The Jerusalem Post, December 11, 2025
Following Israel’s announcement that it would open the Rafah crossing in only one direction, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, and Indonesia issued a joint statement opposing what they described as a step aimed at “expelling the Palestinian people from their land” as part of Israel’s attempt “to uproot the Palestinian people from their homeland.” They called for adhering to US President Donald Trump’s plan and opening the crossing in both directions.
This was not the first joint response by the “Group of Eight,” composed of five Arab and three Muslim states, but it represents a new phenomenon in the regional political architecture, linking states that are not geographically adjacent and that differ in their political orientations and national interests.
The “Group of Eight” emerged following the Israel-Hamas War. Its origins lie in the Arab-Islamic summit convened in Riyadh in November 2023, about a month after the Hamas attack and the outbreak of the war. The joint meeting of the 22-member Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which includes 57 states (most Arab states are also OIC members), was unusual and intended to express a unified Arab-Islamic collective position.Unmute
One outcome of the summit was the establishment of a joint delegation – comprised of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Nigeria, and Palestine (the Gaza Contact Group) – tasked with coordinating with major powers to advance a ceasefire and humanitarian aid for Gaza.
The Group of Eight’s emergence
Throughout 2024, representatives of this group met and issued joint statements at UN deliberations on Gaza, and they also acted – more or less jointly – in the United States and with EU member states to promote their agenda. The UAE and Pakistan often endorsed these statements, effectively replacing Nigeria, which had little interest, while the Palestinians focused primarily on promoting the global coalition for a two-state solution led by Saudi Arabia and France and supported by the Group of Eight.
The first concrete expression of the Group of Eight’s emergence was a joint foreign ministers’ statement supporting the Trump plan in late September 2025. The statement was carefully crafted to align with the policies of all eight states.
The ministers expressed their commitment to cooperating with the Trump plan in order to end the war, provide adequate humanitarian assistance, secure the release of hostages, prevent Palestinian displacement, ensure full Israeli withdrawal, rebuild Gaza, and establish a pathway to a just peace based on two states, with Gaza and the West Bank connected in one Palestinian state.
On November 3, 2025, seven foreign ministers (Egypt’s was absent) met in Istanbul to discuss implementing the first stage of the Trump plan after a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was reached on October 9.
Finally, in order to encourage the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on implementing Trump’s Gaza plan, the Group of Eight issued another supportive statement on November 14, three days before Security Council Resolution 2803 was passed. The statement emphasized the states’ support for the Trump plan as a vital path toward peace and stability, not only for Israelis and Palestinians but for the entire region, and as offering a path to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.
A unifying issue
The war thus succeeded in creating a shared platform among eight Arab and Muslim countries that had never cooperated previously as a collective and some of which had even been rivals.
In choosing to cooperate, the leaders of these states are looking with one eye toward Washington and with the other toward their regional and domestic audiences. Under Trump, the United States is an ally – at a varying degree of closeness – of all these states.
In the past, they viewed Israel and the Jewish lobby as important intermediaries in dealings with Washington. Today, they no longer depend on such mediation, having built strong, direct ties with Washington and with Trump personally. Personal ties with the president may yield significant military, security, and economic dividends for them.
Each of these states has ambitions in its respective sphere, and participation in the Group of Eight can help advance those ambitions, whether through concrete means – arms, advanced technology, and economic deals – or through improved regional and domestic image.
Domestically, all the leaders face public opinion pressures on the Palestinian issue. Even in distant Indonesia and Pakistan, the Palestinian question resonates strongly among the public. The shift in the Saudi position is largely the result of the revitalization of the Palestinian issue following the war. Autocratic leaders – even those not democratically elected – are sensitive to their legitimacy and therefore do whatever they can to strengthen it.
Israel’s response
This new political coalition is not cohesive. It consists of states with diverse interests and differing agendas that have now found a shared platform to advance their interests around Gaza and the question of a Palestinian state.
This new configuration is not good news for Israel. Its formation is another unplanned consequence of the war. The good news is that all the member states recognize – officially or not – Israel. Four of them have diplomatic relations with it (Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and the UAE), and three or four are potential candidates for normalization (Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and possibly Qatar). However, Turkey and Qatar are attempting to lead this coalition as part of their desire to gain a major role in Gaza’s reconstruction and in shaping its new leadership.
Israel should attempt to drive a wedge between the coalition’s members, which in any case are loosely linked and united only temporarily around the Palestinian issue. But to do so, Israel must first strengthen its bilateral relations with each of these countries. Signing the new gas deal with Egypt and a possible Netanyahu-Sisi meeting is a good example.
No less important, Israel should adopt an active, non-confrontational policy on the Palestinian question in order to undercut the coalition’s shared denominator. Once the leaders of these states feel secure enough domestically, they will allow themselves to adopt separate, more friendly policies toward Israel – policies that align with their countries’ real interests.
The writer teaches in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University, is a board member of Mitvim, and is a member of the Coalition for Regional Security.
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