As Israeli bombs rain down on Gaza, leaving behind mass graves, collapsed homes, and shattered dreams, the world’s gaze often turns to Israel’s technological defense, particularly the Iron Dome, which intercepts rockets before they land. Yet what shields Israel from regional consequences and global accountability is not a dome of steel, but a dome of silence, complicity, and collusion; the dome of Arab. It is a system of regional political, military, and logistical cooperation that protects Israel’s impunity and sustains its war machine.
This dome is built not with iron but with the open airspaces of Arab countries, the shared intelligence of autocratic regimes, the infrastructure of U.S. military bases, and the normalization pacts that have traded Palestinian lives for economic deals.
Israel’s Iron Dome is a widely publicized missile defense system that protects its civilian centers from incoming projectiles, mostly from Gaza. Yet the real architecture safeguarding Israel’s long-term military superiority doesn’t end at its borders, it is regional, covert, and deeply rooted in the political realignment of the Arab world.
The Arab Dome refers to this broader regional safety net; one in which Arab regimes and U.S. forces stationed across the Middle East play an active role in facilitating Israeli military dominance, under the pretense of stability and security cooperation.
How the ‘Arab Dome’ Operates
Airspace Access: Turning a Blind Sky
Egypt has fortified its southern border with Gaza for years. The Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only lifeline to the Arab world, remains tightly controlled, often closed for extended periods, and is weaponized as part of Israel’s broader blockade strategy.
Since the outbreak of the Sinai insurgency in 2012, Egypt and Israel have forged a partnership, particularly focused on the Sinai Peninsula. In a significant departure from the restrictions of the 1979 Camp David Accords, Israel has permitted Egypt to expand its military presence in the region. The cooperation has extended to covert Israeli airstrikes conducted in support of Egyptian forces, operations both governments have deliberately kept under wraps to avoid sparking public opposition within Egypt.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE quietly permit access to their airspace for U.S. and allied forces, allowing movement for surveillance drones, supply flights, and strategic warplanes that contribute to Israel’s regional edge. These are not passive omissions; they are active contributions to the siege on Palestine.
Read more about Saudi- Israel relation here https://foej.in/the-secret-affair-of-saudi-arabia-and-israel/
U.S. Airbases Across the Arab World
From Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base to Bahrain’s naval headquarters, and from UAE hangars to Saudi radar posts, the U.S. maintains a sprawling network of military infrastructure on Arab soil. These bases are not only tools for deterring Iran but serve as logistical platforms for defending Israeli interests.Arab regimes host this machinery not to protect Arab peoples, least of all Palestinians, but to guarantee their own regime survival through U.S. patronage.
Arab Regimes and the Shielding of Israel
The issue isn’t merely about absolving Israel of accountability. It’s about how key Arab regimes, particularly those aligned with U.S. strategic interests, such as Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia have actively enabled Israel’s military dominance in the region.
Airspace Control and Strategic Hypocrisy
These regimes have systematically prevented any effective military response to Israeli aggression. For instance, during Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks in April 2024, several reports indicated that Jordan and Saudi Arabia cooperated with the U.S. and Israel by intercepting projectiles over their territory. This not only protected Israel but demonstrated a double standard: while Arab airspace was sealed off to missiles from Iran or Yemen, it remained fully open to Israeli warplanes allowing them to strike across borders, including in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza, with impunity.
Bypassing the Red Sea Blockade
Amid Houthi-led disruptions to maritime trade in the Red Sea—nominally in solidarity with Palestinians—land routes through Egypt and Jordan continued to facilitate the passage of goods into Israel. This logistical lifeline effectively undermined the blockade’s economic pressure, while these same states maintained public postures of neutrality or concern over Gaza.
The Illusion of the “Two-State Solution”
For decades, authoritarian Arab regimes have upheld the “two-state solution” as a rhetorical shiel presenting it as the only viable outcome while never challenging the underlying settler-colonial structure of the Israeli state. By treating Israel’s existence as a permanent and unchallengeable fact, these regimes have helped normalize the ongoing occupation and dispossession of Palestinians. Their legitimacy is often tied to appeasing Western powers, and the two-state framework offers a diplomatic façade that avoids confronting the roots of the conflict: colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic displacement.
Political Complicity of Arab States
The political arm of the Arab Dome is no less damaging than its military logistics.
Normalization Through the Abraham Accords
The UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco have normalized relations with Israel through the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, a diplomatic betrayal that prioritized real estate deals, tourism, and weapons sales over Palestinian rights. This normalization whitewashes Israeli apartheid, granting it legitimacy while its bombs demolish homes in Rafah and Khan Younis.
Egypt and Jordan: The Cold Peace Axis
Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel and Jordan’s security arrangements have long outlived any strategic necessity. These states now operate as stabilizers for Israeli interests, controlling their populations with rhetoric while quietly coordinating with Israeli military and intelligence operations.
Saudi Arabia’s Silent Partnership
Though Riyadh has yet to officially normalize ties, its alignment is increasingly visible: shared goals in countering Iran, intelligence cooperation with Mossad, and open channels with Israeli and U.S. security officials. Its silence during mass killings in Gaza speaks louder than any declaration it is a silence bought and maintained for the sake of American weapons and political leverage.
Impact on the Palestinian Cause
This multilayered complicity has devastated the Palestinian struggle.
The Siege of Gaza is no longer just an Israeli project, it is jointly managed with Egypt. Humanitarian aid is blocked, the injured cannot escape, and entire neighborhoods are trapped under bombardment.
Arab street sentiment, overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian, is ignored or suppressed. Instead, leaders issue empty condemnations while continuing backdoor coordination with Israel.
This political theatre serves only to placate public anger while empowering Israel’s military agenda.
Arab leaders perform a contradictory dance: waving Palestinian flags at summits while negotiating trade and security agreements with Israel behind closed doors.
The disconnect between public opinion and state policy is staggering. From Morocco to Iraq, Arab citizens overwhelmingly stand with Palestine. They protest, boycott, and mourn the dead in Gaza. But their governments desperate for U.S. support, afraid of Iranian influence, and dependent on Israeli technology or tourism deals fall in line with Tel Aviv’s war machine.
The Iron Dome protects Israel from rockets. The Arab Dome protects it from consequences.
As Gaza bleeds, the governments of Cairo, Amman, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and others must answer for their roles, whether active or passive, in allowing this genocide to unfold.Justice for Palestine demands more than outrage at Israel. It demands dismantling the Arab Dome.
