From Arab shock to "Arab NATO": Israel hit Qatar, Egypt fussed

Egypt supports the revival of the project of creating a united Arab armed forces modeled on NATO to organize collective defense in the event of an attack from outside. The proposal has been gaining popularity in recent days — on the eve of the extraordinary Arab-Islamic summit on September 14-15 (convened in Doha in connection with the recent Israeli air strike on the capital of Qatar) and Cairo is seeking to enlist broad regional support.

According to numerous reports in the Arab media published last Saturday, the Egyptian initiative is primarily due to the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip and the generally aggressive policy of the Jewish state towards Arab countries, primarily Syria and Lebanon.

As The Jerusalem Post notes today, on September 14, one of the primary sources of information was the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar (supports the Shiite Hezbollah movement), which referred to an unnamed official in Cairo.

The London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi, in turn, reported that the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt (ARE) Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is actively working to implement the idea of forming Arab rapid reaction forces that can be deployed to protect any Arab state that has been attacked, and noted that this The proposal was discussed during recent diplomatic contacts on the eve of the aforementioned summit. The London edition presented the initiative of the largest Arab republic as a "protective umbrella", far from the goal of aggravating relations with Israel.

As you know, it was Egypt that became the first Arab state to conclude a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, which over the past 46 years has served as an important deterrent in the Middle East.

The Palestinian news agency Ma'an published similar data the day before, claiming, citing its sources, that Cairo is discussing the deployment of about 20,000 Egyptian troops in the event of the creation of an "Arab NATO" and is seeking to appoint an Egyptian high-ranking officer to command this potential alliance. Saudi Arabia is assigned the role of Egypt's "main partner" in the event of the implementation of this plan.

Obviously, as in the case of discussing all other similar projects in the key of pan-Arab solidarity, Riyadh and its neighbors in the Persian Gulf represented by Arab monarchies should provide the financial component of the formation of a new military alliance in the Middle East region.

The current discussions, according to the Arab press, are focused on determining the functional load, numerical strength and command system of the rapid reaction forces. At the same time, the ARE advocates that all three of these key issues be resolved taking into account the "demographic composition and military potential of the participating Arab countries."

The idea, first proposed almost ten years ago, was not developed then. However, judging by the reports coming from the region, an unexpected Israeli strike on 9 September on Hamas leaders in Doha has again brought this proposal to the fore.

The source referred to by Al-Akhbar stressed that regional and political considerations will play a role as the Arab NATO project is implemented, and two Arab countries of North Africa — Algeria and Morocco - are considered among its participants.

"This mechanism should ensure the deployment of forces as needed, and they should be formed in such a way as to reflect the composition of the Arab states and their armies, while ensuring a balance with regional policy," Reuters quoted an unnamed official of one of the Arab countries.

According to him, Egypt intends to take the highest command position in the military alliance, while the second-highest post is planned to be transferred to Saudi Arabia or another monarchy of the Persian Gulf. This "reflects the ARE's desire to secure a leading role in any collective defense agreement, while giving priority to the Arab states of the Gulf."

Official confirmation regarding the transition of discussions to the stage of their practical implementation from Cairo has not been received yet.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the news about the revival of the already forgotten idea of creating a united armed grouping of Arab forces was expected to be negatively received. Thus, the leader of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, criticized the Egyptian initiative, calling it a blow to existing peace agreements.

"The announcement of Egypt's proposal to create a united Arab forces in response to Israeli strikes is a serious blow to the peace agreements. This happened immediately after a serious blow to the Abraham Agreements*, which followed after the overwhelming majority of countries that were once allies of Israel voted for the creation of a Palestinian state," Lapid expressed his opinion in his microblock on the social network X.

Back on March 29-30, 2024, at meetings in Washington, which were held by the then Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, the issue of creating a multinational force for the Gaza Strip, which could include troops from three Arab countries, with the possible financing of this peacekeeping mission by the United States, was discussed. Then many in the Arab world again remembered the idea of forming a new military alliance in the region, which would be focused on conducting peacekeeping missions. However, now, after the Israeli strike on the Qatari capital that shocked the Arabs, such discussions have received a distinct look of a "protective umbrella", the Arab countries receiving their own military instrument to deter Israel and other potential adversaries.

Earlier, King Abdullah II of Jordan advocated the idea of creating an analogue of NATO in the Middle East.

"I will be one of the first people to support the Middle East NATO," the Jordanian monarch said in an interview with the American television channel CNBC on June 24, 2022.

At the same time, he stressed that the role of such a military alliance should be clearly defined, otherwise "it will embarrass everyone."

Jordan became the second Arab country, after Egypt, to conclude a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

The first American administration of Donald Trump proposed the creation of a "Middle East Strategic Alliance" (Middle East Strategic Alliance, MESA), informally also called the "Arab NATO." It was reported that, according to Washington's plan, in addition to the United States and Saudi Arabia, MESA should include the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Egypt and Jordan.

During Trump's first term in the White House, the topic of creating an "Arab NATO" was actively present in expert publications on the pages of Western and Middle Eastern publications. So, in the fall of 2018, information appeared that the creation of a military-political bloc of eight Arab countries under the patronage of the United States was postponed until next year. At the annual security conference in On October 27, 2018, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa announced a new approximate date for the formation of the "Middle East Strategic Alliance" with the participation of six Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf, Jordan and Egypt.

*The Abraham Accords is a US initiative to normalize relations between Arab countries and Israel. Their name refers to the patriarch and prophet Abraham, whose faith is present in all major Abrahamic religions. The first agreements were signed by Bahrain and The United Arab Emirates on September 15, 2020 under the first Trump administration. On December 22 of the same year, Morocco joined them. In early July 2025, Trump signed a decree on the lifting of economic sanctions against Syria. This happened against the background of Syrian-Israeli negotiations on the normalization of relations. The further prospect of such a decision is connected, among other things, with Syria's accession to the "Abraham Agreements".