The expansion and partial regionalization of what is already the longest and deadliest conflict in the Israeli-Palestinian arena since 1948 presents the Gulf Arab states with new threats and challenges, as the war that began on October 7, 2023, entered its second year with little prospect of an end in sight. Escalatory dynamics in the spring and summer of 2024 changed the character of the war and drew in Iran and Lebanon as the focus of Israeli operations moved north and far beyond the war on Gaza, where Israel has recently intensified its assault. As a result, the Middle East has been on the precipice of a wider conflagration for months as Israel and Iran have exchanged ever-larger tit-for-tat strikes and Israel’s initially-limited military incursion into Lebanon has expanded into attacks on targets across most of the country. Moreover, any (faint) hopes that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the decimation of the Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon might provide Israeli officials with an offramp have been dashed by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While the war in Gaza was always about more than a fight between Israel and Hamas, and was from the outset accompanied by settler violence in the occupied West Bank as well as by skirmishes across the Israeli-Lebanese border, the situation as of Fall 2024 has become even more complex, fluid, and unpredictable. Not only has the number of actors with a direct stake in the regional disorder multiplied, hitherto largely separate fronts in the violence have become more interlinked, creating a vast arc of instability that extends from Lebanon to Yemen and Iran and that could draw in Iraq and Syria. At the center of the interconnected conflicts lies an obdurate and hardline Israeli leadership that appears unwilling to give up operational momentum. Toward the periphery lie the Gulf states, on the edge both geographically and figuratively but acutely aware that their traditional security partner, the United States, has proved unable to engage effectively in regional diplomacy to alter the calculations of any of the warring parties, including (but not only) Israel.
Gulf Arab States Avoiding Risk
For the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the expansion of the conflict goes against their collective interest in ensuring that they do not get caught in the middle of any regional crossfire, whether from Israel and Iran or from the Houthis in Yemen. Since the beginning of the Gaza war in October 2023, officials in the Gulf states have engaged in regional diplomacy, especially with counterparts in Iran, in a dialogue that has become more frequent and high-level over time. Leaders in Gulf Arab capitals also distanced themselves from the United States- and United Kingdom-led airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, and have (so far) insulated themselves from any direct blowback from the broadening conflict. Such moves are consistent with the de-escalatory dynamics in Iran-GCC relations that predated October 2023 and that have survived the stress test posed by the war. They are also indicative of the premium placed by Gulf Arab leaders on lowering regional risks and tensions so that they focus on large-scale development and infrastructure projects at home.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war, Gulf officials have engaged in regional diplomacy, especially with counterparts in Iran.
Israel’s move on Lebanon began in earnest with the mass-scale pager and walkie-talkie attacks against several thousand Hezbollah targets on September 17-18, and was followed by the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the party’s secretary general, on September 27 and the launching of ground operations three days later. Although the Israeli military initially stated that its ‘raids’ in southern Lebanon were ‘limited, localized, and targeted,’ they quickly expanded to encompass lethal airstrikes in Beirut and in areas of northern Lebanon far removed from the border area or from any semblance of Hezbollah activity. The fact that Netanyahu authorized the killing of Nasrallah as well as the entry of Israeli ground forces after American and French officials had presented a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon illustrated the determination of his governing coalition to continue fighting and raise its risk-taking intent. Israel’s stance is in large part rooted in a conviction that it has the enemy (however loosely defined) very much on the back foot and that it has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strike decisively.
No Israeli Restraint
Israel’s actions in Lebanon signaled to the United States and its regional partners, such as those in the Gulf, that they could not count on Israeli restraint (if that was ever a realistic possibility post-October 7), and that the gloves were off in terms of provocative and escalatory actions. This became clear on October 1, 2024, when Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles against targets in Israel in retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah, and of Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who died in the same attack, and of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Qatar-based Hamas Political Bureau, whom Israel assassinated on July 31 in Tehran while he was attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Although most of Iran’s missiles were intercepted and shot down, the attack vividly demonstrated how the different fronts in the regionwide conflict were evolving into interconnected vectors of instability. The Houthis’ launching of attacks against maritime shipping in the Red Sea in November 2023 had provided an early portent of this convergence of threats, but the escalation in Lebanon has increased the risk level of an all-out regional war to alarmingly high proportions.
Statements from Gulf officials have called for Israeli restraint and respect for the sovereignty of Lebanon.
Statements from Gulf Arab officials in response to the widening of the war have called for Israeli restraint and respect for the sovereignty of Lebanon and criticized the further escalation of the conflict. While there has been some variation, it has been in the tone of language more than the substance. The GCC itself held an extraordinary ministerial meeting in Doha on October 2, 2024, which also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, while a September 29 statement from the GCC Secretary-General, Jasem Albudaiwi, urged the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which set out the basis for a permanent ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel after the latter’s 34-day Lebanon war in 2006. Resolution 1701 has, however, failed to prevent Israel and Hezbollah from skirmishing. Moreover, its full implementation would require the disarming of all armed groups in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, a reality that is apparent between the lines in GCC expressions of support for Lebanese sovereignty.
So long as Israeli military operations in Gaza and Lebanon continue, Gulf states’ stances, both individually and through the GCC, are likely to remain focused on the need for a cessation of hostilities as the first and most immediate needed step. The Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh on November 11, 2024, illustrates the GCC states’ belief that they can convene wider groupings of countries in support of regional diplomacy at a time when the United States is missing in action on that front, as the Biden administration enters full lame-duck status and Washington is consumed by the transition to Donald Trump’s second presidency. As the region and the world prepare for the return to the White House of a purely transactional and self-interested president, there is a risk that all parties to the conflict may seek to make gains in advance of Trump’s January 20 inauguration to bolster their position on the ground. While leaders in all Gulf states may feel confident that they are well equipped to re-engage with President Trump, the political vacuum created by an exhausted Biden administration out of ideas and leverage may present great regional risk.
Hedging Bets and Pragmatism
It is when the active phase of the conflict begins to give way to discussions about what comes next—which may start once Trump settles into the Oval Office and turns to regional dealmakers—that splits within and among the Gulf states, and with other parties, may surface. Officials in Qatar may face pressure to expel the remaining members of the Hamas Political Bureau whose presence in Doha is already a contested issue, especially if (or when) mediation efforts are deemed to have outlived any remaining usefulness. For their part, policymakers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will continue to try and thread the needle of maintaining normalized relations with Israel while containing domestic discontent, a delicate balancing act epitomized by the launching of a nationwide ‘UAE Stands with Lebanon’ campaign, at the directive of Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to support the Lebanese people during the Israeli invasion. In Oman, the authorities face a rise in anger at Israeli actions and public and political support for Palestinian resistance, a shift away from the caution and reluctance to get drawn into regional flashpoints that has long been a characteristic of the Sultanate’s approach to foreign affairs.
Gulf policymakers will remain at the forefront of diplomatic overtures in order to offset the lack of a functioning US diplomacy.
Looking ahead, Gulf officials will likely acknowledge that while Hamas and Hezbollah have been severely weakened by the Israeli onslaught, neither movement has been destroyed altogether and both are likely to survive in some form, perhaps in radicalized or splintered versions. These groups’ durability, along with that of the Houthis, means that each will have to be reckoned with in any eventual negotiations for a ‘day-after’ policy in the various theaters of conflict. Any such outcome may be anathema for officials in Abu Dhabi, in light of the emirate’s assertive pushback against political Islam across the region. Policymakers elsewhere may quietly welcome the weakening of elements of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ that many in the Gulf have long perceived as Iran-backed threats to regional stability.
Nevertheless, the pragmatic mood that has prevailed in Gulf Arab capitals over the past five years, coupled with the renewed and improved lines of communication with other regional leaderships, including in Syria as well as in Iran, means that policymakers in the Gulf will remain at the forefront of diplomatic overtures, particularly in the run-up to Trump’s inauguration in order to offset the lack of a functioning US diplomacy. Regional diplomacy is not only necessary to avoid any new eruption in tension but is also vital to minimize the risk of further escalatory triggers undertaken by any (or all) of the warring parties that the Gulf states cannot directly control but can seek to contain through careful messaging or discreet backchannels. The question of what comes next will exercise decision-makers as they come to terms with the character of the incoming US administration, assess the implications of key Trump foreign policy appointments to run Middle East policy, and adjust calculations accordingly. The challenge for all those with a stake in regional stability is to get through the intervening period intact and with as few negative surprises as possible.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: UAE Presidential Court
