The Wall Street Journal reports:

New diplomatic and security ties are reshaping the Middle East as former enemies seek unity in containing Iran, the U.S. rethinks its security role in the region, and Russia and China seek to exploit openings left by Washington.

A historic summit starting Sunday in Sde Boker, Israel, illustrates the changing alignments, bringing Arab, Israeli and U.S. officials together for the first time on Israeli soil for talks on expanding their budding partnership.

Israeli and Arab diplomats said they were discussing unprecedented, formal defense partnerships, as well as new military and economic ties and a joint strategy for Iran.

Driving much of the realignment are new fissures between the U.S. and its allies over still-unfinished negotiations on a nuclear pact with Iran and now the war in Ukraine, as the Biden administration struggles to persuade Israel and Saudi Arabia to embrace its positions on engaging with Tehran and isolating Russia.

The summit drew together U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with the top diplomats of Israel as well as Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates—the three Arab countries that normalized relations with Israel in 2020 in the so-called Abraham Accords—in the town of Sde Boker in the Negev Desert, where Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion retired. Egypt’s top diplomat is also joining the summit in a last-minute addition, the latest signal that the country that first signed a peace deal with Israel in 1979 is ready for warmer relations. [Continue reading…]