UAE Accused of Using Israeli Ties to Challenge Saudi Arabia’s Regional Power
February 24, 2026
“ABU DHABI IS THE TROJAN HORSE OF ISRAELI AMBITIONS.”
Ahmed Altuwaijri — former member of Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council — accuses the United Arab Emirates of leveraging its ties with Israel to expand regional influence and sideline Saudi Arabia.
A bold claim in a region reshaped by the Abraham Accords.
Is normalization simply diplomacy and economic strategy?
Or is it a calculated move in a larger Gulf power struggle?
Normalization has redrawn alliances.
Power is shifting.
And the rivalry for regional leadership is no longer whispered.
It’s being said out loud.
@middleeasteye
#MiddleEast #fyp #AbrahamAccords #SaudiArabia #UAE
English Script:
Ahmed al Tuwaijeri: With all respect to Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi is a small district of Riyadh.
David Hearst: The Emirates and the Israelis are very, very close allies together. How does Saudi Arabia see that alliance? What are the dangers to Saudi Arabia of that specific alliance?
Ahmed al Tuwaijeri: What we have been watching Abu Dhabi doing in many other countries, and certainly in Yemen, is an implementation of this strategy. They were really, as I call them, the Trojan horse of the Israeli ambitions. They started in Libya just after the toppling down of Gaddafi. Libya at the time needed unity, needed reconstruction, needed peace. And the Abu Dhabi entity went there to destroy all these ambitions. They supported Haftar who was a separatist, who had no legal or even moral justification to do what he did. But they threw their weight behind him, supported him financially, militarily, and they even sent their jets to bomb the legitimate government that was recognized by the UN and by the entire world. And then they moved to all the other countries. They went to Sudan. They went to Yemen. They went to Somalia.
