{"id":582692,"date":"2026-08-12T19:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582692\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T19:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:12:17","slug":"mecca-defense-pact-isnt-meant-to-challenge-israel-at-least-not-on-the-battlefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582692\/","title":{"rendered":"Mecca defense pact isn’t meant to challenge Israel, at least not on the battlefield"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed<\/a> a mutual defense treaty in Mecca last week, a senior Israeli official sounded the alarm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agreement worries us,\u201d the official told<\/a> the Ynet news outlet. \u201cIt is a pact aimed at Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Egypt joins the Mecca Agreement,\u201d continued the official, expressing worries that it could bring hostile forces to Israel\u2019s doorstep.<\/p>\n

That interpretation fundamentally misreads both the target of the tripartite pact and Cairo\u2019s relevance to it.<\/p>\n

It was actually a reading offered by Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesman that got closer to the heart of the agreement.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCountries in the region cannot rely on the claim of security provided by the US as in the past,\u201d said Esmaeil Baghaei.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tIranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei during the weekly press conference held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the capital Tehran, on February 10, 2026. (ATTA KENARE \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Indeed, the failure of the US to effectively confront Iran and sustain pressure on Tehran is at the center of the agreement. \u201cThese countries are showing frustration with the lack of success and the muddle of US diplomacy,\u201d said Simon Henderson, Baker senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.<\/p>\n

The three Sunni powers are not about to go to war for each other, and they know it. The pact is about signaling leadership, joint action, and diplomatic power, not about creating a unified military force.<\/p>\n

Worthless agreements<\/p>\n

The Middle East is littered with a litany of defense pacts that amounted to nothing.<\/p>\n

The Arab League established its Joint Defense Council in 1950 after being defeated by the fledgling IDF. That council then created the Egypt-led United Arab Command in 1964.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tIDF forces take part in the 1966 Operation Shredder in the West Bank town of Al-Samu (IDF Spokesperson\u2019s Unit)<\/p>\n

Its chance to prove its effectiveness as a joint bulwark came a few years later, as Israel carried out Operation Shredder in the Jordanian-held West Bank in 1966 and then took on four Arab armies in the Six Day War the next year.<\/p>\n

The UAC did nothing, and fell apart shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

Today, regional defense pacts still don\u2019t mean much.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, left, embraces Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after signing a joint defense pact in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, September 17, 2025. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)<\/p>\n

After Israel\u2019s failed 2025 strike on Hamas leaders in Doha sent jitters through the region with the signal that nowhere was off limits, Saudi Arabia signed<\/a> a mutual defense treaty with nuclear-armed Pakistan that officially regards any attack on either nation as an attack on both. A decade earlier, Pakistan had turned down a request from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to join<\/a> its war against the Houthis in Yemen.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Iran war gave the countries a chance to see if things would change under the alliance. Saudi Arabia was hit repeatedly by Iran, and Pakistan did indeed send thousands of troops, a \u200bsquadron of fighter jets and an air defense system to Saudi Arabia \u2014 after a ceasefire was in effect, and only after the Saudis forked over<\/a> $3 billion to help Islamabad pay off debts to the UAE.<\/p>\n

Even more feebly, the Pakistani troops were deployed in an \u201cadvisory and training role.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPolice officers stand guard at a checkpoint to ensure security ahead of the second round of negotiations between the US and Iran, in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo\/Anjum Naveed)<\/p>\n

Turkey, for its part, has had 3,000 troops in Qatar for almost a decade and a number of defense pacts with the country. But they did nothing to stop Iranian strikes in 2025 and 2026, or the Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha.<\/p>\n

Further weakening the potential for any joint action in the newest defense agreement, the three countries are facing very different military threats.<\/p>\n

To institutionalize an alliance is therefore to settle, or at least freeze, the struggle for primacy among states that have rarely accepted one another\u2019s primacy.<\/p>\n

The Saudis are under attack by Iran, the Houthis, and other proxies in Tehran\u2019s axis.\n<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s bitter enemy is India, while Turkey is focused on the Kurdish threat and its role as a NATO member facing down Russia.<\/p>\n

The Saudis and Turks aren\u2019t about to jump into war against the massive nuclear-armed India, nor are Turkey or Pakistan going to attack Iran over strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure and ships.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tThis handout satellite image courtesy of Vantor taken and released on March 2, 2026, shows damage at the Saudi Aramco\u2019s Ras Tanura refinery (Satellite image \u00a92026 Vantor \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saudis were attacked this week,\u201d said Yoel Guzansky, senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies \u201cI didn\u2019t see a Turkish declaration of war against the Houthis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ankara and Islamabad are well aware that the Saudis will continue to be attacked by the Houthis, and signed the agreement anyway. It won\u2019t take long before the military aspects of the deal are proven meaningless.<\/p>\n

Moreover, none of these countries want to make the concessions that a real military alliance demands.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tAn armed student waves a Yemeni flag as he is flanked by a peer waving a Palestinian flag and others displaying the Houthi rebels\u2019 banner, which reads \u2018Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews,\u2019 at a rally in support of the Iran-backed rebels amid escalating tensions with Saudi Arabia, on the Sanaa University Campus in the Houthi-held Yemeni capital, on July 22, 2026. (Mohammed HUWAIS\/AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cTo determine the supreme commander is to determine hierarchy,\u201d according to\u00a0 Hussein Aboubakr Mansour <\/a>of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo place forces permanently in another regional country is to create political leverage inside it,\u201d Mansour continued. \u201cTo decide which threat activates the common force is to decide whose definition of regional order prevails. To institutionalize an alliance is therefore to settle, or at least freeze, the struggle for primacy among states that have rarely accepted one another\u2019s primacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only one leader<\/p>\n

The logic of the agreement, then, is diplomatic, not joint defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t call it an alliance,\u201d said Guzansky. \u201cI\u2019d call it an alignment, perhaps. It has goals, but not necessarily military ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even those nonmilitary goals diverge beyond the common desire to show diplomatic might in the wake of the US-Iran war.<\/p>\n

Turkey is trying to show through the agreement that it is a regional power.<\/p>\n

Pakistan wants to take advantage of its newfound role as a key mediator between the US and Iran to strengthen itself against India.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, for its part, wants to signal its ability to create an independent security architecture that doesn\u2019t depend on either Iran or the US, and can help it stay out of future conflicts.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tScreen grab from video said to show explosions in Buqyaq, Saudi Arabia, September 14, 2019 (Twitter)<\/p>\n

The Saudis, who initiated the pact, have lost trust in the US security umbrella since US President Donald Trump\u2019s non-response to the 2019 drone-and-cruise-missile attacks<\/a> on its oil sites that it blames on Iran.<\/p>\n

That feeling has only gotten worse given Trump\u2019s desperation for a deal with Iran while Tehran openly mocks the US president and keeps raising its demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a message to Iran that [Saudi Arabia] has regional backing,\u201d said Guzansky. \u201cIt\u2019s also a message to the US that it has alternatives. It isn\u2019t trying to replace the US, but is showing that the Saudis aren\u2019t waiting around.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fundamental flaw of the agreement, said Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, is \u201cthat while there are overlapping reasons for which the three countries joined it, the only strategic rationale that unites them all is an incompatible one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of the three countries thinks that this pact will give it greater power, prestige, influence, and claims to leadership,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut there can be only one leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Egypt stays away<\/p>\n

According to Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Egypt <\/a>should be part of the pact as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that, in the next stage, Egypt will also be part of the alliance,\u201d said Fidan. \u201cThere are a few technical issues. Once they\u2019re resolved, there is no reason why Egypt should not be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Egypt participated in a series of meetings with the three countries amid mediation attempts between Iran and US, Fidan\u2019s prediction is highly unlikely to happen.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tL-R: Egypt\u2019s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Turkey\u2019s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud sit for a discussion during the 5th edition of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Turkey, April 17, 2026. (Turkish Foreign Ministry Press Service)<\/p>\n

Egypt remains highly suspicious of Turkey, a country against which it fought<\/a> a proxy war in Libya and a backer of the Muslim Brotherhood that Egyptian leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi toppled in 2013.<\/p>\n

Cairo is also uninterested in joining a pact carrying the religious overtones of the agreement signed in Mecca, though it shares the other members\u2019 Sunni identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe symbolic effect of announcing this pact in Mecca is to suggest that the Sunni Muslim character of the countries involved is a feature, not a coincidence,\u201d said Misztal. \u201cThis is further reinforced by the absence of Egypt, which had been discussed as a fourth member of the group but whose government is avowedly anti-Islamist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEgypt probably wants to sit this one out,\u201d added Henderson. \u201cTurkey and Pakistan have land borders with Iran, and Saudi Arabia is just across the Gulf. Egypt\u2019s away from all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balancing against Israel<\/p>\n

For some Israelis, the prospect of Egypt joining the alliance had augmented worries that the countries joining forces would constitute a powerful new threat to the Jewish state.<\/p>\n

A day after the pact was signed, Pakistan\u2019s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told<\/a> a local news outlet that \u201cIsrael is a threat to the entire Muslim world,\u201d and called for \u201ca united military front\u201d against it.<\/p>\n

Asif\u2019s comments, while alarming, have little actual bite. Made to an Urdu-language outlet, his words were seemingly intended more toward local consumption than as actual saber-rattling toward Israel.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (L), Chief of the Defense Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir (R) posing with US President Donald Trump (C) at the White House in Washington, DC, in an image published on September 26, 2025. (Handout \/ Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Office \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Nor is Asif the real power broker in Pakistan. That title belongs to Pakistani military chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, both publicly praised by Trump for their efforts to broker ceasefires in Gaza, between Pakistan and India, and between the US and Iran.<\/p>\n

That is not to say there is not serious friction between Israel and the Mecca signatories, who are all keen to increase their diplomatic clout while challenging Jerusalem\u2019s.<\/p>\n

With Iran and its network weakened, Israel is seen regionally as an aggressive actor causing instability.<\/p>\n

The agreement creates an Islamic alliance that, it hopes, can balance against Israel if needed.<\/p>\n

Notably, the UAE, a close Israeli partner, has not been asked to join, and isn\u2019t expected to. The UAE is locked in a growing rivalry<\/a> with Saudi Arabia, and is furious with Pakistan over its neutral stance while Iran was hammering the Emirates. It now adds the defense pact with Riyadh to that list.<\/p>\n

While the Mecca Agreement was supposed to project a sense of unity, it is largely doing the opposite, especially as it relates to Arab countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u00a0shows that the Arab world,\u201d said Guzansky, \u201ceven when it is attacked by Iran, is more divided than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed a mutual defense treaty in Mecca last week, a senior Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[190507,263603,211480,85,263601,46,43,263602,263600,207567,227343],"class_list":["post-582692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2026-us-israel-war-with-iran","tag-egypt-turkey-relations","tag-esmaeil-baghaei","tag-il","tag-iran-pakistan-relations","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-pakistan-saudi-arabia-relations","tag-saudi-arabia-turkey-relations","tag-saudi-uae-relations","tag-turkey-saudi-arabia-relations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}