Security Is a Shared Interest

The war in Gaza has left enormous pain and anger across the Arab world and far beyond it. Yet only days ago, Morocco and Israel agreed to take another step in the opposite direction: upgrading their diplomatic representation to full embassies and appointing ambassadors.

At almost the same time, Mauritania – a relatively quiet and moderate Arab state that has traditionally sought good relations with a wide range of countries – summoned Iran’s ambassador to protest activities it said were inconsistent with diplomatic norms.

These developments in North Africa should not be viewed in isolation from what has been happening hundreds of miles to the east, in the Gulf, since February 28.

For many in the Gulf, Iran can no longer be regarded simply as a difficult neighbor with whom we have political disagreements.

The Iranian attacks that followed the beginning of the US-Israeli war on February 28 brought missiles, drones and the consequences of a conflict we had not chosen directly into Gulf territory. Iran’s strikes targeted countries hosting American military facilities and placed civilian lives, airports, ports, energy infrastructure, hotels, shipping routes and major economic assets at risk.

That mattered politically as much as militarily.

The Gulf Cooperation Council had strongly condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran during the 12-day war in 2025 and called for diplomacy and de-escalation. Yet when another conflict erupted, Tehran chose to extend the battlefield into Gulf states themselves.

The consequence has been a profound erosion of trust.

Through its own actions – and through the activities of armed groups aligned with it – Tehran has made relations with its Arab neighbors increasingly defined by suspicion, including among governments that had spent years trying to maintain dialogue with the Islamic Republic.

That does not mean the door to diplomacy should be permanently closed.

Geography cannot be changed. Iran will remain across the Gulf from us regardless of governments, wars or ideological disputes. Dialogue will therefore remain necessary. But rebuilding trust, even after the present conflict eventually ends, could take years.

It is against this background that Israelis should understand an uncomfortable but increasingly evident reality in the Gulf: there are now significant areas where Gulf, Arab and Israeli security interests overlap when it comes to Iran.

Acknowledging that fact should no longer be treated as politically taboo.

Countries do not need to agree on everything in order to cooperate where their interests converge. Strategic relationships are rarely built on affection. They are built on interests, threats and an understanding of what each side can contribute to the security of the other.

But Israel should not misunderstand what this convergence means.

Shared concerns about Iran do not erase Arab disagreement with Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Nor do they provide Israel with a blank cheque for its conduct in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon or Syria.

It is entirely possible for Arab states to cooperate with Israel against a common security threat while simultaneously rejecting Israeli policies they regard as harmful or unacceptable.

Indeed, if Israel wants its relations with the Arab world to move beyond government-to-government security coordination and acquire genuine public legitimacy, this distinction becomes crucial.

Popular acceptance of Israel in the Arab region cannot be achieved through intelligence cooperation, missile defense or fear of Iran alone.

Israel must make Palestinian civilian life easier, not harder. It must create credible conditions in which Palestinians can live with dignity and economic opportunity. It must also confront settler violence seriously. For a country that defines itself as a democracy, violence by settlers against Palestinian civilians cannot simply be treated as an unfortunate sideshow.

The same principle applies beyond the Palestinian territories.

In Lebanon, Israel has an opportunity to think beyond the familiar cycle of military escalation. Serious negotiations with the Lebanese state, combined with efforts to empower the Lebanese Armed Forces to exercise authority throughout the country, could create the basis for Israeli withdrawal under clear and enforceable security arrangements.

Such an approach would also weaken Hezbollah’s long-standing argument that it requires an independent arsenal because the Lebanese state cannot defend the country.

Ultimately, the objective should be something more ambitious than another temporary ceasefire: a Lebanon in which the state monopolizes legitimate armed force, Israel has credible security guarantees on its northern border, and two countries that have technically remained at war for decades begin moving toward normal diplomatic relations.

Syria presents another opportunity.

The government in Damascus under Ahmed al-Sharaa has shown a willingness to engage with regional actors and has its own powerful reasons to resist the return of Iranian influence. Israel should seriously test what might be possible through dialogue.

A durable arrangement would require compromises from both sides: Israeli security concerns would need to be addressed, while Syria would need a credible path toward restoring government authority over its territory and resolving the question of land currently held by Israel.

None of this is simple.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Gulf security are separate files with their own history and complexity. Yet leaving every one of them unresolved guarantees that the underlying sources of Arab-Israeli tension will survive regardless of how extensive the region’s security cooperation becomes.

Israel’s October election may provide the next government with an opportunity to reassess how it approaches these questions – particularly its relations with neighboring Arab societies, not merely their governments.

There is also a lesson here for Tehran.

If Iran calculates that attacking Gulf states will eventually push the United States out of the region, the result so far points in the opposite direction.

Every new missile, drone attack or threat to commercial navigation strengthens the argument in Gulf capitals for better air and missile defense, more capable armed forces and deeper, more diversified security partnerships.

The recent US State Department approval of a possible sale of 48 F-35 aircraft to Saudi Arabia is one indication of the direction in which regional security is moving.

Iran may therefore discover that coercing its neighbors does not reduce foreign military involvement in the Gulf. It encourages those neighbors to seek stronger deterrence.

For Gulf states, the immediate priority is increasingly clear: protecting their countries, their citizens and their economic infrastructure from attack.

Cooperation with Israel can, under the right circumstances, serve part of that broader security interest.

But Israel should recognize the other half of the equation.

Fear of Iran may create strategic cooperation. It cannot, by itself, create reconciliation.

If Israel wants a deeper place in the region – not merely military coordination behind closed doors, but political acceptance and eventually a different relationship with Arab societies – its policies toward the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors will matter just as much as the threats the region faces from Tehran.

Security may be a shared interest.

For that shared interest to become the foundation of a genuinely different Middle East, however, responsibility must also be shared.