The period since late February shattered any illusion that the threat from Iran and its allies stops at Israel’s borders. It also rewrote the lived reality of America’s partners across the Gulf. Countries across the region now see what it has been like to live in Israel in recent decades, as rockets, missiles and drones have struck civilian population centers.
For decades, Israelis endured attacks on their cities from Iran and its proxies. Much of the world treated those attacks as background noise, or worse, something to rationalize or applaud. That posture is morally grotesque. It persists for far too long.
In the recent conflict, Israel absorbed wave after wave of Iranian ballistic missile fire. Beersheba, Haifa, Jerusalem, Nahariya, Arad and Tel Aviv all took hits.
At the same time, outrage barely registers across the United States and Europe over Iran’s targeting of civilians and infrastructure, both in Israel and across the region, including among close allies such as the United Arab Emirates.
In the UAE—a modern and prosperous U.S. ally that has fought alongside NATO and long known for stability and commerce—daily life now operates under the threat of missile and drone attacks. In Abu Dhabi and Dubai, normal routines competed with sirens, disruption and sudden escalation. Unlike in Israel, homes and offices in parts of the Gulf lack hardened bomb shelters, leaving civilians more exposed.
The same holds true for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. None of these states are parties to the conflict. Some, including Qatar and Oman, have long tried to mediate between Washington and Tehran. That posture did not spare them. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck vital infrastructure, including oil facilities and desalination plants. Modern life across the region depends on these systems.
The current pause offers relief, but the old assumptions are gone. The expectation of safety across many of these nations, once taken for granted, no longer holds.
This is not a contained conflict. It is a coordinated regional assault. It crosses borders, disregards sovereignty and puts millions of civilians at risk.
The experience no longer divides along national lines. The same missile that sent a family in Tel Aviv to a shelter sent a family in Abu Dhabi to do the same. The geography differs. The fear does not. The ceasefire quiets the sirens for now, but it does not erase what people across the region now understand.
This is a new regional reality: a shared civilian battlefield. Two decades ago, the danger of rocket fire on civilian homes remained largely confined to the edges of Israel’s map: Sderot near the Gaza Strip, and Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanese border. Iran no longer relies only on proxies to strike Israel’s periphery. It now directs the full force of its arsenal across the region.
Missile fire does not distinguish between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi, between Haifa and Dubai. It produces the same effects everywhere: Families seek shelter, schools close, economies strain, and uncertainty grinds down daily life. What many once viewed as Israel’s burden now defines a shared condition across allied states.
This shift carries consequences. Regional security will no longer rest only on diplomacy or shared interest but on shared experience. Countries that once viewed Israel’s security challenges from a distance now confront them directly. That reality reshapes calculations, partnerships and the meaning of collective defense.
And still, the response remains muted.
We have seen this pattern before. When Israel comes under fire, the international reaction arrives late—diluted by equivocation—or not at all. Condemnations hedge. Moral clarity recedes. Responsibility blurs.
That pattern was indefensible then. It is inexcusable now.
This time, the missiles have not fallen on Israel alone. They struck across the Gulf, hitting countries with different alliances, varied political systems, and, in some cases, long records of avoiding confrontation. The outrage remains conspicuously absent.
Why? Does the identity of the target drive the response? Or does a deeper failure persist, a refusal to confront the nature of the Iranian regime and the threat it poses?
Where are the emergency sessions? Where are the unequivocal condemnations? Where is the sustained, collective demand that this aggression stop? Where is the Arab League? Where is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation?
Where is the outrage?
The U.N. Security Council cannot pass a resolution brought by Bahrain and other Gulf states calling for condemnation and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Where is the outcry from the global press calling attention to attacks on civilians in peaceful nations like the United Arab Emirates?
The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure across multiple sovereign nations does not require context. It does not require balance. It demands a clear, forceful response and the will to sustain it.
This moment no longer concerns Israel alone. It tests whether the international system means what it says. It tests whether sovereignty matters. It tests whether targeting civilians is truly unacceptable or only unacceptable when it is convenient to say so.
If attacks of this scale, across this many countries, fail to produce clarity, then the language of international norms becomes performance.
Silence is not neutrality. It is acquiescence.
When aggression meets no consequence, it expands. When the world looks away, the threat grows. The United States, Israel and the Gulf states face a shared test. They must meet it together, with clarity and resolve. Iran’s campaign does not stop at one border. It will not end at any border unless it is defeated.
The writers are Betsy Berns Korn, Chair, and William Daroff, CEO, of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. This op-ed does not necessarily reflect those of the 50 member organizations of the conference.
This piece was originally published in the Jewish News Syndicate on April 20, 2026. To view the original, click here.
