“Gaza remains the main obstacle to a regional peace deal,” Saudi journalist-researcher Abdulaziz Alkhamis told The Jerusalem Post after a rare Knesset conference this week. The words were as direct as the setting was unusual: a Saudi voice, joined by a Syrian peace activist, urging Israeli lawmakers to seize a moment that will not last.
Alkhamis, who has been involved in discreet discussions about Gaza’s future and Saudi-Israeli normalization, said the war in the Gaza Strip must end “with a full solution that involves the entire region, including Iran and Turkey.”
Tehran is the spoiler in chief, he said, because “Khamenei loves war and wants war to continue.” The Iranian leadership “thrives on chaos,” even as ordinary Iranians “have suffered from this war,” he added.
The clearest route around that chaos, according to Alkhamis, depends on an open alliance among Israel and the Middle East’s pragmatic capitals.
“The Americans and Saudis have the same interest: a two-state solution,” he said. “The problem is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” he said, suggesting that Riyadh cannot move toward formal ties while Jerusalem offers no credible political horizon for the Palestinians.
With great power comes great responsibility
That blunt critique should not obscure a deeper point: Israel now holds unprecedented leverage. After Operation Swords of Iron and Operation Rising Lion, Israel enjoys “unprecedented military dominance, regional deterrence, and a window of strategic leverage,” Alkhamis said. But he added a challenge: “Power unused for peace is power squandered.”
In his remarks at the conference, Alkhamis pressed harder, telling Israelis they face “perhaps the last opportunity in a generation” to move from managing conflict to shaping a region. Should Israel ignore the moment, “it will not only lose Saudi Arabia; it will lose the Arab world’s new consensus for integration.”
The Knesset event, which launched the cross-party Caucus to Promote a Regional Security Agreement, also unveiled the Abraham Shield Plan: an Israeli blueprint that calls for a security and economic bloc of moderate Arab states arrayed against Iran and its proxies. According to its founders, the plan would “pave the way for Israel to emerge from wars of attrition to a reality of security, stability, and prosperity.”
IDF Brig.-Gen. (res.) Udi Dekel, a former head of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations who now helps lead the Coalition for Regional Security, distilled the stakes.
“Opportunities don’t fall from the sky; they also vanish,” he told the gathering, warning that Israel could miss its chance to forge a coalition “aiming to counter the radical axis of states.”
Lian Pollak-David, another coalition founder and a former National Security Council adviser, drove the message home: “Military power alone is not enough. The next challenge is to realize our diplomatic strength as well.”
Labor MK Gilad Kariv said a comprehensive Gaza deal “could and must continue with bold agreements that will transform the region,” while Yesh Atid’s Ram Ben Barak and Blue and White’s Alon Schuster added their names to the caucus, signaling a rare bipartisan consensus.
Israel, for its part, must clarify the “day after” in Gaza. The Abraham Shield framework envisions a demilitarized Gaza Strip administered by technocrats and underwritten by Arab capital, a model that can square Palestinian dignity with Israeli security.
If Jerusalem articulates that vision in concrete terms, it will help Riyadh and Abu Dhabi explain to their own publics why normalization is not abandonment but a strategic bet on builders over bombers. If it does not, the Arab consensus that Iran is the true menace will dissolve, and Israel will again find itself fighting alone.
A generation ago, skeptics said Egypt and Israel could never share a cold peace; decades later, their security cooperation is seamless. Critics scoffed at the Abraham Accords; Emirati-Israeli trade has already surpassed $5 billion.
The next leap, public Saudi-Israeli alignment against Tehran, will be broader, bolder, and – if leaders act quickly – within reach.
The question now belongs not only to Jerusalem, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi but to every pragmatic capital in the region. Opportunities do vanish. This one will if moderate Muslim states keep looking over their shoulders while Tehran empties the table.
It is time for them to choose an ally that can and will secure the future – and time for Israel to prove that its hand is steady, extended, and ready to build.