Gulf States Emerged From Gaza War With Resources to Rebuild the Middle East

When the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was announced on October 9, Israeli negotiator Alon Nitzan celebrated by embracing his interlocutor, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. This picture contrasts sharply with the events of one month ago, when Israel bombed a neighborhood in central Doha, and Al Thani then condemned “state terrorism” in Tel Aviv. Some observers then wondered whether the Trump administration’s ambiguous response to the Israeli strike and the crisis of confidence it precipitated meant that the Gulf states would now turn away from the United States.

But cool heads prevailed. The Gulf Cooperation Council countries did not replace the American security umbrella. Instead, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the United States cooperated closely on the recent ceasefire in Gaza. While the Trump administration announced, in a clear departure from previous policy, that it would consider any future attack on Qatar to constitute a direct threat to the United States. It may now be about to offer the same guarantee to Saudi Arabia.

When the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was announced on October 9, Israeli negotiator Alon Nitzan celebrated by embracing his interlocutor, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. This picture contrasts sharply with the events of one month ago, when Israel bombed a neighborhood in central Doha, and Al Thani then condemned “state terrorism” in Tel Aviv. Some observers then wondered whether the Trump administration’s ambiguous response to the Israeli strike and the crisis of confidence it precipitated meant that the Gulf states would now turn away from the United States.

But cool heads prevailed. The Gulf Cooperation Council countries did not replace the American security umbrella. Instead, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the United States cooperated closely on the recent ceasefire in Gaza. While the Trump administration announced, in a clear departure from previous policy, that it would consider any future attack on Qatar to constitute a direct threat to the United States. It may now be about to offer the same guarantee to Saudi Arabia.

There is a broader conclusion here. Despite the recent concerns of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, they will not change their geopolitical orientations. In the past two years, Israel has hindered Iran and its allies, opening the way to reshape the political landscape in the region. But by relying too heavily on military force at the expense of the “day after,” Israel left a vacuum that the Gulf states were quick to fill.

Regardless of whether the war between Israel and Hamas is over or not, this is why the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, not Israel, are best placed to reshape the region. But it remains to be seen whether they, or the region, can ultimately reap the benefits.

Throughout the warHowever, the Gulf states – especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – remained dogged by allegations that they were happy to see Iran’s wings clipped, and even secretly supported the expanded Israeli campaign, regardless of their public statements.

This is an oversimplification. The Gulf Cooperation Council countries have long viewed Iran as a competitor. But Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to a Chinese-brokered normalization agreement in 2023. After getting involved in fighting the Houthis in Yemen, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman turned away from military adventures and focused on internal state building. Other Gulf countries followed suit; Most have their own version of Saudi Vision 2030, a long-term plan to end the country’s over-reliance on oil. This vision depends on calm, which is why Saudi Arabia stopped aggressively confronting Iran and its allies and chose détente instead.

However, while distancing themselves from Iran’s reach, Gulf leaders have been watching Iran’s growing regional influence with concern. In turn, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu positioned his country as a regional power capable of containing the so-called axis of resistance and maintaining the regional status quo. While Israel normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates and was apparently prepared to do the same with Saudi Arabia, Israel worked with Qatar to finance the cash-strapped Hamas movement and keep the regime in Gaza afloat.

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, ended this dynamic. It has made many Israelis see their high strategic preference for calm as naive and dangerous. Israel then pursued an aggressive regional revisionist policy, which is exactly what it has condemned Iran for for a long time. But the Gulf states sought exactly the opposite: to end the war as quickly as possible. For some time, they worked to minimize the impact of the conflict on their development agendas; While the Houthis escalated their campaign against Israel, they refrained from targeting the UAE or Saudi Arabia.

This continued until this year, which was turbulent for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. They saw their influence reach unprecedented levels in May, when they showered visiting US president Donald Trump with gifts. But in June and September, the Gulf’s worst nightmare came true when Qatar gained the unwelcome privilege of being bombed by both Iran and Israel.

The Trump administration belatedly realized that enabling or downplaying the importance of an Israeli attack on a country that former US President Joe Biden considered a major non-NATO ally undermines the reputation and value of the United States as a superpower guarantor of its security. In response, Trump forced Netanyahu to issue a humiliating apology to the Emir of Qatar. He also applied what one White House insider described as “maximum pressure,” forcing Israel to “submit to peace.”

But the Israeli strike on Doha had another unintended consequence. It fueled a growing sense of regional insecurity and a sense that the United States was a paper tiger or was willing to throw the Gulf states under the bus to advance Israel’s interests.

To mitigate this perception, Washington gave Doha a written and public guarantee that it would view any future attack on Qatar as a “threat” to the “peace and security” of the United States. This was what every Gulf leader wanted, and it was the closest any GCC state would ever come to emulating NATO Article V and being unambiguously covered by the US security umbrella. The United States had previously refrained from offering a formal security guarantee as a reward that would incentivize and pursue further regional normalization with Israel.

In short, the Israeli strike on Doha was a disastrous own goal. Not only did it fail to kill its targets, it also enabled Qatar to request and obtain an unprecedented US concession.

That is why, despite Trump’s determination to expand the Abraham Accords, the US response to the Doha strike makes this outcome less likely. Washington had previously rewarded the UAE and Bahrain for joining the Abraham Accords, but it did not go as far as offering the concessions that Qatar obtained. It’s no wonder, then, that Saudi Arabia is now seeking the same deal.

The Doha strike and the political blowback it caused also illustrate why Israel is in a weak position to create what Netanyahu has repeatedly called a “new Middle East” from the ashes of the old regional order.

Over the past two years, Netanyahu’s policies have proven more effective at destroying than creating. Israel has hindered Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and contributed to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. But it did not turn military successes into political gains in any of these cases. Instead, he seems determined to live by the sword indefinitely; Israel still occupies parts of Lebanon and is expanding its influence into Syria, while rejecting diplomatic initiatives by the new regime. Netanyahu adamantly refused to stop the war in Gaza, until Trump forced his hand. So the “new Middle East” that Netanyahu envisions is very similar to the present. Once upon a time, former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban claimed that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” But over the past two years, this has seemed more true for Israel.

By contrast, the Gulf states appropriately exploited the power vacuum created by Israel. They have invested $14 billion to rebuild Syria in 2025, and pledged more than $150 million to Lebanon in 2024. And it’s not just about investment: the GCC countries are using their financial clout to push the two countries out of Iran’s geopolitical orbit. That is why Gulf lobbyists convinced Trump to drop crippling US sanctions against Syria. Likewise, they linked aid to Lebanon to the disarmament of Hezbollah. In both Syria and Lebanon, their overlapping interests have meant that the GCC countries have shown a rare show of unity so far.

If the recent ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas holds, the Gulf states are ready to bring together the Gaza diaspora. The peace plan has Gulf fingerprints everywhere, and has received public support from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, demonstrating that it retains its ability to shape Trump’s views and US policy.

Establishing a new “later day” in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria is undoubtedly a daunting task. The failed Saudi intervention in Yemen exemplifies the poor record of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in defeating Iran. They may be good at buying influence, but they have almost no experience in foreign state building and post-conflict reconstruction. It is also a high-risk strategy that will require the Gulf states to expose themselves more than ever before.

But the biggest obstacle lies in Israel’s continuing regional revisionism. Domestic state-building programs in the Gulf states, such as Vision 2030, depend on them not having problems with their neighbors. Likewise, the GCC countries using their political and economic influence to create the “day after” in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria requires relative regional calm. No amount of reconstruction or political rehabilitation can isolate the Israeli decision to escalate, which can undo everything at the touch of a button. Combined with the Doha strike, this is why the GCC countries increasingly view Israel – with its qualitative military superiority and great power support – as a more serious threat to regional stability than Iran ever was.

The Gulf states must use their recent advantage as Trump’s whisperer to persuade the United States to rein in Israel. Increasing US pressure on Israel not to violate the recent ceasefire agreement in Gaza or annex the West Bank are preliminary but encouraging signs that Washington is beginning to adapt to the Gulf’s way of thinking. Indeed, given Trump’s often-stated desire to disengage from the Middle East and avoid nation-building, it is in the United States’ interest to encourage the Gulf states’ emerging grand strategy. Likewise, recent concessions made by the Trump administration to Qatar have made further normalization between the Gulf and Israel less likely.

All this means The United States should focus less on expanding the Abraham Accords and more on supporting tacit cooperation and avoiding conflict between the Gulf states and Israel. This would prevent Iran’s return and discourage Israel from destroying what the GCC countries are trying to create.

The fact that the Israeli Cabinet recently voted to rename the recent two-year conflict the “Renaissance War” only reinforces the implicit reshaping of the region in Israel’s new grand strategy. But it is the Gulf states that are leading the process of creating a “new Middle East.” The continuation of this influence depends on whether the Gulf states are able to rise to the challenge of regional reconstruction, and whether they can use their relationships with a particularly supportive US administration to insulate “the day after” from Israel’s destructive tendencies.