The most counterintuitive alliance in modern Middle Eastern history is not a hypothetical. Between 1980 and 1988, while publicly declaring Israel an illegitimate entity, the Islamic Republic of Iran quietly cooperated with the Jewish state against a shared enemy: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. This was not a warm peace, but a cold, transactional convergence of interests that saw Israeli weapons and intelligence flow to Tehran, and Iranian intelligence help Israel destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor. It is the starting point for understanding a region where today’s sworn enemies were yesterday’s tacit partners—and where tomorrow’s alignments are already being redrawn.
The Iran-Israel Entente Against Iraq
The conventional narrative of Iran-Israel relations begins with the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the Shah’s tacit alliance with Israel collapsed and Ayatollah Khomeini’s new regime branded Israel the “Little Satan”. What this narrative obscures is that the hostility was initially rhetorical, while the strategic logic on the ground remained fluid.
When Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, both Tehran and Jerusalem identified Baghdad as the more immediate threat. Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has stated that Israel provided Iran with information about military sites in western Iraq, while Iran supplied Israel with intelligence on Iraq’s Tammuz nuclear reactor—the facility destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in 1981. Israeli arms exports to Iran during this period reportedly totaled around $2 billion. The cooperation was facilitated by the fact that both nations saw Saddam’s Iraq as a revisionist power threatening their respective security.
The most concrete manifestation of this covert partnership was the Iran-Contra affair. Throughout the mid-1980s, Israel acted as an intermediary in the sale of American weapons to Iran, ostensibly to secure the release of American hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon, with proceeds diverted to Nicaraguan Contra rebels. The arrangement revealed a remarkable triangulation: Israel, the Islamic Republic, and the Reagan administration all found reasons—however divergent—to keep the channel open. The relationship was never ideological; it was entirely instrumental. Once Iraq’s threat diminished after the 1988 ceasefire and the 1991 Gulf War, the convergence evaporated, and the public hostility that had always existed on paper became the operative reality.
Ten Other Strange Middle East Relationships
1. Israel and the United Arab Emirates: The “Abraham Accords” Security Partnership
The 2020 normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE was historic on its face, but the relationship has evolved into something more intimate than a diplomatic formality. During the 2026 Iran war, the UAE expanded military cooperation with Israel, receiving Iron Dome and other defense systems. This is an Arab Gulf state relying on Israeli technology to protect itself from an Iranian threat—a configuration that would have been unthinkable two decades ago. The UAE-Israel axis now sits opposite a Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan bloc, a realignment that cuts across the old Arab-Israeli divide entirely.
2. Turkey and Israel: From Strategic Partners to Near-Enemies
Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel in 1949, and the two maintained close military and intelligence ties for decades, including joint exercises and defense procurement. The “northern triangle” of Jerusalem, Ankara, and Tehran was a cornerstone of Israel’s periphery doctrine. Since the rise of Erdogan’s AKP and especially since the 2023 Gaza war, the relationship has collapsed. Turkey now positions itself as a leader of a Sunni bloc explicitly counterweighting Israeli power, and analysts warn of direct confrontation in Syria, where both countries’ spheres of influence are colliding.
3. Saudi Arabia and Iran: The Beijing-Brokered Reconciliation
After years of proxy war across Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations in March 2023 in a deal brokered by China—not the United States. The agreement was a shock to Washington and signaled that Gulf states were willing to pursue de-escalation on their own terms. Yet the reconciliation remains fragile, and the subsequent formation of the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan “Mecca Pact” has been interpreted by some as a hedge against Iranian power even as Riyadh keeps the diplomatic channel open.
4. The Mecca Pact: A “Sunni NATO” That Doesn’t Quite Work
In August 2026, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed a joint defense agreement promising that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all—rhetorically echoing NATO’s Article 5. The pact was billed as a new security architecture for the Sunni world. But when Houthi missiles struck Saudi Arabia, neither Turkey nor Pakistan responded militarily. Pakistan instead positioned itself as a mediator between Iran and the United States. The lesson: in the Middle East, paper alliances and operational realities are frequently divorced.
5. Israel’s Role in the Iran-Contra Scandal
The Iran-Contra affair is usually told as an American scandal, but Israel was a central node. Israeli officials facilitated arms transfers to Iran and helped channel funds, operating in a space where American law and public diplomacy both said one thing while covert policy did another. The episode demonstrated that Israel’s operational relationships in the region could transcend even the public enmity between Jerusalem and Tehran—and that the United States was willing to use Israel as a cutout for policies it could not acknowledge.
6. Qatar: Hosting the Largest US Base and Funding Hamas
Qatar hosts Al-Udeid Air Base, the largest American military installation in the Middle East and a hub for CENTCOM operations. Simultaneously, Doha has been a major financial backer of Hamas and provided safe haven for its leadership. This dual role—indispensable American ally and patron of the group Israel is fighting—has made Qatar both a mediator and a target of criticism. During the 2026 Iran war, Qatar signaled willingness to expel Hamas leaders, revealing how quickly strategic calculations can shift under pressure.
7. Syria’s Chemical Weapons and Israel’s Quiet Border
For years, Israel maintained a policy of non-intervention in the Syrian civil war while conducting periodic strikes on Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside Syria. The relationship between Jerusalem and Damascus was one of hostile non-engagement—no peace, no direct war, just a managed frontier. With the fall of the Assad regime and the emergence of a new Syrian government, this equilibrium is uncertain, and Israel’s northern border has become a zone of competing Turkish and Israeli interests.
8. Egypt and Israel: The Cold Peace That Holds
Egypt was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel in 1979, and the treaty has survived decades of regional turmoil, including the Arab Spring and multiple Gaza wars. Yet the relationship remains deeply unpopular among Egyptians and is often described as a “cold peace”—strategic cooperation between governments without social normalization. Egypt’s role as a mediator in Gaza ceasefires has given it renewed leverage, but the underlying tension between public sentiment and state interest persists.
9. The UAE and Israel in Somaliland
In late 2025, Israel officially recognized Somaliland’s independence, a move that bolstered the UAE’s strategic management of the Port of Berbera. The recognition sent shockwaves through the Arab League, and Saudi Arabia responded by pivoting toward Somalia’s central government with Turkish and Egyptian military support. This seemingly obscure dispute over a breakaway region in the Horn of Africa is now a proxy front in the broader competition between the UAE-Israel axis and the Saudi-Turkey bloc.
10. India: The Quiet Balancer Between Iran and the Gulf
India is not a Middle Eastern state, but its footprint in the region has become impossible to ignore. India invests in Iran’s Chabahar Port as its only land bypass around Pakistan, while simultaneously participating in the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor that depends on UAE ports, Saudi railways, and Israel’s Mediterranean gateway. When the Iran war broke out, India stayed conspicuously silent, protecting its energy interests and its multi-aligned partnerships. It is the ultimate expression of a rising power’s refusal to choose sides in a region where everyone else is being forced to.
The Pattern Beneath the Chaos
What unites these disparate relationships is a single principle: interests trump identities. The Middle East is often analyzed through the lens of sectarian binaries—Sunni versus Shia, Israel versus the Arab world—but the actual alignments are far more fluid. Iran and Israel cooperated against Iraq because Saddam was the more immediate threat. The UAE and Israel cooperate today because Iran is the more immediate threat. Turkey and Israel were partners because they shared a fear of Arab nationalism; they are now adversaries because Erdogan has constructed a political identity around opposition to Israel.