If Pakistan Joining Saudi Arabia Was a Shock… This Is an Earthquake

Right, so Israeli paranoia has always been sated with the knowledge that, in no small part due to their own doings, that its Arab neighbours could never get their act together. Arab unity was the punchline of a bad joke, Western protection was guaranteed, all the more so allegedly with normalisation, and Tel Aviv’s impunity was locked in place. That is why the news out of Riyadh this month has been making Israeli strategists choke on their own impunity, because, as I covered the other day, Saudi Arabia, the crown jewel of the Gulf, has just signed a NATO-style mutual defence pact with Pakistan — the only Muslim state with nuclear weapons. But then Pakistan itself has gone further and announced that they are holding the door open for other Arab states should they wish to join the Saudis. For Israel, that is bad news piling in on top of bad news. That is a nightmare of Arab unity potentially being offered up under their noses and after the incident with Israel bombing Doha, who can blame other nations for perhaps considering this offer? For decades, the West has kept the region divided for Israel’s sake. Now, thanks to Gaza and Qatar and Washington’s slavish Israel-first policy, its all blowing up in their face.
Right, so for 77 years Israel has lived off a certain truth: Arab disunity is to its advantage and those Arab states have largely obliged them in that. Tel Aviv has thrived not simply through military strength, but because the Arab and Muslim world could never act in unison. Cairo cut its own deals. Amman clung to a fragile treaty. Riyadh relied on Washington. Doha and Abu Dhabi have consistently sought to undermine one another. Damascus and Baghdad tore themselves apart. Palestine, the supposed common cause, was starved in Gaza and suffocated in the West Bank while the Arab League passed resolutions destined for the dustbin. Behind it all stood the Western guarantee: America, Britain, Europe, each ready to ensure that no Arab state could mount a serious challenge.
But that scenario is now cracking at the seams. On 17 September, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement. It was not another toothless communiqué. It was not the hollow rhetoric of OIC or Arab League gatherings. It was something far more dangerous to Israel. It declared in black and white: an attack on one will be treated as an attack on both. Article 5 of NATO, transplanted into the Gulf in effect.
Pakistan is not just another Muslim state. According to reports, it holds between 170 and 180 nuclear warheads. To sign with Riyadh means extending that deterrent, in however ambiguous a form, to the Gulf. Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif spelled it out: “What we have, what we possess, will be made available according to this agreement.” Words chosen carefully, but words impossible to misinterpret. Nukes are on the table.
Then came the bombshell. Pakistan’s Army Chief, General Asim Munir, declared the door is still open. Other Arab states are welcome to join. In that sentence, a bilateral agreement became something else entirely: the potential for a Muslim NATO.
For Israel, this is not just discomfort. This is existential dread. It is the one scenario its strategists have always feared — a credible Arab–Muslim defence pact, anchored in the Gulf, backed by nuclear power, and outside Western control.
The language of the agreement is worth dwelling on. “An attack on one shall be considered an attack on both.” No ambiguity. No caveats. This is not the vague wording of most Arab treaties. It is a mirror of NATO’s core clause - that both states pledged to respond by “all military means.”
That phrase matters. “All military means” is elastic, but in strategic doctrine it implies extended deterrence — the willingness to deploy even the most powerful weapons to defend an ally. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is the unspoken core. While officials deny nuclear sharing is explicit, the very hint of a nuclear umbrella over Riyadh changes the calculus. It raises the cost of aggression in ways Israel has never had to consider from the Gulf.
And the pact is not closed either. Munir’s statement that others may join throws the door open. Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE — each could step under Pakistan’s shadow. The prospect alone shatters decades of Israeli assumptions.
For decades Israel’s regional dominance rested on three assumptions. First, that Arab states are too divided to act collectively. Second, that Gulf monarchies would always lean on Washington as their security blanket. Third, that no Muslim nuclear deterrent would ever cover Arab soil.
The Saudi–Pakistan pact cracks open all three. It hints that Arab unity, so long dismissed as fantasy, may be taking shape not through rhetoric but through hard commitments. It shows that Riyadh, has turned to a nuclear Muslim partner over the United States. And it raises the spectre of a nuclear umbrella that Washington does not control.
That is why Israel will panic. It celebrated the Abraham Accords as proof the region was moving on, normalising with the UAE and Bahrain, courting Saudi Arabia. Palestine, it was said, had been sidelined. But now the logic of those accords is threatened. If Bahrain, utterly dependent on Riyadh, signs on, if Kuwait follows, if the UAE hedges, the Abraham framework collapses. Israel faces, for the first time in decades, a deterrent it cannot simply ignore or rage to Washington to fix.
Of course, the umbrella is not limitless. It has geography, credibility, and political boundaries. But in the Gulf, it is real. Pakistan has had troops in Saudi Arabia for decades. Its officers train Gulf militaries. Economic ties bind them. There is precedent and infrastructure to make such a pledge tangible and credible.
For Israel, a Gulf bloc under Pakistani cover is intolerable. It means that every strike in the Red Sea, every drone hovering over the Gulf, every covert naval sabotage carries the risk not just of Arab retaliation but Pakistani involvement. The protection Israel enjoyed — Arab disunity — is itself falling apart.
Why now? Why did Riyadh sign such a pact in 2025 and not years before? Well the answer begins in Gaza. Since October 2023, the world has watched famine unfold under siege. Arab capitals watched Washington veto ceasefire after ceasefire at the UN. They saw US cargo planes rushing bombs to Israel while Gazan children starved. They heard US officials defend the bombing of Rafah as “complex access issues.” They’ve engineered a humanitarian aid plan that has been guise for more attacks on Gazan civilians. The message to Arab rulers was that US security commitments are conditional, political, and always subordinate to Israel’s interests.
And then of course came Doha. When Israeli missiles landed in the Qatari capital, it showed that Israel was not just menacing Gaza but was willing to strike across its borders, within reach of the Gulf itself, confident the West would look away. For Riyadh, this was the final confirmation. Gaza had exposed American guarantees as worthless, Qatar supposedly has those same guarantees after all. Doha showed the danger could spill across their own borders, and together these events pushed Saudi Arabia into Pakistan’s arms.
And Israel dreads this more than any military move. Its dominance has relied on the assumption that Gulf monarchies would always take their cues from Washington, their security in their hands. But that assumption is now dead and Israel only have themselves to blame for that.
Behind the Riyadh–Islamabad handshake though, Beijing is smiling too. China is already Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner, Pakistan’s strategic patron through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, and Iran’s partner under a 25-year cooperation deal. When Pakistan extends its deterrent to Riyadh, it does so inside an economic space that Beijing dominates. China does not need to station a single soldier. Its network of trade and investment already underpins the alignment.
Iran benefits too. For decades Tehran has argued the region should secure itself without US or Israeli interference. Every Arab step away from Washington vindicates that claim. Every Pakistani commitment to Riyadh reduces the likelihood of a US–Israel–Gulf bloc aimed at Iran.
For Israel, this is a nightmare on top of a nightmare. Cluster nightmares if you will. Its two greatest rivals — Iran and China — gain without firing a shot and again, they only have themselves to blame.
While Riyadh and Islamabad have signed their pact, Donald Trump is again fixated on Afghanistan. He declared the United States should retake Bagram Air Base because it sits so close to China. He floated sending American troops back into Afghanistan, undoing his 2021 withdrawal. The Taliban laughed off the idea, calling it a violation of their sovereignty.
But Trump’s obsession proves the point. Washington reacts to Chinese influence in Central Asia while losing its grip in the Gulf. The real encroachment is not at Bagram but in Riyadh, where a nuclear umbrella now shades the kingdom without US permission, heaven forbid.
For Israel, this is terrifying. Its impunity depends on US supremacy in the Gulf. If Washington is distracted by Central Asia while the Gulf tilts eastward as well, Tel Aviv’s shield begins to crumble.
Contrast Pakistan’s success with Egypt’s failure. Only last week, Cairo proposed an Arab NATO at a Doha summit. The idea was blocked by Qatar and the UAE, even though Qatar had been attacked. Cairo lacked credibility. It too is bound to US aid, IMF debt, and its own treaty with Israel. No Arab state truly trusted it to lead.
Pakistan succeeded therefore where Egypt could not. It brings nuclear deterrence, independence from Western patronage, and no peace treaty tying its hands. That is why Riyadh signed with Islamabad, not Cairo, it does cast shade on the idea too many other Gulf states may follow the Saudi’s here too, but time will tell.
For Israel, this is galling. It laughed off talk of Arab NATO for decades. Now it faces a version that is real, anchored not in Egyptian weakness but Pakistani strength.
The Saudi–Pakistan pact is not just another agreement to file away. It is a turning point. It shatters the pillars on which Israel’s impunity rested. It shows that Arab unity, long dismissed as fantasy, is possible when anchored in credible deterrence. It exposes Western guarantees as being as thin as paper, torn apart by Gaza and Doha. It tilts the Gulf toward China’s orbit and hands Iran strategic breathing room too.
For Israel, this is intolerable. For decades it has assumed the Arabs would never unite, Washington would always protect it, and Muslim nuclear deterrence would never extend beyond South Asia. That assumption has fallen apart.
So Israel’s nightmare has become a waking nightmare. And it wears the face of a Saudi prince signing beside a Pakistani general, declaring the end of Arab disunity. Total disunity at any rate, it’s for other states to unite with it now if they choose to.
Israel hates all of this. But it has only itself and its Western patrons to blame. By putting Israel on a pedestal above all else, by shielding it at the UN while Gaza starved, by rushing it bombs while children wasted away, by shrugging as Israel fired across the borders of supposed allies, Washington drove the Gulf into Pakistan’s arms and more Gulf states may follow. The grip is slipping. The old order is dying. And Israel, for the first time in decades, faces something it cannot bomb, bribe, or divide: a credible Muslim deterrent. Long may they lose sleep over it.
For more on the story of how Saudi Arabia has said no to Israel and yes to nukes, do check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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