Why Arab States are Silent on Israel’s Aggression?

One might attribute this inertia to the United States, whose sustained military and financial backing of Israel strengthens Tel Aviv's hand. Since October 2023, U.S. military aid to Israel has exceeded $17.9 billion, effectively underwriting Israel’s aggressive actions in Gaza and Lebanon. However, to attribute the Arab response solely to U.S. influence misses a crucial aspect of the broader dynamics. Indeed, the complicity of Arab states cannot be fully explained without examining the political decay within their own borders—a landscape scarred by decades of authoritarianism and the shattered hopes of democratic reforms. More than ten years after the Arab Spring, which briefly ignited dreams of people-powered governance, the Middle East today is largely defined by regimes that prioritize their own survival over regional stability or human rights. In a grim parallel to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, Arab leaders employ severe domestic repression as a tool for maintaining their tenuous hold on power.

The repercussions of this authoritarian model are profound. These regimes, fragile and isolated from their own people, now seem more concerned with domestic dissent than with Israeli policies. The state apparatus, in essence, views its citizens as the true threat, channeling resources and political will not towards resisting Israel but rather towards maintaining internal order. What has emerged is a political model where the survival of the regime takes precedence over the protection or empowerment of its people—a phenomenon vividly illustrated by the current stance of Egypt, one of the region’s largest and most influential countries.

As the Arab state closest to Gaza, Egypt is theoretically well-positioned to serve as a regional counterbalance to Israel's aggressive actions. And yet, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, despite his country's strategic importance, has done little beyond making symbolic gestures. Egypt’s dependence on the U.S. for aid—totaling $183.5 billion since WWII—has only grown, effectively stifling its ability to challenge American or Israeli objectives in any meaningful way. El-Sisi’s government, focused narrowly on maintaining its grip on power, appears unwilling or unable to act against a neighbor whose actions pose significant destabilizing risks, including the potential for mass displacement into Egyptian territory.

This dependence, however, is not just financial; it is deeply entwined with an ideological kinship between el-Sisi’s administration and Israel. Following the 2013 military coup that brought him to power, el-Sisi’s government found support not only in Washington but also in Tel Aviv. During that critical period, Israel’s American lobbyists, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), actively supported the continuation of U.S. aid to Egypt, underscoring the shared priorities between Cairo and Israel. Over time, this partnership evolved beyond mere tactical cooperation into a robust alliance spanning security and economic interests.

Egypt’s evolving alliance with Israel reveals the complexities and contradictions of a region where national interests have been overshadowed by regime preservation. The relationship between President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been described as the closest between the leaders of these nations since the signing of their peace treaty in 1979. But unlike the statesmen of that era, who at least sought regional stability, today’s leaders are bound more by their respective needs to maintain internal control than by any desire to uphold peace or prosperity for their peoples. Their collaboration is not only strategic but also deeply transactional: in exchange for economic benefits and security cooperation, el-Sisi’s Egypt has offered Israel unprecedented levels of cooperation, even at the cost of Egyptian sovereignty and stability.

For example, in 2018, reports surfaced of Israel conducting over a hundred airstrikes against militant targets in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula—with Cairo’s blessing. Such security cooperation has not only strengthened el-Sisi’s grip on power by showing his government’s ability to contain domestic threats, but it has also bound him ever closer to Tel Aviv. In addition, Egypt has welcomed the use of Israeli surveillance technology, which has been employed to silence opposition figures, monitor dissent, and neutralize critics within Egypt’s own borders. This technology reportedly played a role in the surveillance of Ahmed Tantawy, a leading figure in Egypt’s secular opposition.

While the security alliance with Israel helps maintain El-Sisi’s immediate control over Egypt, the economic arrangements between the two countries further highlight Egypt’s dependence and its weakening sovereignty. In 2018, the two nations signed a $15 billion deal to import Israeli natural gas, ostensibly to re-export it as liquefied natural gas (LNG). This deal, managed by a private Egyptian company reportedly tied to Egypt’s General Intelligence Services (GIS), reflects a reality in which the economic and political interests of a powerful few are prioritized over the broader national interest. With the GIS overseeing this lucrative arrangement, it is no surprise that Cairo’s security elites directly benefit, reinforcing their stake in the regime and, by extension, the regime’s alignment with Israeli objectives.

Even as Egypt grapples with an escalating debt crisis, which has weakened its negotiating position and further restricted its ability to act independently, the economic collaboration with Israel has continued. This dependency is self-reinforcing: as Egypt’s debt grows, so does its reliance on external powers like the U.S. and Israel, and so does its willingness to tolerate policies that undermine its regional influence. In September 2023, Egypt signed yet another agreement to increase its imports of Israeli natural gas by 20 percent, despite Israel’s own leader openly floating the prospect of forced displacement of Palestinians into Egypt—a move that would likely have devastating social and economic consequences for Egypt.

This lack of agency is particularly evident in Egypt’s contradictory stance on the ongoing conflict. In May 2023, Egypt declared its intention to join a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, potentially positioning itself as a legal counterweight to Israeli actions in Gaza. Yet, as of today, there is no indication that this commitment has materialized into anything substantive. The emptiness of this declaration underscores the gap between Egypt’s rhetorical opposition to Israeli policies and its actual alignment with Tel Aviv’s strategic goals.

Egypt’s predicament is emblematic of a broader trend across the Arab world, where the nature of autocratic rule has eroded not only the legitimacy of these states but also their ability to assert influence on the regional stage. The case of Syria provides a similar, if more extreme, illustration of how regime survival has undermined a nation’s sovereignty and influence. Once a powerful regional player, Syria today is largely incapacitated, a shadow of its former self following a brutal civil war that has devastated its economy, shredded its social fabric, and turned it into a focal point for foreign intervention. The Assad regime, weakened and isolated, has resorted to desperate tactics for survival, including transforming Syria into a narco-state by funneling illicit drugs into neighboring countries to generate revenue and exert political pressure. The cost of regime preservation, in this case, has been the collapse of the state’s internal cohesion and any remaining capacity to resist Israel’s military incursions into Syrian territory.

What becomes clear, then, is that the failures of these Arab states are not just the result of Israeli or Western machinations, but of decades of authoritarian rule that have corroded their internal stability and rendered them impotent on the global stage. The Arab Spring movements that once promised a wave of democratization have now given way to intensified authoritarianism, where the dissident within has supplanted the occupier without as the primary enemy of the state. In this paradigm, survival is secured through repression, and any genuine opposition to foreign influence is sacrificed for the sake of internal control. In a tragic irony, this authoritarian obsession with domestic power has left these regimes even more vulnerable to foreign influence, both economically and militarily.

The political landscape of the Arab world, a terrain once filled with declarations of resistance and self-determination, is now dominated by regimes for whom the preservation of power has replaced any commitment to sovereignty or regional influence. The harsh reality is that these regimes’ concerns have shifted away from confronting external threats, such as Israeli military aggression or Western interference, and turned inward toward suppressing their own populations. The Palestinian cause, once a rallying point for Arab solidarity, has been relegated to the status of a rhetorical device—invoked when convenient but quickly set aside in favor of pragmatic alliances and transactional politics.

In many ways, Israel’s aggressive policies toward Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria are amplified by this fractured Arab political landscape, which lacks the unified stance or the institutional will to counterbalance Tel Aviv’s military ventures. As these regimes focus increasingly on silencing internal dissent, they have unwittingly enabled Israel to expand its influence, unchecked by any meaningful opposition. The Arab states’ inability to restrain Israeli policies is not simply a matter of reluctance; it reflects an existential vulnerability rooted in their own failure to establish a legitimate, democratic foundation.

The examples of Egypt and Syria highlight the broader regional pattern of autocratic regimes whose primary function has shifted from protecting their citizens and asserting their sovereignty to maintaining power by any means necessary. In Egypt, we see this through deepened security and economic ties with Israel, a relationship that benefits Cairo’s elite but compromises its standing in the Arab world. In Syria, the Assad regime’s transformation into a narco-state underscores the tragic extent to which some governments will go to sustain their rule. With sovereignty eroded by dependency on foreign powers, these states have lost their capacity to influence the regional status quo, let alone act as meaningful adversaries to Israel’s expansionist ambitions.

Arab states that once held aspirations of regional leadership have thus been reduced to spectators, forced to rely on international actors to resolve crises that they themselves are unwilling or unable to address. This abdication of leadership has left a vacuum, one that Israel has effectively filled, bolstered by steadfast U.S. support. Yet, as these regimes drift further from their historic claims to champion Arab unity and resistance, they also drift further from their populations, many of whom remain sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and disillusioned by their governments’ perceived betrayal. This alienation feeds a cycle of unrest and instability, weakening these regimes from within and leaving them even more vulnerable to both internal dissent and external pressure.

The trajectory of the Arab world in the past decade reveals a sobering truth: in their quest to maintain power at any cost, Arab autocrats have systematically undermined their states’ capacity for genuine influence. The very logic of regime survival has not only curtailed these nations’ ability to confront Israel’s regional ambitions but has also hollowed out their own sovereignty, leaving them dependent on the very powers they once sought to counterbalance.

This self-preservation-first approach has deepened the erosion of the post-colonial Arab state’s foundational purpose, replacing any pretense of resistance with an authoritarian consensus that views internal dissent as the primary threat. In doing so, these regimes have distanced themselves from the very people they rule, forfeiting the moral authority once associated with Arab unity and the defense of Palestine. As Israel continues to expand its reach across the region, empowered by a geopolitical landscape of weakened states and self-serving autocrats, the Arab world’s collective silence signals more than complicity—it speaks to a profound forfeiture of agency and a surrender of its original mission.

The Middle East stands at a critical juncture, where the struggle for self-determination has been supplanted by a new order in which power is preserved through the sacrifice of principle, sovereignty, and solidarity. The once powerful rallying cries for justice and self-rule have faded, replaced by an era of political stagnation and repressive order. This new reality leaves not only the Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon vulnerable but also the very fabric of the Arab world itself, where the true enemy is no longer an external colonizer but an internal betrayal of the ideals that once defined the region.