Why Jordan, and maybe even Saudi Arabia, helped defend Israel

When Iran launched its barrage of drones and mis‐ siles against Israel over the weekend, they ran into in‐ terference from one or two unlikely sources.

The reasons why Jordan and, reportedly, Saudi Arabia helped thwart the attack are varied, complex and perhaps self-serving, observers say.

But they may also reveal the Arab nations' greater concern about the threat posed by Iran and in pre‐ venting a widespread region‐ al conflict.

Iran launched its missiles and drones at Israel in re‐ sponse to an apparent Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1 that killed 12 people, including two Iran‐ ian generals. Almost all of them were intercepted by Is‐ raeli defence forces, along with the U.S., Britain, France and Jordan.

According to reports Sau‐ di Arabia provided intelli‐ gence reports about Iran's plans to the U.S.

But Jordan played a more active role, helping to shoot down drones as they flew over its airspace. Meanwhile, NBC News reports that Jor‐ dan also allowed Israeli jets into its airspace, and may have, in what some believe is a first, fought side by side. 'Especially remarkable'

Jordan's participation was "especially remarkable," ac‐ cording to Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst with the Inter‐ national Crisis Group, for those Israelis who remember sheltering from their eastern neighbour's attacks. Israel and Jordan ended decades of hostilities and established diplomatic relations with a peace treaty in 1994.

"The takeaway: diplomatic deals are vital for stability," Zonszein wrote on X.

Jordan has been very criti‐ cal of Israel's actions in Gaza. Still, Ghaith al-Omari, a se‐ nior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says its help against the Iran‐ ian attack proved the strength of Jordan's shared security interest with Israel.

Despite their political ten‐ sions, "the military and intel‐ ligence relationship never stopped," he told The Times of Israel.

"As a matter of fact, the worse the politics gets, the closer the militaries get, be‐ cause they both understand the need to maintain this re‐ lationship. This is part of both Jordan's military doc‐ trine and Israeli military doc‐ trine."

Jordanian officials have said very little, seeming to downplay their involvement in last weekend's attack, in‐ stead insisting they were pro‐ tecting their own security as Iranian projectiles passed through their airspace.

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Brian Katulis, a senior fel‐ low of U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute, agrees that, first and fore‐ most, Jordan's response was self-defence.

But, he said, it also sent the message: "Even though we have differences and strong differences with Israel ... on the Gaza war and other things, we do have this shared interest in making sure that the airspace in our territory is defended."

Thomas Juneau, an assis‐ tant professor at the Gradu‐ ate School of Public and In‐ ternational Affairs at the Uni‐ versity of Ottawa, says he wasn't surprised that, publi‐ cly, Jordan was trying to downplay its role. The coun‐ try is in a precarious position - that peace treaty with Israel is very unpopular with its population, which includes a great many Palestinians.

Protests against the war in Gaza have recently been intensifying in Jordan. How‐ ever, the Jordanian monarchy is very close to both Israel and the U.S. and is very re‐ liant on the latter for security, political, diplomatic and de‐ velopmental support, Juneau said.

It's also in the Jordanian government's interest to avoid a blowup between Is‐ rael and Iran, because Jor‐ dan, which shares a border with Israel, would be on the top of the list of those other countries that suffer the most, Juneau said.

Helping defend Israel is "one way to try to do its part to prevent this from escalat‐ ing." Juneau said.

Overriding about Iran

Meanwhile, any role Saudi Arabia may have played could just be another sign of its overriding concern of Iran‐ ian aggression, Juneau said.

Last year, Saudi Arabia its longtime regional rival, with the help of China, restored diplomatic relations. Yet Iran remains a perceived threat for the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia and Iran con‐ tinue to fight a proxy war in Yemen, and the latter's sup‐ concern port of militant groups in‐ cluding Hamas and Hezbol‐ lah vexes countries throughout the region, Israel among them.

"Saudi/Israeli co-opera‐ tion has really been deepen‐ ing," Juneau said. "Saudi Ara‐ bia and Israel share a com‐ mon enemy in Iran that's been the main driver of all of that co-operation."

Before the war in Gaza, there had been ongoing ne‐ gotiations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to have Saudi Arabia normalize rela‐ tions with Israel in exchange for a U.S. defence pact. Those have since stalled, but Saudi Arabia is keen to get the negotiations back on track, Juneau said.

Israel's war with Hamas has made a Saudi defence pact with the U.S. more likely "because it further clarifies the strength of the threat that Iran poses to regional security," he said.

Last weekend's attack by Iran "will even further incen‐ tivize Saudi Arabia"

Some observers also sug‐ gest any co-operation against the Iranian attack under‐ scores recent efforts toward a American-Arab-Israeli re‐ gional security architecture.

It's an idea that was qui‐ etly pushed by the Trump ad‐ ministration - a so-called Arab NATO - a new security alliance that would see Israel link with some Arab states to counter Iran's expansion in the region.

"Such co-operation offers a preview of what an increas‐ ingly capable combined re‐ gional security architecture could accomplish when it comes to deterring, detect‐ ing, and defeating Iranian ag‐ gression," wrote the Founda‐ tion for Defense of Democra‐ cies in its analysis of the Is‐ rael-Iran conflict.

But Katulis is skeptical of such a pact forming.

"I'd be surprised if there ever would be like a formal alliance against Iran formed," he said.

Because of the region's complex politics, countries there, especially these days, tend to hedge their bets, he says.

It's "sort of the rule of the day these days. A number of these countries hedge on dif‐ ferent issues in their rela‐ tions with others," he said. But that's the same reason they're often reluctant to put pen on paper, and commit to a permanent alliance.

That's "just not how things operate these days."

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