Mecca defense pact ‘sidesteps the United States and Israel’

Meir Ben-Shabbat: The newly signed Mecca Joint Defense Agreement symbolizes several things.

These include the rise of a strong central Sunni axis that sees itself as capable of serving as a counterweight to other regional forces; an understanding among the states of this axis that the Iranian threat is apparently not expected to disappear in the foreseeable future and requires preparation for scenarios of its development; a desire to create an arrangement that is not dependent on the United States and bypasses Israel, an arrangement that can of course realize political ambitions and cross-continental economic partnerships and is not purely security-related.

Published in JNS, August 13, 2026.

*The opinions expressed in Misgav publications are the authors’ alone.