Hussein Aboubakr Mansour on Why Saudi Arabia Is Moving Away from Israel

Jan 16, 2026

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, a keen political analyst focusing on Middle East geopolitics, delves into the unexpected shifts in Saudi Arabia's stance towards Israel. He challenges the idea that weakening Iran would lead to Arab normalization, asserting instead that it reduces Saudi incentive to embrace Israel. Mansour highlights the complexity of Gulf state dynamics, the weaponization of anti-Zionism for regional advantage, and America's evolving role in the Middle East. His insights underscore the intricate interplay between rivalries and cooperative security interests.

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INSIGHT

Dismantling Iran Lowers Normalization Incentives

Weakening Iran does not automatically lead Arab states to normalize with Israel.
Removing a common adversary reduces incentives for formal regional integration.

INSIGHT

Cooperation Was Conditioned, Not Permanent

Regional cooperation after the Abraham Accords was contingent on the Iranian threat and U.S. management.
Once those constraints fade, competitive dynamics among states reassert and integration stalls.

ANECDOTE

Covert Cooperation, Public Distance

Gulf states often cooperate covertly with Israel on intelligence and security while withholding formal recognition.
They preserve public hostility to protect regional competitive advantage and domestic legitimacy.

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On June 22, 2025, the U.S. air force sent B2 bombers to destroy Iran's nuclear sites. Five days before that, on June 17, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, observing the extent of Israel's military operations inside of Iran and its destruction of Iran's proxy network, published an essay in Mosaic with a counterintuitive argument: Israel's devastating strikes on the Islamic Republic would not lead to an Arab embrace of the Jewish state. Most observers assumed the opposite, that weakening Iran would accelerate normalization and that gratitude and commercial interests would drive the Gulf states closer to Jerusalem. Mansour argued instead that removing the Iranian threat would reduce the incentives for the Saudis to normalize relations with Israel.

Seven months later, Mansour has written a follow-up analysis showing that recent events have borne out his thesis—and indeed exceeded his cautious predictions. Saudi Arabia hasn't just declined to normalize with Israel. It has launched an aggressive regional repositioning campaign, weaponizing anti-Zionism as a competitive instrument against the first Abraham Accords signatory, the United Arab Emirates.

Mansour's latest piece, published this week in his Abrahamic Metacritique Substack, proposes a new way to grapple with the reality of two major changes that are decisively shaping regional dynamics: first, the dismantling of Iran's axis of resistance, and second, the changing nature of America's role in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel now each conduct foreign policy in order to optimize their particular national advantages with neither a dominant common adversary, as Iran was, nor the common umbrella of American leadership.

Under these circumstances, Mansour argues, anti-Zionism will remain strategically useful and even grow in its political utility. He discusses all of this with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver.

This episode of the Tikvah Podcast is generously sponsored by David Bradlow. If you are interested in sponsoring an episode of the Tikvah Podcast, we invite you to join the Tikvah Ideas Circle. Visit tikvah.org/circle to learn more and join.