Red lines: Will Arab leaders go beyond angry words?

The speeches are certainly becoming angrier. Following Israeli airstrikes over neighboring Lebanon this week, a number of leaders from the Middle East protested the toll these had taken on Lebanese civilians, as well as the ever-increasing death toll in Gaza as a result of the almost year-long Israeli military campaign there.

"The attacks of October 7 on Israeli civilians last year were condemned by countries all over the world, including Jordan," Jordan's King Abdullah II said at the United Nations General Assembly this week. "But the unprecedented scale of terror unleashed on Gaza since that day is beyond any justification."

At the same meeting in New York, Qatari leader Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani also spoke about "genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza. "With all that has taken place and continues to take place, it is no longer tenable to speak of Israel's right to defend itself in this context without being complicit in justifying the crime," he argued.

Later a joint statement issued by Egypt, Jordan and Iraq warned that "Israel is steering the entire region into an all-out war."  

No leverage

But will Arab leaders ever do more than just talk about what Israel is doing?

For example, in the early 1970s, oil-producing Arab states imposed an oil embargo on the United States and others to punish them for their support of Israel. In 1973, Syria and Egypt launched attacks on Israel in an attempt to recapture territory Israel had occupied after Israeli-Arab fighting in 1967.

Such steps would be extremely unlikely now, experts say.

"The [Arab leaders] have no leverage really. They've reached the limits of what they can do," says Adel Abdel Ghafar, director of the foreign policy and security program at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, based in Qatar. "They've tried to work at the multilateral level through the UN and other institutions. They've also tried through the Arab League, through various condemnations and strongly worded statements and so on. But really, none of this is going to change Israel's calculus."

Qatar and Egypt have been heavily involved, together with the US, in negotiations between Hamas and Israeli representatives, trying to work towards a cease-fire and a hostage deal in Gaza.

The armed wing of the Hezbollah group, which is based in Lebanon, has repeatedly said it would stop firing rockets into Israel — or at least, return to the previous state of comparative calm on the Israeli-Lebanese border when both sides traded less harmful, tit-for-tat attacks — if Israel stops its military campaign in Gaza.

But, as military analysts have noted, Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the most right-wing government in the country's history, is practicing a strategy of "escalation dominance" — meaning its tactic is to strike its enemies first and harder and to dictate the pace and intensity of any conflict.

As for Hezbollah, Iran is likely the only country that could persuade the Lebanon-based group to stop fighting because Tehran supports Hezbollah financially and militarily. However Iran is unlikely to do that because it considers Israel an enemy. And most Arab countries don't have much influence over Iran.

What can Arab leaders do?

"Arab leaders, especially those most directly affected like Egypt and Jordan, are definitely trying to push the only party that can resolve this: the United States," says Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute where he also directs a program on Israeli-Palestinian affairs. "Arab states' responses to what's happening in Gaza — and now in Lebanon — has been dictated entirely by their relationship with the US rather than their relationship with Israel."

Of course, there are ways Arab leaders could ramp up pressure on Israel, Elgindy suggested. Some have peace agreements, trade deals and energy agreements with Israel. "And they could curtail those or other bilateral forms of cooperation. Or, for example, they could join in the genocide case at the ICJ [International Court of Justice]," Elgindy told DW.

In May, Egypt said it would join the ICJ case that South Africa brought against Israel in December 2023, in which South Africa says Israel is contravening international conventions on genocide. Egypt has yet to join the case officially. The only countries from the Middle East who have joined so far are Libya, Turkey and Palestine, which the court recognizes as a state.

Some nations — including Morocco and the United Arab Emirates — previously argued that establishing better relations with Israel via the so-called Abraham Accords would allow them more leverage over Israel, Elgindy told DW. But they're not using that, he said.

"If they try to disrupt that relationship, they're worried that a backlash will come from Washington," he said. "And this is what everybody is reluctant to do, to pay any kind of political or economic or diplomatic cost on behalf of the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese," he argued.

It's also important to understand that many of the Gulf states consider Iran more of an enemy than Israel, Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at Middle East Institute, told DW during an online panel talk this week 

"During many visits to the region, [in the Gulf states] people will tell you: 'We have never been attacked by Israel'," Maksad said. "But they have been attacked — directly and indirectly — with drones and rockets made in Iran."

More aid, more meetings

Of course, there are some potential scenarios that could cause Arab leaders to react more strongly. For example, what Egypt and Jordan — both neighbors to Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — fear most is Israel pushing displaced Palestinains into their countries.

For now, even as the rhetoric heats up, Arab leaders' real-life reactions to the situation in Lebanon have been constrained to calls for humanitarian aid, open borders for displaced Lebanese and emergency meetings. 

"Really, if there is somebody that could end this war right now, it is the US," Abdel Ghafar argued. "The countries that have leverage, first and foremost, are the US and then secondly, countries like Germany and others who provide Israel with diplomatic cover and weapons." 

Edited by: Andreas Illmer