The new Sunni alliance challenging Israel's status in the Middle East | Zalman Shoval

Primarily at the initiative of Saudi Arabia, a mutual defense agreement was signed last week by it, Turkey, and Pakistan against the Iranian threat and its proxies. At least from Ankara's perspective, this is also a counterweight to Israel's power and influence. The agreement is not good news for Israel because it creates a new Middle Eastern reality that further distances Israel's integration into the region.

One can see in the agreement a system of understandings between Sunni states against Shiite Islam, and the fact that it was signed in Mecca, the holiest city for Islam, and not in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, reflects this.

The three countries have common interests, such as freedom of navigation in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. This is significant primarily for Saudi Arabia, for the unhindered flow of oil from its wells to the rest of the world. Pakistan, which is struggling with severe economic problems, has a special status in the agreement by virtue of being the only nuclear state among the three.

The big winner, certainly from a political perspective, is Turkey, which sees the agreement not only as a strengthening of its status in the Sunni world as one of the leaders of the "Muslim Brotherhood". Following the status that the peace council of US President Donald Trump granted Turkey in Gaza, the agreement helps it acquire positions of influence throughout the Middle East, also vis-a-vis Israel. Turkey is even about to sign extensive agreements with Saudi Arabia in the field of the arms industry.

In the Israeli media, the agreement was described as the "Middle Eastern NATO", but this is an exaggerated assessment. Although it contains a clause reminiscent of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which obligates members to automatically come to the aid of any attacked member, in the agreement in question, unlike the situation in NATO, there is no unified military command or agreed-upon mechanism for activating the mutual commitment.

The fact that Turkey is also a member of NATO could actually create a conflict of interest between its commitments to the two bodies. In addition, there is no definition of a common enemy in the tripartite agreement. The potential enemy of Pakistan is India, in the case of Turkey it is Greece, and Saudi Arabia has a special account with the Houthis in Yemen — while NATO had one common enemy: the Soviet Union. The Houthi issue, by the way, is facing an immediate test after attacks on Saudi territory.

A critical question surrounding the agreement is related to the United States, an ally of all three partners: did Washington encourage the agreement and see it as a complement to existing or future possible arrangements for stabilizing the Middle East — or the opposite, that the signatories, and especially Saudi Arabia, have lost faith in the United States in terms of their security interests?

Here also enters the nuclear agreement between Saudi Arabia and the United States, which was retroactively conditioned on the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. It seems that Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, is debating whether to rely on long-term ties with the United States despite the condition regarding Israel, or to settle for now with ties with its nuclear ally, Pakistan.

Those not included in the new agreement are the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain, also close allies of the United States. The UAE, according to various sources, is even building a defensive axis with Israel and India.

It is impossible to address the tripartite agreement without noting its possible influence on the plans for general geopolitical realignment in the Middle East, and on ties with other parts of the world, with an emphasis on transport and shipping channels from India through Saudi Arabia, Israel, Cyprus, and Greece to Europe. This is in contrast to China's "Belt and Road" initiative. The Biden administration at the time saw this issue and Israel's integration into it as one of its main tasks.

The Trump administration has a narrower view in this regard and places the emphasis, also in negotiations with Iran, on the free passage of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. In the past, a plan was raised to transport fuel with the participation of Israel, through the Ashkelon-Eilat pipeline, but it was blocked by the "change government" and has not been renewed since.

Such a plan could be part of a larger and more comprehensive program that would continue the positive trends of the Abraham Accords. However, against such a possibility, plans are being woven that bypass Israel and give an advantage to Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. On this matter, the United States and Europe will have something to say, and from the perspective of Israeli diplomacy, this will be one of the most important tasks in the near future.