{"id":634742,"date":"2026-10-03T01:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/634742\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T01:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:14:13","slug":"omans-rise-as-a-key-regional-player-and-its-relationship-with-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/634742\/","title":{"rendered":"Oman’s rise as a key regional player and its relationship with Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Omani pilot who allegedly tried to hijack and crash a flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv<\/a> has drawn new attention to his native country. Oman, sometimes dubbed the \u201cSwitzerland of the Middle East,\u201d has long sought to balance its relations with the West and Iran. Its strategic location, combined with its distinctive diplomatic approach, has made it an unusual player in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Oman is located on the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. It sits alongside the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, the strategically important maritime passage through which roughly one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply passes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until recently, Oman<\/a> wasn\u2019t a Middle Eastern country used to making international headlines. But it has emerged as a key player in recent months after long serving as a central mediator between Washington and Tehran. Its neutral posture, along with its close ties to both the United States and Iran, placed it in an important position during the talks between the two sides before the outbreak of the US-Iran war earlier this year.<\/p>\n

When Omani mediation failed to prevent the conflict, Oman condemned the joint US-Israeli military campaign launched in February, saying it had \u201cdeep regrets at the military operations launched by Israel and the United States of America against the Islamic Republic of Iran\u201d and that it \u201cconsiders this action to be in contravention of the rules of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even after Iran itself attacked Oman, which hosts three US military bases, as part of Tehran\u2019s campaign to pressure countries in the region and deter US President Donald Trump, Muscat did not abandon its neutral stance. The targets Iran struck in Oman included a port and oil infrastructure, although the attacks were limited compared with those on other countries in the region.<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Keir Starmer (R) during a meeting with His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik al Said, the Sultan of Oman, at 10 Downing Street on July 02, 2026 in London, England; Illustrative. (credit: Carlos Jasso – WPA-Pool\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Relations between Washington and Muscat have become further strained as the war has continued. In an opinion article published in The Economist, Oman\u2019s foreign minister described the war as \u201cunlawful\u201d and said the United States \u201chas lost control of its foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, meanwhile, threatened to bomb Oman, telling reporters in August, \u201cI don\u2019t think they behaved very well, but we\u2019d handle them very easily just like we do others.\u201d The Wall Street Journal reported that senior US officials had privately accused Oman of being \u201ca duplicitous actor\u201d that largely sides with Iran rather than seeking the best possible deal between Washington and Tehran.<\/p>\n

While the Gulf state maintains significant ties with Washington, it does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel. The two countries once maintained commercial relations, but those ties were cut in 2000 amid a deterioration in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Contacts between the countries later continued quietly, and Netanyahu visited Oman in 2018 in a rare public meeting between an Israeli prime minister and an Omani sultan.<\/p>\n

The two countries have discussed establishing formal relations, but those efforts have not come to fruition to date. Oman\u2019s position has remained broadly similar to that of Saudi Arabia, which talked openly about the possibility of normalization with Israel but has conditioned that recognition on a clear, irreversible path toward a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

Omani support for Abraham Accords<\/p>\n

Oman has also expressed support for the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020 and have since been signed by a handful of other Muslim countries.<\/p>\n

Oman\u2019s rhetoric toward Israel has grown harsher since Oct. 7, 2023, and relations between the countries have cooled. Omani officials have strongly criticized Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza and have been particularly critical of Israel\u2019s war against Iran.<\/p>\n

Ahmed bin Hamad al-Khalili, Oman\u2019s grand mufti, described Israel\u2019s attack on Iran as \u201ctreacherous American-Zionist aggression against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

A strategic Gulf state<\/p>\n

Much of Oman\u2019s geographic importance comes from its position along bodies of water through which large quantities of oil transit. Its land, by contrast, is covered by desert, with a coastal plain home to a significant share of the country\u2019s population of roughly 5.5 million.<\/p>\n

That population is distinctive in the Muslim world: A significant portion of its citizens belong to the Ibadi branch of Islam, a tradition separate from both Sunni and Shiite Islam. The country is also home to a large expatriate population from different religious backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Oman is a sultanate, meaning the sultan holds extensive powers. The current ruler, Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al Said, took office in January 2020 following the death of his cousin, Sultan Qaboos, who had ruled the country for nearly 50 years.<\/p>\n

Oil underpins a significant part of Oman\u2019s economy, although the country has sought to diversify. Its strategic location and extensive coastline have also made it a gateway for international trade between Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n

Oman has so far not issued an official response to the incident or publicly confirmed the identity or nationality of the pilot who allegedly carried out the flydubai attack. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and international media outlets have described the pilot as Omani<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement, Netanyahu said that \u201cthe perpetrator underwent Islamist radicalization. He came to crash the plane. We are now investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Omani pilot who allegedly tried to hijack and crash a flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54,285901,85,87,46,47,43,2595,27962,1032],"class_list":["post-634742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-donald-trump","tag-flydubai-attempted-hijacking","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-oman","tag-pilot","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634742","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=634742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}