The News
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister met with Iran’s president on Wednesday, as Gulf countries continue an effort to defuse tensions in the region and prevent an all-out Middle East war. Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it had struck the Iran-backed group Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut.
Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud, the Saudi foreign minister, said “we intend to close the page on differences” between the kingdom and Iran, according to an Iranian read-out of the meeting. Meanwhile, in a piece published in the Financial Times on the same day as the meeting, Al Saud wrote that Saudi Arabia would continue to normalize relations with Israel, provided a Palestinian state were established.
Arab states have largely stayed on the sidelines during Israel’s year-long conflict with Hamas and Iran’s other regional proxies, calling for diplomatic solutions, ceasefires, and increased humanitarian efforts for Gaza — Israel, however, has shown little sign of winding down its military operations.
SIGNALS
Arab states seem content to remain on the sidelines
Despite the slew of public statements on the conflict, “Arab states have been bystanders to an Arab-Israeli war,” The Economist wrote. Arab states have loudly denounced Israel’s war in Gaza and attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, but they have been reluctant to apply significant economic or political pressure against Israel or Iran. None of the Middle Eastern states with diplomatic ties to Israel — which include Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan — have cut those ties. While a Jordanian official has said the country’s peace deal with Israel was “covered with dust,” he cast doubt on whether reconsidering the deal would have any benefit to Amman or Palestinians.
Gulf seeks to maintain fragile ties to Tehran
The thawing relationship between Tehran and Riyadh has “undoubtedly helped to contain wider regional escalation,” experts at the European Council on Foreign Relations argued, adding that the fragile dialogue between the two long-standing rivals has become one of the few diplomatic channels remaining to Iran. Other Gulf states have adopted roles as behind-the-scenes mediators, with Oman frequently acting as intermediary between Tehran and Washington to ensure communication remains possible. The calculation, perhaps, is that while Gulf states have little love lost for Iran, they fear Israel’s attacks on the Islamic Republic and its proxies could destabilize the region, The Guardian reported.
Tehran is bracing for an imminent Israeli attack
Tehran is bracing for an imminent Israeli strike in retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage fired at Israel earlier this week — the latest round of high risk, tit-for-tat attacks. Western officials are pushing Israel not to target Iranian nuclear sites, and to focus on military targets instead, the Financial Times reported. There’s growing concern that Israel’s crippling attacks on Hezbollah have deprived Iran of a key security partnership, and could encourage Tehran to weaponize its nuclear program as a deterrence. Israeli officials are considering Iranian oil facilities, assassinations, or attacking air defense systems as possible responses, although attacks on nuclear facilities are unlikely for now, Axios noted.