israel, an enemy state, as “not weakness,” stressing they are aimed at protecting Lebanese civilians and preventing a Gaza‑style devastation in the south.

          In fact, preventing further devastation within Lebanon is dependent not on offering an unenforceable ceasefire, but on Hezbollah’s actions. If it continues to support Iran with missile strikes into Israel, then Israel has reserved the right to strike back.

          As Aoun frames the situation for public consumption, he steers completely clear of any suggestion of a Lebanon-Israel collaboration in disempowering Hezbollah. Hezbollah still enjoys the support of much of the Shi’ite population, and he is fearful of civil conflict.

          The diplomatic track with Israel is designed to create the conditions in which the argument for Hezbollah’s independent arsenal erodes, and full state control becomes politically feasible.

A more realistic assessment, perhaps, was made by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter. Standing outside the State Department after the first session of direct Israel-Lebanon talks, he told reporters: “We discovered today that we’re on the same side of the equation… We are both united in liberating Lebanon from an occupation power dominated by Iran called Hezbollah.” He also said that “the Lebanese government made it clear… that they no longer want to be ‘occupied’ by Hezbollah.”

           Trashing Leiter’s portrayal as propaganda, Hezbollah refuted the suggestion that Lebanon is “united” with Israel against it. As for the Lebanese government, it has neither endorsed nor repudiated Leiter’s impression of the situation. The question is: regardless of whether it is totally accurate, is it “true” in the sense of reflecting where Lebanon and Israel actually stand?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled:
"Israel and Lebanon’s complicated talks: Is Hezbollah’s disarmament possible?", 29 April 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-894321

Published in Eurasia Review, 11 May 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/01052026-some-straight-thinking-about-lebanon-oped/

The Houthis join in

 Published in Eurasia Review, 27 April 2026

       The Houthis, who currently dominate northern and western Yemen and most of the country’s population, have decided to participate actively in the US-Iran conflict.  After nearly a month of remaining on the sidelines, on March 28 they signaled their entry into the war by firing a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel.  Most were intercepted, and no casualties were reported.

​         Within roughly 24 hours a second wave of cruise missiles and drones was launched, and were again intercepted.

Since then the group ​has fired ballistic missiles at the Tel Aviv area, and on April 4 the IDF reported that a missile launched from Yemen fell in an open area in Israel without casualties or damage.  Missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea and against US​ naval targets​ have ceased for the moment, though the threat persists.

            The Houthis are fully aligned with the philosophy underlying the hardline revolutionary Iranian regime.  They proclaim their beliefs and purposes on their flag.  Sandwiched between the words “Allah is great” and “Victory to Islam”, both in a suitable green, come inscribed in blood-red: “Death to America”, “Death to Israel”, and the unequivocally antisemitic:  “A curse on the Jews”. 

             It would be an mistake, however, to assume that these basic articles of faith are the major motivators of the Houthi leadership.  Unlike Iran’s other proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, both well embedded in their respective territories, ​ the Houthis’ primary concern is not anti-Israel operations.  They have their own fish to fry.  For a decade or more the Houthis have sought to extend their rule over the whole of Yemen​.  Although they have won control of a large segment of territory, and rule an estimated 70–80% of Yemen’s population, the country remains fragmented. They are not recognized by the UN or internationally as the government of Yemen​, and as a result the Houthi leadership prioritizes battlefield gains in Yemen above any success they may achieve in external military operations.

The nation’s internationally recognized government​ is the Republic of Yemen, whose executive authority is vested in the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) chaired by Rashad Muhammad al‑Alimi. It was formed in April 2022 specifically to unify anti‑Houthi factions and to negotiate a ceasefire and political settlement with the Houthis. The PLC has operated from the southern city of Aden and from exile in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh.

Its authority has often been contested, specifically by south Yemeni forces. The Southern Transitional Council (STC), backed by the United Arab Emirates, claimed broad control of southern areas in late 2025.  Saudi Arabia led a diplomatic effort to bring the STC within the ambit of the national government, and in early 2026, following negotiations in Riyadh, STC leaders announced the group’s dissolution.  That declaration was immediately contested by other STC bodies and leaders, and although the south now nominally falls under a single pro‑government, Saudi‑managed framework, the region remains deeply fractured and politically explosive.

As for the Houthis, they have no interest in negotiating a ceasefire or political settlement with the recognized government.  Their focus is on defeating government forces and wresting control of the remainder of Yemen from the PLC.

Who are these Houthis?  They are Zaydi Shi’ites, a minority group which actively opposed the man who emerged in 1990 as president of the Unified Republic of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh.  In 2011 Saleh fell victim to the so-called Arab Spring. In the face of a popular uprising, he reluctantly resigned the presidency and allied himself with the Houthis, his former enemies. 

Yemen’s military including its air force remained largely loyal to Saleh.  Supported by them, and with weaponry from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Houthi troops overcame government forces in September 2014, and took control of large areas of west Yemen.  They finally captured the capital, Sana’a.  Saudi Arabia, alarmed at Iran’s expansion into the Arabian peninsula, intervened in March 2015 to beat back the Houthis, and ​in reaction Iran increased its financial and military support to the​m.

As a result the Houthi-Iran relationship changed.  From Iran assisting the Houthis in their domestic struggle for power, it quickly turned into the Houthis becoming Iran’s proxy in its regional bid for dominance.

With the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, Iran further boosted the Houthis’ role.  They became an essential component of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance”, attacking Israel by air and sea.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait – a strategic sea passage at the very foot of the Red Sea – is flanked to the east by Yemen’s Houthi-occupied coastline.  Claiming to target vessels directly connected to Israel, the Houthis began attacking shipping passing through the Strait, and continued to do so largely indiscriminately for nearly two years. 

Inside their territory the Houthis, under Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, their leader since 2004, have built an intrusive supervisory system (mushrifin) that penetrates ministries, local government and neighborhood structures, using control over salaries, fuel, food and jobs to secure obedience.  Economic policy is geared to sustaining this apparatus – capturing revenues from customs, telecommunications and fuel, channeling benefits to loyal elites and militias, and creating new financial centers and patronage networks. Maintaining internal security, keeping local patrons sweet, and financing domestic military operations consume most of the regime’s effort.

Anti‑Israel operations help the leadership convince the population that their privations are the necessary price of “resistance”. It reinforces their internal control, and Yemen remains their primary arena of concern and action. 

It is these considerations that motivate the Houthi’s anti-Israel activity. They are willing partners in Iran’s effort to pressure and, in the long term, eliminate Israel, and they vigorously appropriate the Palestinian cause in their rhetoric. It serves their regional image and their public standing. ​Yet even as they escalate their anti-Israel military involvement, their core calculation remains unchanged.  Their main interest is in the consolidation, and eventual expansion, of their grip on Yemen.

​ This will remain their primary concern.  To signal their continued commitment to Iran’s war effort, they ​will probably persist with their occasional missile and drone attacks against Israel and US-linked targets, though they will surely try to avoid a level of retaliation that could seriously endanger their hold on Yemen.

Published in Eurasia Review, 27 April 2026:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/24042026-the-houthis-join-in-oped/