Gulf states have supported mediation efforts across the Middle East and Africa for decades, but their work has increased in recent years as regional conflicts have intensified and Gulf nations have sought to cement their middle power status on a global stage. The Gulf states are uniquely positioned to support these efforts due to their foreign policies of balancing relations between hostile regional and global powers, their close ties with Washington, and their considerable financial capital and growing international diplomatic clout. These countries maintain close ties with the United States, their most important security partner, as well as state and non-state actors considered hostile, such as Iran and the non-state actors the Islamic Republic supports including Ansar Allah (known as the Houthis) in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Palestinian groups like Hamas in Gaza.
Currently, all the Gulf states engage in mediation and humanitarian diplomacy. But Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have played particularly important conflict mitigation roles over the last 21 months of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, launched after Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. Qatar, in partnership with Egypt, has been at the forefront of mediating a ceasefire in Gaza. Saudi Arabia led the regional and global diplomacy to push forward a political process toward a two-state solution, while the UAE has been one of the top providers of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Gulf states lead push for a ceasefire in Gaza and two-state solution
All the Gulf states have consistently pushed for a ceasefire and reiterated their support for the Arab Peace Initiative and a two-state solution, but Qatar, in partnership with Egypt, has been at the forefront of hosting countless negotiations between US, Israeli, and Hamas representatives to achieve a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza. Qatar and Egypt have secured two temporary truces in the last 21 months. The first ceasefire took place in November 2023 and lasted one week. Hundreds of hostages and prisoners were exchanged. A second ceasefire was negotiated in January of this year just as the Trump administration was set to take the reins. This truce lasted two months, and included weekly hostage exchanges, increased humanitarian aid access into Gaza, and promises to negotiate a permanent end to the war at a later stage. But Israel broke the ceasefire and resumed its attacks on Gaza in March after negotiations stalled over charting a path to a permanent end to the war, something that the Israeli government has repeatedly said it would not agree to at this stage. Israel also severely restricted aid shipments into Gaza and undermined United Nations aid deliveries in the enclave since they resumed military operations, including during an 11-week total siege of Gaza from March to May, where they blocked any aid from entering the enclave, intensifying already staggering levels of malnutrition and famine in Gaza.
Doha was able to take a leading role in the Gaza mediation because of its strong ties with both the United States and Hamas. Qatar has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012, at the request of the United States, which wanted to maintain a backchannel with the Palestinian group after they left Syria in 2012. Washington labelled Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997 after Hamas’s armed wing launched several attacks that killed civilians in Israel. Qatar has attempted to mediate intra-Palestinian talks at several points over the years, with little success on the ground in terms of unifying Palestinian governance structures and reconciling the two largest Palestinian political factions of Fatah and Hamas. Qatar also gave hundreds of millions for aid and reconstruction in Gaza over several years, which was transferred into Gaza with Israeli support and oversight.
While Qatar and Egypt have spearheaded mediation efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, other powerful Gulf states have invested heavily in humanitarian aid efforts, as well as regional and global diplomacy working toward a two-state solution. The UAE is one of only two Gulf states that have relations with Israel (along with Bahrain), and Abu Dhabi has used its relationship with Tel Aviv to provide humanitarian aid in Gaza (even though the benefits of this aid has been limited given Israel’s heavy restrictions on aid provision across Gaza throughout the war). Saudi Arabia has led the charge on regional and global diplomacy working toward a two-state solution, namely by regularly hosting an Arab contact group including Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE to discuss ways to move a political process for Palestinian statehood forward, as well as working with France to organize a major international conference on implementing the two-state solution, held at the end of July. This Saudi and French initiative also includes France recognizing Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in September. This Saudi-French project also helped push other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, to consider recognizing Palestinian statehood. Riyadh has also led efforts to establish broader working groups on Gaza, including the Arab-Islamic Contact Group formed by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League.
Gulf leaders regularly raised the Gaza crisis and Palestinian statehood with the former Biden administration and the current Trump administration, but seem aware of the limits of Gulf leverage in influencing the US-Israel special relationship. But have Gulf states used the full extent of their leverage with Israel and the US? No, because dealing with Israel is closely linked to critical bilateral relations with the United States. The benefits that come with close ties to Washington, especially in terms of defense and security, are too important for Gulf states, and other Arab states like Egypt and Jordan, to risk. It would surely send a powerful message if, for example, Arab states with formal relations with Israel downgraded or cut ties. This could include Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Gulf states like the UAE and Bahrain. At multiple points since the war started, these states have expressed their outrage in hundreds of official statements, and some even at times have temporarily withdrawn their ambassadors, but there has not been a concerted joint effort to formally downgrade or cut ties, likely because of what it would mean for their relations with the United States and their own national security and economic interests.
Moreover, the harsh reality for states like Egypt and Jordan, both located on the borders of the Palestinian Territories, is that they have to deal with Israel whether they want to or not as a matter of national security, regulating borders, etc. As for Gulf states like the UAE and Bahrain, policymakers made the calculation that the benefits of relations with Israel gives them a special status for delivering humanitarian aid into Gaza and pushing for a two-state solution. Abu Dhabi has used its special status as an Abraham Accords country to engage in secret talks with both the US and Israel on “day after” plans in Gaza throughout the war, according to media reports, though this effort has also not succeeded in ending the Gaza war or moving toward a two-state solution at this stage.
Nonetheless, Emirati leaders seem to think that the benefits of relations with Israel outweigh the potential benefits of any punitive measures they could take to punish Israel, which they feel would not make much of a difference. The thinking in Abu Dhabi is that they will make more of a difference in conflict mitigation in Gaza and supporting Palestinian statehood through regular engagement with Israel. On top of this, the bilateral relationship between Abu Dhabi and Manama on the one hand, and Tel Aviv on the other, has been very lucrative in terms of rapidly expanding economic, security, and political relations, making them even less likely to jeopardize ties with Israel. Withdrawing from the Abraham Accords was never really on the table for these Gulf capitals, according to officials who underline that the only country with real leverage with Israel is the United States. Saudi Arabia, which does not have formal ties with Israel, made more of a concerted effort in partnership with the Biden administration to use the potential for Saudi-Israel normalization as leverage to persuade Israel to change course (and for Riyadh to obtain major benefits from the US), but this strategy did not succeed in ending the Gaza war or launching a political process for a two state solution–both of which this Israeli government still vehemently opposes.
Could Gulf states use their leverage with the Trump administration to persuade the US to apply more pressure on Israel? Yes they could, but the relationship with the US is likely too important and multi-faceted for Gulf states to risk jeopardizing it, even over something as outrageous and immoral as Israeli war crimes in Gaza. It is unlikely Gulf states would move from persuasion to pressure mode with the US president, especially when they know how central Israeli interests are in US politics. During Trump’s visit to the Gulf in May, Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi collectively promised over US $2 trillion in US investments according to the White House, but these investments are not something Gulf states would use as a way to pressure the Trump administration because Gulf states see them as essential first, for their own urgent economic diversification efforts and second, as a means to bolster their critical security, economic, and political relationship with their most important international partner. These two objectives are top priorities in the foreign policies of Gulf states.
Saudi efforts will not work without punitive measures from the US
During the Biden administration, Saudi Arabia attempted to use the carrot of potential normalization with Israel to try and push for a ceasefire in Gaza and a political process for a two-state solution, but Riyadh and Washington were unsuccessful because there were carrots, but no real sticks in this diplomatic effort. According to Saudi officials and multiple foreign ministry statements, ending the Gaza war and Palestinian statehood were integral (among other significant requests Riyadh made of Washington) to moving ahead with the much-discussed trilateral deal between the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel during the Biden administration. But this effort was largely unsuccessful because Saudi-Israel normalization was not enough of a carrot to convince the Israeli government to end the Gaza war. Without more sticks, notably in the form of US punitive measures on Israel, such as cutting the billions of dollars in military financing or by launching an arms embargo, Saudi-Israel normalization could not convince the Netanyahu government to end the war in Gaza or even pay lip service to negotiations for a two-state solution. Saudi Arabia has since ramped up its condemnations of Israel, including by labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide and calling for an arms embargo.
This Gulf diplomacy reflects a serious commitment to end the war in Gaza and support a two-state solution, but without more pressure from the United States and the rest of the international community, Israel’s destruction of Gaza continues, and the humanitarian crisis deepens by the minute. The US and Israeli delegations just walked away from another round of indirect talks with Hamas in Doha this month, where US lead negotiator Steve Witkoff said that Hamas “shows a lack of desire” to reach a truce, but in reality the debate between the two sides is stuck primarily around negotiating a temporary vs. a permanent truce, Israeli forces retreating from Gaza, and Hamas disarming. International pressure on Israel intensified in recent weeks to let in more humanitarian aid amidst growing starvation in Gaza. This pushed Israel to let in small amounts of more aid including airdrops from the UAE and Jordan, but humanitarian experts have argued throughout this war that airdrops are ineffective, and the only way to address the starvation is for Israel to allow more land deliveries and to allow the UN aid delivery system to function. Arab pressure also increased on Hamas after the 22 members of the Arab League issued a joint statement condemning the October 7 attack on Israel and calling for Hamas to release all the hostages, to disarm, and to end its rule in Gaza.
Gulf diplomacy, aid, and mediation are essential to conflict mitigation efforts around Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more broadly, but without more support from the international community, and specifically more pressure on the Israeli government from allies like the United States, Gulf diplomacy is not sufficient to achieving a ceasefire in Gaza or a two-state solution.
Anna Jacobs is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Previously, she was the Senior Gulf Analyst at the International Crisis Group. Prior to that position, she was a Senior Political Officer at The Shaikh Group where she worked on Gulf regional dialogue, and the Senior Research Assistant at the Brookings Doha Center. She has lived and worked in the Middle East for nearly 15 years, including six years in the Gulf. Her research focuses on the role that Gulf Arab states play in conflict and mediation, as well as Gulf regional security and dialogue. She spends her time between New York and the Gulf.
