Three developments involving a new regional defence pact, Palestinian elections and the disarmament of Hamas reveal a Middle East being reorganised while Israel increasingly finds itself outside the room.
Three international processes moved forward this month on three different fronts. In each case, Israel was either absent from the negotiations or disputing the assumptions behind them.
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan formed a new collective defence arrangement without Israel at the table. Palestinian factions began discussing an electoral coalition that could give Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad renewed political legitimacy. Meanwhile, international mediators continued promoting a Gaza disarmament roadmap despite a fundamental disagreement with Israel over whether Hamas would truly surrender its weapons.
These developments are not identical, and they should not be forced into a single conspiracy. Yet together they reveal a troubling pattern: nations and international bodies are making decisions that could reshape Israel’s security while treating Israel’s objections as obstacles to be managed.
For Christians, the pattern calls to mind the words of Jesus: “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24).
That prophecy must not be used as a shortcut around careful analysis. But neither should Christians ignore the recurring biblical theme of nations presuming to determine Jerusalem’s future while forgetting the purposes of God.
A new defence pact in Mecca
On 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. Its central provision resembles NATO’s Article 5: an armed attack against one member will be treated as an attack against all three.
The agreement brings together Saudi financial power, Pakistan’s considerable military experience and nuclear capability, and Türkiye’s large army and expanding defence industry.
The signatories describe the pact as entirely defensive. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry insisted that it was “not an instrument of confrontation”, but an expression of peace through collective strength. Türkiye likewise said the agreement was not directed against any particular country.
Those assurances deserve to be reported fairly. Nothing in the published terms establishes a plan to attack Israel, nor does the agreement explicitly extend Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent to Türkiye or Saudi Arabia.
Nevertheless, the identity and rhetoric of the participants inevitably raise questions for Jerusalem.
Türkiye’s Government has become increasingly hostile towards Israel, while Pakistan has never established diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused Zionism of threatening the wider world, while Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has previously called for Muslim countries to form a united front against Israel.
Analysts including Khaled Abu Toameh and Jonathan Spyer therefore see more than a regional insurance arrangement. They warn that the agreement could harden an emerging Islamist bloc whose members share strong anti-Israel sentiment, even if their interests do not align perfectly.
There is also the question of the pact’s origins. Saudi confidence in the American security umbrella has been eroding for years. The limited American response to Iran’s 2019 attack on Saudi Aramco facilities contributed to a growing belief that Washington could no longer be relied upon automatically in a crisis.
The Mecca agreement is one result of that uncertainty. Regional governments are building alternative relationships because they no longer trust one great power to guarantee their security.
Israel outside the new architecture
Hebrew University professor Elie Podeh argues that the old division between an Iranian-led “axis of resistance” and a moderate Sunni camp is giving way to something more complicated. The region is increasingly composed of overlapping alliances whose members may co-operate in one area while competing in another.
Pakistan, for example, retains relationships with Iran while joining a Saudi-led defence pact partly intended to provide protection against regional instability. Saudi Arabia continues to explore possible normalisation with Israel while simultaneously strengthening ties with governments deeply hostile to the Jewish state.
For Israel, the danger may be diplomatic before it becomes military. Although Israel has important security and economic relationships across the region, it is absent from many of the new forums being created to shape its future.
Israel’s exclusion has become more pronounced since 7 October 2023 and the subsequent Gaza war. Countries that once viewed Israel as a possible partner against Iran are increasingly willing to construct regional arrangements without it.
This does not mean the Mecca pact will become an “Islamic NATO” directed against Israel. The agreement may prove less formidable in practice than its language suggests. Mutual defence promises are easily signed and much harder to honour when fulfilling them requires soldiers, money and domestic political sacrifice.
Yet formal military effectiveness is not the only issue. Agreements can establish habits of consultation, shared defence industries and a common political language. Jerusalem could become the symbolic cause that unifies states otherwise divided by competing ambitions.
China waits while others compete
A further beneficiary may be China.
Oded Ailam of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs argues that Beijing does not need to become the Middle East’s principal security guarantor. It can expand its influence by supplying surveillance technology, drones, missiles, infrastructure, ports and factories while other powers bear the cost of defending the region.
“China is not looking,” Ailam writes. “It is waiting.”
Pakistan’s longstanding dependence on Chinese military systems gives Beijing a natural route into the new alliance. China also has enormous commercial relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with trade reportedly reaching about US$108 billion with each country in 2025.
For Israel, the prudent response is not panic. It is to deepen relationships with countries that share an interest in preventing any single regional or outside power from gaining uncontested influence. The Abraham Accords remain strategically important, particularly Israel’s relationship with the United Arab Emirates.
Diplomatic isolation should not be answered with diplomatic withdrawal.
Elections and the possible rehabilitation of Hamas
The second development concerns the Palestinian Legislative Council, which is scheduled to hold elections on 28 November. If they proceed, they will be the first Palestinian legislative elections since 2006.
The Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority and its legislative institutions as part of a process intended to lead towards Palestinian self-government. For most of the past three decades, those institutions have been dominated by Fatah, led since Yasser Arafat’s death by Mahmoud Abbas.
The great exception is Gaza.
Hamas defeated Fatah in the 2006 legislative election, winning 74 of 132 seats. The following year, it violently seized control of Gaza after a bloody struggle with Fatah and expelled Palestinian Authority forces from the territory.
That history hangs heavily over the approaching election.
Palestinian political figures have reportedly been meeting in Cairo to discuss a broad coalition capable of defeating Abbas and the official Fatah slate. The effort includes supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, the exiled former Fatah security chief who became one of Abbas’s principal rivals.
According to reports, the proposed alliance could also include Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other factions. No final coalition has yet been announced, so these discussions must not be treated as a completed agreement.
Even so, the prospect deserves serious attention.
Hamas’s participation in an electoral coalition would not erase its responsibility for the 7 October massacre or its violent takeover of Gaza. Nor would entering parliament transform Palestinian Islamic Jihad into an organisation committed to peaceful coexistence.
Elections confer authority, but voting alone does not make a movement democratic. A party that uses the electoral process while retaining weapons, suppressing opponents and rejecting the existence of a neighbouring people is not thereby reconciled to constitutional government.
Palestinians deserve representative and accountable institutions. They also deserve protection from armed factions that have repeatedly subordinated civilian welfare to ideological war.
The question is therefore larger than whether Abbas or Dahlan gains the most seats. It is whether organisations committed to Israel’s destruction may acquire international legitimacy without renouncing terrorism, disarming or accepting meaningful political accountability.
The precedent of 2006 cannot simply be wished away.
A Gaza roadmap divided over reality
The third development is the international effort to disarm Hamas and establish post-war government in Gaza.
The Board of Peace, represented by its high representative, Nikolay Mladenov, has advanced a 15-point roadmap involving Hamas’s disarmament, the transfer of governing authority and a phased Israeli withdrawal.
US envoy Jared Kushner, former British prime minister Tony Blair and Mladenov met Hamas representatives in Cairo on 16 August. Hamas reportedly indicated that it would accept demilitarisation as part of an agreement involving a permanent ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal, humanitarian relief and reconstruction.
Such an undertaking would be significant if it produced the complete and verifiable dismantling of Hamas’s military infrastructure. Gaza’s civilians urgently need an end to war, functioning government, sustained humanitarian relief and the immense work of reconstruction.
The dispute, however, concerns sequencing and verification.
The Board of Peace has argued that its differences with Israel are narrowing and that withdrawal would follow concrete disarmament measures. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the current roadmap, insisting that the IDF will not withdraw until Hamas has been genuinely disarmed.
That disagreement is not trivial. It concerns whether Israel must surrender strategically important positions while Hamas retains weapons, tunnels, command structures or the capacity to rebuild its armed wing.
Events on the ground deepen Israeli distrust. The IDF reported this week that it had destroyed Hamas weapons-storage facilities in mosques and near humanitarian sites. According to the military, the facilities contained rifles, rockets, explosives, grenades and other equipment intended for attacks against Israeli troops.
Those claims remain Israel’s account and should be attributed accordingly. Yet if accurate, they sit uneasily beside assurances that Hamas is moving decisively towards disarmament.
“This is not disarmament,” Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, said.
Peace must be more than a declaration
The temptation in international diplomacy is to confuse a signed document with a changed reality.
Declarations matter. Negotiations can save lives, and imperfect agreements may create room for something better. Christians should not despise peacemaking or assume that every negotiation is necessarily a deception.
But neither should peace be declared merely because political leaders need a success.
Biblical peace is more than a pause in violence. It is bound to truth, justice and right order. Jeremiah warned against those who cried, “Peace, peace”, when there was no peace. That warning does not forbid diplomacy; it forbids false assurance.
Israel has been repeatedly asked to trust agreements whose enforcement mechanisms proved weak and whose violations carried little consequence. It is therefore understandable that Israeli leaders insist upon verifiable disarmament rather than promises about future compliance.
International mediators must address that concern rather than dismiss it as obstruction. At the same time, Israel must consider legitimate humanitarian needs and remain accountable for the consequences of its own military actions.
The nations do not have the final word
The Mecca defence pact, the Palestinian election manoeuvring and the Gaza roadmap all remind us that the nations continue making plans around Jerusalem.
Christians differ over how particular modern events relate to the prophetic timetable. Prudential political judgements should not be presented as though every detail were directly revealed in Scripture. Yet the larger biblical truth remains firm: human powers do not possess the final authority over Jerusalem or history.
“The Lord foils the plans of the nations,” Psalm 33 declares. “But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever.”
That conviction should produce faithfulness, not sensationalism. Christians should pray for Israel’s leaders as they face elections and intense diplomatic pressure. Pray that they will possess the wisdom to distinguish a difficult but genuine peace from an agreement that merely postpones another war.
Pray also for Palestinians trapped under corrupt or violent leadership, and for the enemies of the Jewish people, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. God is able to turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
Pray for those constructing new alliances around old hostilities. Pray that governments will pursue justice rather than pride, and security rather than domination.
Above all, pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for the coming of the Messiah of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. No defence pact, electoral coalition or international board can accomplish what only the Prince of Peace can finally provide.