The British website Middle East Eye highlighted that 2025 stands as one of the most turbulent and violent years in modern Arab history. This is largely due to the policies of two states that have played a central role in inflaming regional conflicts: Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Israel’s war on Gaza and its wide-ranging expansionist aggression have dominated the Arab political scene, while continued Emirati support for the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, alongside its policies in Yemen, Libya, and Somalia, has contributed to deepening instability and violence across the region.
According to the website, both Israel and the UAE have long sought to expand their regional influence by fragmenting and weakening Arab states, exploiting internal conflicts and civil wars to entrench mechanisms of control and influence.
In 2025, as a result of this multi-layered aggression, Arab states found themselves facing difficult choices: either endure attacks, mediate to contain crises, or reassess their geopolitical alliances. The ability to restrain these two states will have serious and far-reaching consequences for the future of the Arab region in 2026.
The Emirati Role: Supporting Fragmentation and Expanding Influence
For years, the UAE has worked to expand its regional influence by supporting separatist movements and non-state armed groups in several Arab countries, a pattern that has been clearly evident in Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.
Throughout 2025, the UAE continued to arm the Rapid Support Forces, despite their involvement in committing mass atrocities against civilians that may amount to genocide. Abu Dhabi also maintains military bases inside Sudan in areas under the control of these forces.
In Yemen, the UAE supports the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist entity seeking to divide the country and developing growing ties with Israel. Indicators suggest that the council may be on the verge of officially declaring secession, which would mark Yemen’s first formal division in decades.
In addition, Abu Dhabi continues to support the Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar. Reports indicate that he supplied fuel to the Rapid Support Forces on its behalf. The UAE also provides decisive support to both Somaliland and Puntland in their confrontations with the central Somali government in Mogadishu.
These policies have enabled the UAE to significantly expand its military presence through the establishment of strategic bases in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, in addition to its bases in Sudan.
Israel: The Greater Israel Project in Practice
Israeli policy is based on the principle of divide and rule, driven by the vision of Greater Israel, which seeks control over a vast geographical area extending, according to Zionist ideology, from the Euphrates River to the Nile River.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently acknowledged what he described as his historical and spiritual mission to realise this project, after it had long been ignored or concealed in official Israeli discourse.
For more than two years, Israel has carried out a comprehensive destruction of the Gaza Strip, in what a near consensus among researchers and human rights organisations considers to be genocide. It has become clear that the objective is to eliminate the Palestinian presence and seize as much land as possible.
The Israeli army chief of staff stated that the yellow line in the ceasefire plan proposed by US President Donald Trump would constitute new Israeli borders.
In the occupied West Bank, land confiscation, home demolitions, and settlement expansion accelerated throughout 2025, including approval of the massive E1 settlement project, which would effectively split the West Bank into two parts.
The Israeli Ministry of Finance has allocated 840 million dollars to expand settlements over the next five years.
In line with the Greater Israel vision, Israel continues to occupy parts of Lebanon and Syria. In 2025, the Israeli army carried out hundreds of attacks on Lebanese territory, despite having signed a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in November 2024.
In Syria, despite the peaceful stance of the transitional administration following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israel launched hundreds of unjustified attacks. It is also pursuing a plan to divide the country into smaller entities, in addition to the so-called David Corridor project linking the occupied Golan to the Euphrates region.
Joint Action Between Israel and the UAE
Since signing the normalisation agreement in 2020, Israel and the UAE have strengthened their economic and political ties and closely coordinated on several files, including Sudan, Yemen, and Somaliland, as well as intelligence cooperation through the Crystal Ball platform.
Despite some superficial tensions, the two states largely align on the Palestinian issue. When Trump proposed a plan for the mass displacement of Palestinians in January, the UAE showed openness to it, then later exerted pressure to obstruct the alternative Arab plan for Gaza.
The Arab region is experiencing interconnected crises, but the repercussions of what is unfolding in Gaza and Sudan may be the most dangerous. In Gaza, Israel continues its near-daily attacks while showing a clear intention to remain in the territory.
In Sudan, the death toll has exceeded 150,000, with millions of civilians displaced, amid growing questions over when Arab states will act to curb Emirati support for the Rapid Support Forces.
The situation in Syria also remains highly precarious, amid a fragile political transition, severe economic and security challenges, and ongoing Israeli attacks.
The website highlighted that countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Qatar possess significant influence with the US administration, and that their willingness to use this influence could be a decisive factor in determining the future of Gaza and the region as a whole.
The most pressing question remains: will Israel and the UAE face genuine regional or international resistance in 2026, or will their destabilising strategy be allowed to continue dismantling the Arab world?
