The "Semitic" alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab countries is the future of peace.

By: Ricardo Israel - 19/10/2025

For decades I have been following the Middle East daily for professional reasons, but rarely in such detail as has occurred since 10/7/2023. The reason is a forthcoming book that had to be withdrawn from the publication process to add a postscript on the ceasefire, and where every day the most profound geopolitical change in a long time became more visible to me, such as a de facto alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab countries, which if materialized in a Treaty would be the best opportunity for definitive peace, including the possibility of a Palestinian State.

Over the course of these two years, the closeness of this relationship has become apparent, something that was previously only discussed in specialized circles. Striking developments have emerged, such as old enemies who had previously gone to war now joining forces to fight Iran together. When Israel was attacked from Tehran in 2024, several Arab countries collaborated to intercept the missiles in flight. This was also the case in 2025 when Israel bombed Iran's atomic program, crossing Arab airspace on its way, before Iran was finished off by US B-2s in the victorious 12-Day War. Furthermore, during the same period, there were events such as no Arab country offering asylum to the stricken inhabitants of Gaza, not even when the US pressured them to do so. Nor did those nations that have outlawed fundamentalist groups similar to Hamas lift that ban; on the contrary, it was reinforced, due to their past experience with this type of fanaticism. So much so that Egypt today maintains a closure on its border with Gaza as severe as, or even more severe than, Israel's. Furthermore, unlike the West, no one interfered in Israeli military operations against Hamas. Furthermore, even before Trump's initiative, the Arab League had made far more reasonable proposals for peace than those of the European Union, whose activity, always blaming Israel alone, reminded me more of the former USSR in its caricature of such a complex situation.

Equally relevant to me during these two years was the fact that in no Arab country were there such pronounced Judeophobia as in American Ivy League universities or on the streets of cities like London, Paris, Toronto, New York, or Sydney. Moreover, I can't recall any leader of those countries falling into a discourse filled with old anti-Semitic clichés, as happened with Lula, Petro, or Boric, just to mention a few. After the signing of the ceasefire, they remained silent, as if ignorant of the reality of the Middle East compared to the enthusiasm shown by Arab leaders, whether emirs, kings, presidents, or dictators. Furthermore, today's optimistic vision of a future with better relations includes neighbors such as Lebanon and Syria, in both cases a partial result of Israeli victories in this war, since Beirut regained its sovereignty due to the defeat of Hezbollah and in the Syrian case, the Iranian defeat left the dictatorship without its defender, so much so that Bashar al-Assad was forced to flee to Moscow.

By their own choice or through US intervention, several Arab countries have already taken the step of establishing full relations with Israel, such as Egypt, Jordan, and the Abraham Accords (United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain). However, others still require additional steps toward peace, notably Saudi Arabia. Despite this, they fully collaborated with Israel in the war against Iran, which they see as their main enemy. Overall, I believe they are now prepared to accept Israel as a Jewish state. Furthermore, no Arab leaders, despite their many differences, were seen doing what some European leaders, like Pedro Sánchez, do, when they turn Israel into a preferred object of hatred whenever they have serious internal political problems.

The current Palestinian leaders also still struggle to accept that part of the 1947 UN resolution that speaks of the division between an Arab state and a Jewish state, and that any possibility of real peace must go through the path of deradicalization of Gaza and then the West Bank, since it is difficult to achieve this if the educational system and the media transmit the glorification of martyrdom and the illegitimacy of Israel and the Jews, being an example to imitate what Germany did in the denazification after 1945.

It won't be a bed of roses, as interests differ, but all of this is known and negotiable, provided there is the goodwill that has been lost with several Palestinian rejections of territorial offers in exchange for peace. The oldest example of success has been Israel's relations with Egypt after 1979, with as many rapprochements as disagreements, which, moreover, are common in nations that share borders. Everything indicates that the Sunni Arab world is ready, although after the failure of Oslo, with both sides bearing responsibility, a Palestinian leadership needs to be found willing to be a partner in peace after Arafat's rejection of the two-state offer at Camp David in 2000. To date, there has been no counteroffer, despite the fact that it was reiterated by another prime minister, since Ehud Olmert made a similar offer years later to the current president, Mahmoud Abbas, apparently for life.

Meanwhile, what Trump achieved on October 13th ended two years of war, which should be applauded unreservedly. Moreover, he did so by successfully implementing the old-fashioned mix of carrots and sticks. It's not peace, as it would be unfair to ask for that yet, but it far exceeded a ceasefire, achieving something as difficult as the return of the hostages alive. And if it had only been a ceasefire, it would still have to be applauded, since evidence indicates that when there is exhaustion, war doesn't restart in the same way, as happened in Korea in 1953 and between Israel and the Arab countries in 1949. So much so that, without being legally so, that border has in fact become an official demarcation to this day.

But beware, it's not peace either, because we're in the Middle East, where victory and defeat don't always have the same meaning. Otherwise, the list of dissatisfied includes Iran, its proxies like the Houthis, and those crowds in Western universities and streets who demanded a "ceasefire," when what they really wanted was the destruction of Israel while simultaneously shouting against the West.

For now, Judeophobia has remained a (stubborn) reality, since after 7-X the snake left its nest and anti-Semitism spread throughout the world, a situation as old as the Jews, equally ancient, that simply will not disappear, and apparently, the Jewish communities outside Israel have not yet gotten used to what will be for some time an unpleasant “new normal”, whether in Europe as well as in Brazil or Santiago, Chile, where this Judeophobia that seems to be in proven retreat in the Arab world is on the rise thanks to their current presidents.

For the Middle East, although some or many may dislike Trump, the United States was and is the path to peace, since there is no other country that can fulfill its role, it is good, or very good, that it has once again become the indispensable power. Otherwise, it was a personal triumph for Donald Trump, due to his insistence on understanding that success can come after some failures, and, above all, his understanding better than other American presidents of what characterizes the Middle East, where power and its imposition inspire respect. In this case, Trump understood that he had to pressure the only countries that had real influence over Hamas, for the simple reason that they sheltered its leaders with bulging bank accounts in their names. This was the case of an Arab country (Qatar) and another that was not an Arab country, but was Muslim, like Turkey, both with the added advantage that they were two governments that expressed the ideological orientation of the Muslim Brotherhood, the same one that underlies the fundamentalist origin of Hamas.

Trump understood this reality so well that he reflected it in the countries that accompanied him at the table of honor in Sharm el-Sheikh. On the one hand, it was good that he involved in this way the aforementioned "friends" of Hamas, such as Qatar and Turkey, as well as a country filled with suspicion toward Hamas, so much so that the current Egyptian president, Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, staged a coup against them in 2013 when he was commander-in-chief, after Mohamed Morsi was elected president in the first democratic elections in the entire history of that country. Moreover, whenever there have been free elections, they have been won by fundamentalists in the Arab world, as also occurred in Gaza and Algeria.

What needs to be understood is that what displeases the West about Trump is precisely what earned him the trust of Arab leaders, especially those as crucial as the Emir of Qatar, despite (or perhaps thanks to) the Israeli attack on Hamas leaders sheltered there. In Trump, there is a mixture of politician and businessman, and also the fact that someone as close as his son-in-law participated in the peace process. All of this is positive for those Arab leaders, as this type of connection is also found among them, so there is nothing to be rejected.

Moreover, not only reality but also the complexities of the Arab world are escaping those media outlets today that limit themselves to always finding Israel the blame for everything that happens, without realizing that barely the signing ceremony ended when it began to become clear that the most difficult part of Trump's plan was still to come, since at the beginning of part 2, Hamas has not accepted either its dissolution as an armed movement or the surrender of weapons, and the truth is that if this does not happen, it will be very difficult for any Arab country, much less from other parts of the world, to accept taking charge of the pacification of Gaza, and even less so, anyone will want to invest in its reconstruction, which, due to its cost, will require the participation of all those who can contribute resources, including China.

In fact, just as those familiar with Gaza's reality expected, difficulties arose almost immediately. The day after the applause, on Tuesday, not only rival militias were already fighting in the streets, but also Hamas remnants emerged from the tunnels to attack other Palestinians, shooting at members of family clans, prominent in Gaza as in much of the Arab world, and publicly executing seven men, accusing them of being "Israeli agents." This systematic violation of human rights and due process has plagued Hamas since it took power. It has been constantly denounced by critical movements within Gaza, but in a manner that is difficult to explain, systematically ignored by the mainstream international press and human rights NGOs, which partially explains the discredit they suffer. They have also ignored Hamas's role in interfering with humanitarian aid by raiding trucks for their own profit on the black market.

The Strip is destroyed, and support for Hamas may remain, as will the sense of grievance against many of the countries gathered at the signing ceremony, not just Israel. This is a factor to consider in the reconstruction process, as is the fact that there will be plenty of money available. Hamas is trying to survive, since, in the final days of the Israeli offensive, it found itself so besieged in its last pockets of Gaza City that its only strength or bargaining chip lay in the hostages. By returning the survivors, it accepted its political defeat. However, it simply does not want to do so with a military one, since it carried out its coup d'état by force in 2007 with little resistance from the Palestinian Authority, so its first victims were Palestinians, hundreds of them. Even in the new conditions of Hamas's weakness, Fatah, the central movement of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, has dared to criticize Hamas for rarely taking Israel as an "illegitimate force" whose "unilateral rule" created a "tragic reality" of "mass rape and executions."

For the moment, everything is fragile, above all, due to the decision of both Hamas and the ayatollahs to reject the idea of their defeat. On the day of the signing, Iran's complete absence was conspicuous, as was the massive support Trump received, not only among Arab countries but also among non-Arab Muslims who endorsed his plan. However, Europe, the European Union, and not just former colonial powers like France and the United Kingdom have also been irrelevant. Today, these countries, like Spain and other European countries, face a serious problem due to an accommodating attitude toward confronting immigration, which already has a strong presence in the politics and on the streets of countries that were once proud empires, but whose history and traditions now appear to be giving way to an Islamism that despises the countries that welcomed them and now seeks to strengthen itself within them. In short, they appear to be counterbalancing the efforts currently being made in the Middle East against this fundamentalism in Europe, as they may also be in Gaza, if a (difficult) deradicalization process is not consolidated in the future.

Unlike Europe, the map of the post-ceasefire Middle East allows for optimism, in the sense that it will be more pragmatic and less ideologized, and if this alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab countries is achieved, there is an additional reason that can finally consolidate peace, since it would be in harmony with the rest of the changes that the US is promoting, where no one, not even Trump, is clear about what will come in the end, except that the world that Washington created after the Second World War is being modified and that to a large extent what comes in the future will be shaped by the outcome of the confrontation between China and the US for global leadership.

However, perhaps the constants of the Middle East will remain: on the one hand, the extremes and fanaticism, but it will also likely remain, in the 21st century, a land of faith and miracles. David Ben-Gurion, the principal founder of modern Israel, a personal agnostic, used to say that, to be a realist, in that part of the world one had to believe in miracles. Although I don't remember his exact words, something similar was said by King Abdullah I of Jordan. He was, moreover, the only Arab ruler (of what was then Transjordan, a British creation) who accepted the division of the remainder of the mandate between Jews and Arabs. However, bowing to pressure from other Arab countries, he launched his Legion (led by British General Sir John Bagot Glubb) to conquer the West Bank and East Jerusalem. His dialogues with Israeli leaders like Golda Meir undoubtedly contributed to his assassination in 1951.

In my opinion, the best path to peace in the Middle East is the thesis of the forthcoming book: to forget about anti-Semitic Europe and embrace the possibility of a (Semitic?) alliance between Israel and the Arab countries, a path of moderation to materialize Resolution 181 (UN, 1947), with a Palestinian state being a precondition for that alliance, to the extent that another requirement that has been absent until now is met: the existence of a Palestinian partner that can or wants to achieve it.

Personally, I am confident that these Arab countries can help people understand the new reality, and that a leadership will finally emerge that renounces all forms of terrorism, both in Arabic and English, so that in the future we can live with Israel as what it is: a Jewish state, the only one in the world, which is also a prerequisite for silencing Israeli extremists. And that is the elusive peace, one where everyone accepts each other for who they are, living side by side, without legitimizing those who seek the destruction of their neighbors.

Does such a leader exist among the Palestinians?

I don't know, especially after the Israeli failure when they thought that person was Arafat. Today, I remember someone whose political career I've followed for two decades. This is Marwan Barghouti, linked to Fatah and founder of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which emerged during the second intifada. He was arrested in 2002 and convicted in 2004 for masterminding five murders, including assassinations.

Barghouti has said he supports the two-state solution, and I've always been struck by the fact that he has consistently appeared in the polls for years, winning Palestinian presidential elections, including in Gaza and the West Bank, perhaps because he is legitimized by his people, both as a politician and as a militant.

It also caught my attention that, among the thousands of those released, Hamas has not exerted much pressure for their release.

Given the poor press coverage the conflict receives, I'm not all that surprised that the mainstream press isn't mentioning it, but I do think now is the time to ask whether it will be a name worth keeping in mind in the future.

@israelzipper

Master's and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Laws (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».