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Why Do Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE Need All Those American Weapons?
US President Donald Trump and Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani attend a signing ceremony in Doha, Qatar, May 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
During last week’s visit to the Middle East, President Trump signed a number of arms deals with some of the richest countries in the region — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Some of these deals were unprecedented, both in terms of the quantity and quality of the weapons being sold.
From the business perspective, the deals were huge and perhaps beautiful, as the president might put it. The new and reemerging military conflicts of the last few years have set afoot a new arms race. The deals that were signed last week must be considered on two accounts: profit and strategic value.
On those terms, were these good deals?
The first logical question to ask is why Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates need the most modern and sophisticated weapons? What kind of threats are these countries facing that would require such weapons to defend themselves?
All three face threats from radical Islam, though Saudi Arabia used to be — and Qatar currently is — sponsors of such Islamist movements around the world. Iran is claimed to be the current major conventional threat to all three. Yet Qatar is Iran’s ally. Moreover, Qatar has the largest American military base in the Middle East. If that is not the best insurance policy in the region, then none is.
In general, the entire security architecture of the Gulf States has rested and still rests on the US being the guarantor of their security. If one listens to the leaders in the Gulf and the words emanating from the White House, the US still is that guarantor and protector. It is true that the US has recently given signs that this commitment can’t be fully trusted, and the Gulf States want to have their own capability to defend themselves in case their ally becomes unreliable. Do these recent purchases provide enough material support to achieve their security independence? Can they use the equipment effectively to make a difference at a time of crisis?
The quality and quantity of weaponry does not guarantee victory. That observation has always been true, and is even more true today. From the fields of Ukraine to the mountains of Kashmir, the evidence suggests that a capable, smart, and willing to fight populace is as important. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Emirates don’t have that.
Ironically, Qatar does not have much of a population at all, just a few hundred thousand masters supervising millions of people working and living in horrific conditions. Saudi Arabia is the largest country of the three, and has a population large enough to sustain a military force that can defend the country. However, its track record in that regard is beyond dismal — with their dismal performance in Yemen being the latest example (and American weapons didn’t get the job done there).
All three countries are politically unstable, with Saudi Arabia being the most volatile. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to achieve what no country or civilization has ever been able to do: leap over centuries of normal societal development, and come right into the modern world. This cultural upheaval in a country where only seven years ago women could not drive, is a very delicate balancing act. The Prince has so far succeeded in handling it — but these processes often end in revolutions. And if that happens, the new government will have serious US weapons. The US must be very careful selling the most sophisticated weapons to a country with a regime that does not have much legitimacy among its own population.
Putting aside the regimes’ stability, who will operate the numerous weapons platforms brought from the US? The war in Yemen clearly showed the countries don’t have the needed cadre of professionals at their disposal. It is not unreasonable to imagine Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Emirates solving this conundrum exactly the same way they solve all their problems: with money. Why not hire foreigners to operate the complex machinery? Or bring in American military advisors. There are already many military professionals, or even small armies, for hire. The Wagner Group is the most notorious of them all. But the US and some Europeans have other options. For the US and the rest of the world, the prospect of our most lethal weaponry operated by mercenaries is a horrifying idea indeed. The deals signed in the Gulf are very profitable deals, but they are also full of danger.
The author lives and works in Silicon Valley, California. He is a founding member of San Francisco Voice for Israel.
The post Why Do Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE Need All Those American Weapons? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Florida Should Investigate Ties with Dutch Universities Because They Violate the State’s Anti-BDS Law
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis participates in a Fox News Channel’s Democracy 2024: Fox News Town Hall ahead of the caucus vote in Des Moines, Iowa, US, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Scott Morgan
Florida’s anti-BDS laws explicitly prohibit public institutions from partnering with entities involved in discriminatory boycotts of Israel.
Yet Florida’s universities currently maintain academic relationships with Dutch universities that appear to have withheld critical information from their American counterparts. Recently, multiple Dutch institutions — including Erasmus University Rotterdam, Radboud University Nijmegen, Tilburg University, University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University, Maastricht University and Delft University of Technology — have limited, suspended, or terminated their academic ties with Israeli institutions such as Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, and the University of Haifa, citing indirect or alleged associations with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and human right violations.
Notably, none of these decisions were based on concrete evidence linking Israeli universities directly to human rights violations. The mere suggestion of association with the IDF was deemed sufficient to justify academic boycotts. At Wageningen University, almost 400 lecturers even publicly refused to supervise exchange students from the Hebrew University– an explicit act of discrimination directly violating Florida’s anti-BDS framework. None of these lecturers faced sanctions.
Meanwhile, Maastricht University actively maintains collaboration with Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), directly overseen by Iran’s government, which calls for the destruction of Israel and the United States. It is widely known that Iranian universities systematically suppress student dissent through surveillance, intimidation, suspension, and expulsion — often facilitated by Iran’s brutal Basij militia. Yet Maastricht University remains silent about Iranian abuses while swiftly freezing ties with Israeli institutions using criteria never applied to their Iranian partners.
Moreover, Maastricht University activists from Free Palestine Maastricht (FPM) — affiliated with the Iranian-linked extremist group Samidoun — publicly spread grotesque blood libels, accusing Hebrew University of organ theft from Palestinians. Rather than condemning this vile antisemitism, Maastricht’s administration appeased these activists, granting formal meetings and swiftly freezing partnerships with Israeli universities following aggressive demonstrations in May 2024. Yet, Free Palestine Maastricht has an office within the building of Maastricht University.
During my tenure as chair of Maastricht University’s University Council, the Iranian community on campus, Iranian students and faculty, approached me desperately, asking the Board of Governors and University Council to issue a formal statement expressing solidarity with their families in Iran — mothers and sisters protesting under the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement following the death of Mahsa Amini. (Mahsa Amini died in September 2022 after being detained by Iran’s notorious “morality police.”) I was told this request was refused.
What I heard next chilled me: some Tehran-aligned staff within Maastricht’s academic community argued that any such declaration would be perceived as insulting the Iranian regime and, by extension, Islam itself — even if no such intent existed.
Dutch universities have recently demanded Israeli academic counterparts explicitly denounce Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government as a condition for continued cooperation. This coercive interference in the internal democratic affairs of Israel during wartime closely mirrors Iran’s tactics. Iran’s Supreme Leader openly praised Western student protests against Israel, calling them “on the right side of history.” Iranian academic institutions have even offered scholarships to Western students expelled for anti-Israel activism, underscoring Iran’s strategic exploitation of Western academia’s hostility toward Israel.
This blatant hypocrisy is even clearer given my own experience: A senior administrator at Maastricht University just a week ago threatened me in the form of a question: “What is it like to be you always opposing the university policy. Would [you] not rather work somewhere else?” — implying that opposing antisemitism and supporting Israel contradicted official university policy. When I asked if this meant that Maastricht University’s stance was antisemitic, I received no answer — only chilling silence and disdain.
Dear Governor DeSantis, Dutch universities apply outrageous double standards. Throughout my academic career, I proudly taught students from the Military Academy of the Netherlands, without criticism. Yet Israeli universities are uniquely targeted simply for alleged connections to their nation’s military, without evidence of wrongdoing.
Recently, the Jewish community in Rotterdam generously offered unused cemetery land to Erasmus University Rotterdam for urgently needed student housing. However, after Erasmus University severed ties with Israeli institutions, the Jewish community promptly withdrew this offer. Their decisive action sent a clear moral message: Cooperation and generosity cannot coexist with institutionalized antisemitism and discriminatory boycotts.
Given these troubling realities, Florida’s anti-BDS legislation provides a critical framework for action. I respectfully urge you, Governor DeSantis, to formally encourage Florida’s public universities to reconsider and suspend partnerships with Dutch academic institutions explicitly engaged in discriminatory boycotts of Israel, antisemitic propaganda, and direct or indirect collaboration with Iranian-linked extremist groups.
Amanda Kluveld is a Holocaust historian and an associate professor of history at Maastricht University the Netherlands.
The post Florida Should Investigate Ties with Dutch Universities Because They Violate the State’s Anti-BDS Law first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Urges Trump to Make Israel Halt War; Netanyahu Hails ‘Path to Victory’
A drone photo shows the damage over residential homes and a school at the impact site following a missile attack from Iran on Israel, in Bnei Brak, Israel, June 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Chen Kalifa
Iran called on US President Donald Trump on Monday to force Israel to cease fire as the only way to end the four-day-old aerial war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was on the “path to victory.”
Israeli forces stepped up their bombardment of Iranian military and nuclear targets, while Iran proved capable of piercing Israeli air defenses with one of its most successful volleys yet of retaliatory missile strikes.
“If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on X.
“Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue. It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu. That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.”
Sources told Reuters that Tehran had asked Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman to press Trump to use his influence on Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire. In return, Iran would show flexibility in nuclear negotiations, said the two Iranian and three regional sources.
Netanyahu told Israeli troops at an air base that Israel was on its way to achieving its two main aims: wiping out Iran’s nuclear program and destroying its missiles.
“We are on the path to victory,” he said. “We are telling the citizens of Tehran: ‘Evacuate’ — and we are taking action.”
Israel launched its air war on Friday with a surprise attack that killed nearly the entire top echelon of Iran’s military commanders and its leading nuclear scientists. It has said it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate its campaign in coming days.
Tehran’s retaliation is the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that missiles fired from Iran have pierced Israeli defenses in significant numbers and killed Israelis in their homes.
Iran says more than 224 Iranians have been killed, most of them civilians.
State TV broadcast scenes of collapsed presidential buildings, burned-out cars, and shattered streets in Tehran. Many residents were trying to flee the capital, describing queues for petrol and bank machines that were out of cash.
“I am desperate. My two children are scared and cannot sleep at night because of the sound of air defence and attacks, explosions. But we have nowhere to go. We hid under our dining table,” Gholamreza Mohammadi, 48, a civil servant, told Reuters by phone from Tehran.
In Israel, 24 people have been killed so far in Iran’s missile attacks, all of them civilians. Round the clock television images showed rescuers working in ruins of flattened homes.
“It’s terrifying because it’s so unknown,” said Guydo Tetelbaum, 31, a chef in Tel Aviv who was in his apartment when the alerts came in shortly after 4 am (0100 GMT). He had tried to reach a shelter, but his door was blown in.
“This could be the beginning of a long time like this. Or it could get worse, or hopefully better, but it’s the unknown that’s the scariest.”
Trump has consistently said that the Israeli assault could end quickly if Iran agrees to US demands that it accept strict curbs to its nuclear program.
Talks between the United States and Iran, hosted by Oman, had been scheduled for Sunday but were scrapped, with Tehran saying it could not negotiate while under attack.
On Monday, Iranian lawmakers floated the idea of quitting the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, a move bound to be seen as a setback for any negotiations.
‘TEHRAN WILL PAY THE PRICE’
Before dawn on Monday, Iranian missiles struck Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing at least eight people and destroying homes. Israeli authorities said a total of seven missiles fired overnight had landed in Israel. At least 100 people were wounded.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the latest attack employed a new method that caused Israel‘s multi-layered defense systems to target each other so missiles could get through.
“The arrogant dictator of Tehran has become a cowardly murderer who targets the civilian home front in Israel to deter the IDF,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
“The residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon.”
Katz later clarified that “there is no intention to physically harm the residents of Tehran as the murderous dictator does against the residents of Israel. The residents of Tehran will be forced to pay the price of dictatorship and evacuate their homes from areas where it will be necessary to attack regime targets and security infrastructure in Tehran. We will continue to protect the residents of Israel.”
Global oil prices had shot up on Friday at the prospect of conflict disrupting supplies from the Gulf. Prices eased somewhat on Monday, suggesting traders think exports could be spared despite Israeli attacks that hit domestic Iranian oil and gas targets.
Still, the sudden killing of so many Iranian military commanders and the apparent loss of control of airspace could prove to the biggest test of the stability of Iran’s system of clerical rule since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran’s network of regional allies who could once have been expected to rain rockets on Israel – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – have been decimated by Israeli forces since the start of the Gaza war.
Netanyahu has said that, while toppling the Iranian government is not Israel‘s primary aim, it believes that could be the outcome.
Iran’s currency has lost at least 10 percent of its value against the US dollar since the start of Israel‘s attack.
Art teacher Arshia, 29, told Reuters that his family was leaving Tehran for the town of Damavand, around 50 km (30 miles) to the east, until the conflict was over.
“My parents are scared. Every night there are attacks. No air raid sirens, and no shelters to go to. Why are we paying the price for the Islamic Republic’s hostile policies?” said Arshia, who withheld his surname for fear of reprisal from authorities.
The post Iran Urges Trump to Make Israel Halt War; Netanyahu Hails ‘Path to Victory’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Why Israel Is Finally Confronting Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions and Its Attempt to Destabilize the Region
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers a speech from an unknown location, Nov. 20, 2024, in this still image from video. Photo: REUTERS TV/Al Manar TV via REUTERS.
Israel is officially taking on the head of the terror network aimed against it — the Islamic Republic regime in Iran.
Israel’s preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and its Revolutionary Guards military leaders was successful, and the Iranian regime was caught off guard.
Mossad operatives working inside Iran carried out the ultimate plan, with the help of a little diplomatic deception. Nuclear scientists were taken out with pinpoint accuracy, and indications are that Iran’s proxy network has abandoned it.
Why Israel’s Preemptive Strikes Are Warranted
Of course, the media love to frame Israel’s actions in isolation. However, Israel didn’t “start” this.
Iran has been escalating for decades, on every front — whether it be through proxy groups on Israel’s borders, outward threats to “wipe Israel off the map,” non-compliance with the Iran nuclear deal, and more.
For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with several Israeli politicians and experts, have been doing their best to urge the West to help stop Iran’s nuclear program. Diplomacy failed, and the regime was on the verge of a short technical step from levels of weapons-grade uranium.
Israel’s recent strike was not an unprovoked act of aggression; it was self-defense, in response to a very real and growing threat.
The Islamic Regime’s Tentacles in the West
The regime’s terror network is bigger than most people realize, and it’s the reason why no one is rushing to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Recent cases in the UK, France, and the Czech Republic show how far Iran’s terrorist reach extends — from Europe to the US and beyond. We’re talking hired criminals and terror cells plotting to attack and kill regime dissidents, journalists, Israelis, and Jews abroad. From sponsored assassinations to cyberattacks and more, there is no doubt about the danger it poses not just to Jews and Israel, but to foreign governments and foreign citizens that are targeted.
Iran also foments and sews chaos across the Middle East — which is why no one but the Houthi terrorist group (which Iran sponsors) has come to its defense in the regime.
It’s clear that the Iranian regime is waging a deliberate, global campaign of terror and destabilization. Israel has finally run out of time to deal with the threat, and it has taken the necessary action to ensure its security and future survival.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Why Israel Is Finally Confronting Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions and Its Attempt to Destabilize the Region first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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