Gulf Arab states are rattled as a Gaza war that began thousands of miles from their borders nearly two years ago inches closer to home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With few viable military options to retaliate, Qatar has vowed a \u201ccollective\u201d regional response to Israel\u2019s strikes. That response is currently \u201cunder consultation and discussion\u201d with other partners, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told CNN\u2019s Becky Anderson on Wednesday. A decision is expected at an Arab and Islamic summit in Doha this weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps the most visible and immediate reaction came from the Gulf state that has the closest ties to Israel: the United Arab Emirates. UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arrived in Doha with a large delegation less than 24 hours after the attack. Qatar was his first stop on a Gulf tour to coordinate a response to the attack that also took him to Bahrain and Oman. On Friday, the UAE summoned an Israeli diplomat to denounce what it called Israel\u2019s \u201cblatant and cowardly\u201d attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, meets Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Emir of Qatar, at the Amiri Diwan, in Doha, Qatar, September 10, 2025.Abdulla Al Neyadi\/Handout\/Reuters<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regional analysts told CNN that Gulf Arab states would likely be weighing options that demonstrate regional unity and deter further Israeli strikes, but could be constrained by limited viable options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need to take a stand now because if (we) do not, it will be other Gulf capitals next,\u201d said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University, referring to Gulf nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysts say that one of the options could involve the UAE downgrading diplomatic relations with Israel or decreasing its involvement in the Abraham Accords, a normalization agreement between Israel and three Arab states that became US President Donald Trump\u2019s biggest foreign policy achievement during his first term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAE had been signaling discontent with Israel even before the strike on Doha. This week, Lana Nusseibeh, a senior UAE official, warned that reported Israeli plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank<\/a> would be a \u201cred line\u201d that would \u201cbetray the very spirit of the Abraham Accords.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Qatar\u2019s prime minister said that part of Doha\u2019s response would be in the legal arena, including through international law. On Thursday, it successfully lobbied for a unanimous statement at the UN Security Council condemning the Israeli attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York City on September 11, 2025.Eduardo Munoz\/Reuters<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow for Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, said Gulf states haven\u2019t previously significantly participated in proceedings against Israel at international courts, and that that could change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGulf states so far have not played a key role in supporting these efforts, politically or financially. Gulf states could collectively decide to join those cases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another option is for Qatar to withdraw from its role as the go-to mediator between the US and some of its adversaries, analysts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gulf states have had significant internal quarrels over the years but remain bound by mutual defense treaties signed decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center, said Gulf Arab countries could resort to activating and expanding the \u201cPeninsula Shield Force\u201d \u2013 a 1980s-era military pact intended to deter attacks on their nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese clauses have so far been theoretical,\u201d Alhasan said, but \u201cnow they could activate them, by creating a unified Gulf command, integrating air and missile defense system, building a more independent ingenious capability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the seven Gulf states depend on US military hardware and host American bases, but recent perceived American failures to defend their territories could prompt the Arab nations to diversify their defense capabilities or demand stronger US security guarantees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Related article<\/a> Inside Israel\u2019s operation to kill Hamas leaders in Qatar<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sager said the Israeli attack could push the Gulf region to \u201center into a serious and structured dialogue\u201d with the Trump administration on the terms of their security partnership, and to \u201cmove beyond\u201d just buying arms from the US and \u201ctoward clearer defense guarantees.\u201d These could include accountability when US \u201ccommitments appear absent or ambiguous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, efforts to find a regional consensus may be limited by competing domestic interests among Gulf states that remain wary of jeopardizing their relationship with the US under a Trump administration that has been Israel\u2019s biggest backer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGulf states now realize that they\u2019re not particularly well equipped to address the threat posed by Israel, because their national security is predicated on the defense partnership with the US \u2013 which has an explicit foreign defense policy giving Israel a qualitative military edge,\u201d Alhasan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan welcomes his US counterpart Donald Trump upon arrival at the presidential terminal in Abu Dhabi on May 15, 2025.Giuseppe Cacace\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trillions of dollars in revenue earned annually from the region\u2019s oil and gas exports are strategically invested in global assets, which partially leverages the region\u2019s soft power to secure influence in the world\u2019s key decision-making centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gulf states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE could utilize their vast sovereign wealth funds to impose trade limitations on Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey could decide to use their funds to boycott companies who have significant stakes in the Israeli economy,\u201d Alhasan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar collectively pledged to invest around three trillion dollars in the US economy when Trump visited the region on his first foreign trip abroad during his second term as president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThose trillions the Gulf states are pumping into the US in the next decade are premised on a secure and safe Gulf space that can benefit from these investments too,\u201d al-Saif said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut if we feel insecure, which is happening thanks to an American ally like Israel, the money can go somewhere else, whether to better secure the Gulf or earn better returns on their investments.\u201d – Source CNN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For decades, wealthy Gulf Arab states cast themselves as oases of stability in a region mired in conflict, building gleaming capitals with fast-growing economies powered by by millions of foreign workers drawn to economic opportunity and a tax-free lifestyle. But this year, their sense of safety was shattered when two regional powers conducted a direct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-6-e1757744765567.png?fit=400%2C271&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18591,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18589\/revisions\/18591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sheikh](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/2025-09-10t110839z-377783865-rc2xoga8h32s-rtrmadp-3-emirates-qatar.JPG?w=696&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nDiplomatic options<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Qatar's](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/2025-09-11t192923z-1248218763-rc2vpga25uu3-rtrmadp-3-israel-palestinians-qatar.JPG?w=696&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFraternal security<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"UAE](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/gettyimages-2214572852.jpg?w=696&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nEconomic response<\/h2>\n\n\n\n