Even as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia compete across the Middle East and Africa, their security establishments are moving in lockstep with Israel against Iran. In late March, as Iranian missiles rained across the skies of the Gulf states, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held secret talks with Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Al Ain, just 150 miles from Iran.
The meeting led to expanded operational cooperation and reaffirmed the shared regional objectives of both countries.
At the same time, Israeli commandos and air crews operated a hidden forward base carved into the sands of Iraq’s western desert. The outpost served as a logistical and rescue hub for long-range strikes against Iranian targets more than 1,000 miles away. When Iraqi forces approached, Israeli aircraft struck them to secure the site. The UAE carried out its own strikes on Iranian targets, including a major refinery on Lavan Island, both before and after the April ceasefire, while Saudi Arabia launched unpublicized retaliatory strikes inside Iraq and Iran — the first time leading Gulf states have taken direct military action against Tehran and its proxies.
Jerusalem deployed Iron Dome batteries and elements of its Iron Beam laser system to Emirati territory. By early April, Abu Dhabi had intercepted 537 ballistic missiles, more than 2,256 drones, and 26 cruise missiles. These operations reflected a level of real-time coordination that did not exist before the Abraham Accords. What is taking shape is a functional axis of three states that share intelligence, coordinate strikes, and integrate air defense even as they compete elsewhere.
This marks the evolution of Israel’s Doctrine of the Periphery. Originally crafted in the 1950s by Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, to break Arab encirclement through ties with non-Arab states on the region’s periphery, the logic has now inverted. The central threat is Iranian revolutionary expansionism and nuclear ambition, shifting Israel’s most consequential partnerships inward toward the pragmatic Sunni Arab heartland.
The Abraham Accords supplied the diplomatic framework — shared vulnerability to Iranian projectiles provided the operational glue. The result is an informal but effective “Abrahamic NATO” — not a treaty organization, but a living network of intelligence fusion, joint planning, coordinated strikes, and interoperable defenses anchored by Israeli technology. Bahrain and Morocco stand as immediate candidates for deeper integration.
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’Geostrategically, Israeli systems in missile defense, precision strike, and directed energy are now forward-positioned at critical chokepoints — from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Bab el-Mandeb and into the core of the Iranian-hostage Strait of Hormuz. Tehran must now weigh not only Israeli retaliation, but also the prospect of Emirati or Saudi kinetic responses enabled by shared planning and real-time intelligence. Israel gains strategic depth without overstretch. Gulf partners gain advanced capabilities. Global energy security gains a more resilient shield.
The secret meeting in Al Ain, the hidden base in Iraq, the coordinated strikes on Iranian soil, and the combat deployment of Israeli interceptors to the Emirates together represent the first live validation of this evolved doctrine. This is not merely tactical cooperation under pressure, but the emergence of a new regional order. As the network matures, it is becoming the defining security architecture of the post-Abraham Accords Middle East: flexible, pragmatic, and already delivering results.
Jose Lev Alvarez is an American–Israeli scholar specializing in Middle Eastern security policy. A multilingual veteran of the IDF special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees and is completing a Ph.D. in Intelligence and Global Security in the Washington, D.C., area.