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Against a backdrop of growing regional unease over the long-standing reliability of the United States as the Gulf’s traditional security guarantor following the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has formally greenlit the creation of a unified joint forward military command centre to advance deeper cross-member defence coordination. The facility will be headquartered in Kuwait, a Gulf nation that bore the brunt of thousands of ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle assaults launched by Iran and Tehran-aligned Iraqi militias throughout the recent regional conflict.

GCC Secretary General Jasem al-Budaiwi confirmed the initiative in an official public statement released on Tuesday, noting that appropriately sized and equipped military units would be deployed to the new command hub, though he declined to share specific operational timelines, troop numbers, or detailed deployment frameworks. The move marks a long-overdue push to operationalize a collective defence pact the GCC first ratified back in 2000, which codified the principle that any armed attack targeting a single GCC member would be treated as an act of aggression against the entire bloc. For decades, however, the GCC’s mutual defence commitments have lacked the binding, interoperable command structure that defines NATO’s collective security architecture, leaving the bloc inconsistent in its coordinated response to external threats.

Critics point out that the absence of a functional unified military command has already resulted in notable failures of collective action: the GCC took no coordinated defensive or retaliatory measures following the September 2025 Israeli strike targeting Hamas negotiators in Doha, Qatar, and similarly failed to mount a joint response to repeated devastating Houthi missile and drone campaigns targeting Saudi energy infrastructure and civilian population centres.

The selection of Kuwait as the host nation for the new command centre has already sparked widespread debate over its practical operational viability. Geographically positioned at the narrow northern tip of the Persian Gulf, Kuwait is uniquely exposed to direct fire from Iranian and pro-Iranian Iraqi militias, a vulnerability that was laid bare during the height of the recent Iran conflict. Prior to the war, Kuwait hosted roughly 14,000 US service members, more than any other Middle East nation, and was home to two major American military installations, Camp Arifjan and Ali al-Salem Air Base, both of which sustained severe, sustained damage during Iranian offensive operations. Many regional defence analysts have openly questioned how the GCC could possibly secure its new central command hub against missile and drone threats that even the full military capabilities of the United States proved unable to fully repel.

The erosion of confidence in US security assurances has already driven individual Gulf states to pursue alternative bilateral security partnerships outside the traditional US-led framework. Saudi Arabia has formally activated the terms of the Mecca Pact to coordinate defence cooperation with Pakistan and Turkey in response to ongoing Houthi attacks on its territory, while the United Arab Emirates has significantly deepened its existing security and intelligence alliance with Israel.

For more than 50 years, US security commitments formed the unshakable foundation of Gulf state national defence strategies, but that long-standing arrangement has been fundamentally upended by the US’s decision to launch military operations against Iran over the explicit objections of key GCC allies. Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE reportedly mounted intensive last-minute lobbying campaigns to persuade Washington to abandon its plans for strikes on Iran, but their appeals were completely ignored. In retaliation for the US offensive, Iran launched widespread strikes targeting Gulf nations that hosted American military bases, leading many local analysts to conclude that the presence of US troops on their national soil had turned their territories into deliberate targets for Iranian retaliation. Oman, which maintains one of the oldest continuous diplomatic relationships with the United States but hosts no permanent US military garrisons, ended the recent Iran war as the least impacted GCC member by a wide margin.

A September public report released by the US Department of War’s inspector general confirmed that hundreds of buildings and critical infrastructure at American military installations across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan were either severely damaged or completely destroyed by Iranian missile and drone barrages during the conflict. Both current and former senior US defence officials have acknowledged that the Iran war exposed fatal, previously unrecognized flaws in Washington’s decades-long strategy of positioning large, permanent military bases within short striking distance of Iranian territory, with many of those heavily damaged facilities now unlikely to be rebuilt.

Former CIA director and retired US Central Command (CENTCOM) commander David Petraeus told Bloomberg in a May interview that the US military no longer has the same appetite to maintain large, forward-deployed bases in the Gulf now that the full scope of Iran’s long-range strike capabilities has been demonstrated. Retired General Frank McKenzie, another former head of CENTCOM, echoed that assessment in July remarks delivered to the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, arguing that the US needs to relocate its core Gulf military assets to Israel and more geographically secure neighbouring states to shield them from Iranian fire. He specifically noted that the current location of CENTCOM’s forward operational headquarters at Qatar’s al-Udeid Air Base, just 100 miles from Iranian borders, was strategically indefensible, calling the positioning a decision no competent military planner would approve under current threat conditions.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s administration has tapped global top-tier management consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to support the development of its landmark 10-year policy blueprint billed as a roadmap to end decades of neoliberal governance in the United Kingdom. The hiring decision has sparked immediate cross-party criticism, as the firm carries a well-documented history of alleged involvement in activities tied to widespread civilian harm in Gaza, alongside longstanding personal and professional ties to senior figures in the Burnham inner circle.

BCG, classified as one of the world’s “big three” management consultancies, employs more than 6,000 AI practitioners and holds high-profile commercial partnerships with leading tech firms including OpenAI and Amazon Web Services. Its roster of notable former staff includes not only Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who worked as a consultant for the firm between 1976 and 1978, but also Burnham’s current chief of staff James Purnell. A former Labour minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Purnell served as a BCG adviser after stepping down as an MP in 2010, later taking a post as vice chancellor of the University of the Arts London before resigning amid widespread backlash from students and staff who labeled him a “war criminal” over his support for the 2003 Iraq invasion and efforts to restrict pro-Palestine campus activism. Purnell, a long-time close friend and former flatmate of Burnham, also previously chaired the Labour Friends of Israel group.

The most explosive controversy attached to BCG centers on its work for the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a project codenamed “Aurora” that ran for seven months and involved senior firm leadership, for which the Financial Times reported BCG was paid over $4 million. The consultancy helped establish the GHF and provided backing to a linked security contractor before publicly distancing itself from the initiative. Multiple independent accounts confirm that GHF’s four Gaza aid distribution sites became scenes of targeted violence, where thousands of Palestinians seeking emergency food and supplies were deliberately shot by Israeli military personnel or US security contractors hired by the foundation, resulting in more than 2,600 fatalities and tens of thousands of additional injuries. Critics have formally accused BCG of facilitating Israeli starvation tactics that constitute war crimes and genocide, with the firm’s internal financial modeling work tied to the initiative extending to plans drafted just two months after former US President Donald Trump unveiled his “Trump Gaza” proposal, a scheme to forcibly displace more than two million native Palestinian residents from the enclave and rebrand it as the “Riviera of the Middle East.” BCG’s models calculated the cost of relocating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, estimating that a cohort of 500,000 people could be induced to leave Gaza via $9,000 per person “relocation packages” totaling approximately $5 billion, with the work commissioned by a coalition of Israeli entities backing the GHF.

When details of BCG’s Gaza work emerged publicly, the firm moved to dismiss several employees, claimed the projects had been operated “secretly,” issued statements expressing “shock and outrage,” and launched an internal review. Major global charity Save the Children International immediately suspended all its formal partnership arrangements with the consultancy. The Gaza controversy is far from BCG’s first brush with public scrutiny: the firm has been labeled a “consultant to kleptocrats” for its long-running, highly lucrative advisory relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The decision to bring BCG on board to shape the UK’s core 10-year economic and governance reform agenda has drawn sharp condemnation from lawmakers across the political spectrum. Labour MP Clive Lewis, a backbench critic of the move, told Middle East Eye that cabinet members were keeping rank-and-file MPs entirely out of consultations on the plan, which the government has pledged to release by Christmas. “The irony will not be missed that a radical ten-year programme to end neoliberalism and rewire our economy and constitution is going to be handed down from a closed room with a corporate entity,” Lewis noted. “This isn’t the most auspicious of starts and I think we can do much better than this.”

Green Party leader Zack Polanski echoed the criticism, describing Purnell’s BCG links as a “wild coincidence” as he questioned how the firm secured the government contract. While Polanski said he welcomed Burnham’s stated goal of ending neoliberalism, he pointed to a string of recent policy rollbacks as evidence the prime minister was already abandoning his progressive pledges: ruling out rent controls, declining to renationalise the UK’s water utilities, and approving development of the new Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea. “As if it wasn’t bad enough that we are privatising our public assets, it seems that this Labour government is now privatising our future too,” Polanski added.

A UK government spokesperson defended the hiring in a statement to Middle East Eye, noting: “The government is committed to delivering an ambitious and credible 10-year plan, drawing on the best expertise available both inside and outside government. Any external support is limited, short-term and focused on specific specialist advice. This does not change our commitment to significantly reducing overall spending on consultancy across government.”

Burnham, who rose to national prominence as the long-serving mayor of Greater Manchester before taking office as prime minister in July, has sought to rebrand himself as a populist, left-wing break from the Labour Party’s old Blairite centrist establishment, explicitly promising to deliver an end to the UK’s decades-long neoliberal policy consensus. His planned 10-year agenda is slated to cover sweeping reforms to welfare spending, economic growth frameworks, energy policy, and public ownership of key utilities. Even before the BCG hiring controversy, however, Burnham faced sustained criticism from within his own party and progressive campaign groups for backtracking on core pledges, declining to roll back the ban on activist group Palestine Action, and offering only minor technocratic adjustments to tackle the UK’s ongoing cost of living crisis. His past close ties to the Emirati ownership group of Manchester City Football Club, recently handed historic penalties for widespread systematic violations of Premier League financial rules, have also come under intense public scrutiny in recent months.

In a rare cross-party alignment between traditionally opposing political blocs at the local governance level, Conservative and Labour representatives on Westminster City Council have co-drafted a joint motion scheduled for a full chamber vote on Wednesday evening, formally asserting that “Zionism is not racism”. The legislative push is a direct, targeted response to a Green Party motion that secured passage across the council last month, which classified Zionism as a racist ideology. The text of the cross-party motion frames the widely accepted mainstream definition of Zionism as the principle that Jewish communities hold an inherent legal and cultural right to national self-determination within their historical ancestral homeland. It further notes that while British Jewish populations hold a diverse spectrum of stances on Zionism, the modern state of Israel, and its current governing administration, the ideology forms a core component of collective identity for a large majority of Jewish residents across the UK. The motion, formally tabled by Conservative councillor Hannah Galley and seconded by Labour councillor David Boothroyd, explicitly draws on the widely debated International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, citing the claim that Israel’s foundational existence constitutes a racist endeavour as a documented example of antisemitic conduct under that framework. Notably, the lead author of the IHRA definition publicly stated just one week prior that the document had become “poisoned” in contemporary political use, alleging that the vast majority of institutions now deploy it specifically to censor and penalise pro-Palestinian advocacy speech. The text of the joint motion further enshrines the principle that advocacy for Jewish national self-determination cannot be classified as racist, and affirms that Jewish communities hold the exact same inalienable right to collective national self-determination as every other global ethnic and cultural group. It also mandates a mandatory six-month formal review of all the council’s existing equality, diversity, and community cohesion training programmes and internal policies, to ensure full alignment with the IHRA definition. However, the proposed legislation faces significant legal pushback: a formal legal notice submitted to the council this week by independent political consultant Gary Spedding, and reviewed by Middle East Eye, warns that passing the motion in its current draft form would place the local authority in direct violation of core statutory duties outlined in Section 149 of the 2010 Equality Act. The notice specifies that the policy would generate severe adverse impacts on Westminster’s Palestinian, British-Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim resident populations, all of whom hold legally protected characteristics tied to race, nationality, and religious belief. Under existing UK law, all public bodies are legally required to eliminate all forms of unlawful discrimination, and actively foster constructive, harmonious relations between communities with different protected characteristics. The legal submission argues that for a local governing body to formally and unconditionally absolve Zionism of any potential discriminatory dimension directly erases and silences the lived experiences of thousands of local Palestinian constituents, for whom the historical and ongoing implementation of Zionist policies is inextricably tied to generations of displacement, statelessness, and systemic structural inequality. The document adds that this dynamic risks creating an exclusionary public civic space that could qualify as unlawful harassment under Section 26 of the Equality Act, while the formal adoption of the IHRA definition in this context would pre-emptively bar legitimate public scrutiny of political stances on Zionism, suppressing lawful, good-faith political discourse. Middle East Eye reached out to Westminster City Council for an official statement on both the upcoming vote and the submitted legal warning, but received no response prior to the time of publication. The developments in Westminster form part of a much wider national political rift across UK local government: just one week earlier, the national Labour Party announced it would formally terminate all collaborative governing agreements with the Green Party across 11 local councils in England, in direct retaliation for the Greens’ recent adoption of the policy framing Zionism as a racist ideology. The Green Party became the first major national UK political party to formalise this stance after a vote of its membership at the October annual party conference, where members also backed a policy of advocating for a single, unified democratic Palestinian state with full equal rights for all ethnic and religious communities, rejecting the longstanding mainstream two-state solution framework. The 11 councils where cross-party cooperation will be suspended include Arun, Derbyshire Dales, Havant, Lewes, Sheffield, Stafford, Warwick, Wealden, West Devon and West Suffolk. Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson stated that the Green Party’s formal position on Zionism “crosses an unacceptable line”, and that the party could no longer maintain working partnerships with any political organisation that endorses the policy, at any tier of local or national government. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham also publicly denounced the Green Party’s original policy as antisemitic when it was first passed last month. In response, Green Party leadership pushed back sharply, stating that it would refuse to accept moral lectures from a national government that continues to supply military weapons to the state of Israel. Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski, who identifies as Jewish, stated that Labour’s decision to sever cross-party collaboration would ultimately backfire electorally, noting that the Green Party’s core policy priorities include taxing ultra-high net worth billionaires, delivering urgent action to mitigate the global climate crisis, and ending arms sales that enable what the party describes as ongoing genocide in Gaza. He added that the Labour Party’s current local governing strategy would disrupt essential public local services, while effectively enshrining support for that military campaign at the local council level.

On a Sunday in early November 2026, Israeli head of state President Isaac Herzog formally nominated Gadi Eisenkot, the leading challenger to long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to undertake the high-stakes task of assembling a stable governing coalition for the country. The announcement capped 14 consecutive days of paralyzing political deadlock that followed a ballot widely framed as the most consequential national election in Israel’s 78-year history, which failed to deliver any faction a clear parliamentary majority.

Under Israel’s unique proportional representation system, which has never produced a single-party majority government across its entire history, the president holds discretion to assign coalition-forming duties to a nominee who does not lead the party that secured the most votes. In this instance, Netanyahu’s long-dominant Likud faction took the largest share of seats in the October 27, 2026 election, but fell short of the 61 seats required to command a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Eisenkot’s collective opposition bloc also failed to hit that critical threshold, creating the unprecedented impasse. Notably, the two Arab-majority parties representing Israel’s 2 million Palestinian citizens — the Joint List and Ra’am — secured a record combined 19 Knesset seats, a historic high that has reshaped the entire political calculus of coalition building.

This election marks the first time Israeli voters have cast ballots since the catastrophic October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack and the subsequent devastating 3-year war in Gaza, creating a uniquely fraught, high-stakes context for the political process that has left the country’s leadership void unresolved. Eisenkot, a former Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff who only entered electoral politics in 2022 and founded his centrist Yashar party just 12 months ago, now has a statutory 28-day window to negotiate a working coalition, with a possible 14-day extension available if he can demonstrate tangible progress. The task before him is uniquely daunting: to unify a deeply fragmented set of opposition factions that have long held conflicting ideological positions, many of which explicitly promised during campaigning they would never enter a governing partnership with Arab-majority parties.

To hit the 61-seat majority, Eisenkot’s proposed alliance of centrist and center-right parties — including Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad, Yair Golan’s Democrats, and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu — will almost certainly require formal or informal support from at least one of the two Arab-led factions, a compromise that runs directly counter to their pre-election public pledges. Ra’am has already publicly announced its willingness to back an Eisenkot-led government, but the 2021 precedent of a short-lived 12-month coalition that relied on Ra’am’s support collapsed under the weight of internal ideological tensions, casting doubt on the long-term viability of such a partnership. The 2018 Nation-State Law, which codifies that national self-determination in Israel is exclusive to Jewish people, creates additional structural barriers that make it legally and politically awkward for Arab parties to formally join a governing coalition.

Adding another layer of complexity is the pivotal role of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, which have been core kingmakers in Netanyahu’s previous governing blocs, and whose non-negotiable demands around exemptions for ultra-Orthodox citizens from compulsory military service have long been a source of bitter national social division. Eisenkot, who has minimal national political experience and as recently as six months ago openly dismissed the idea of uniting disparate opposition factions and publicly criticized rival opposition leader Yair Lapid, faces widespread skepticism from Netanyahu’s Likud ranks, who have derided his loose collection of potential allies as a “disaster bloc.”

Even if Eisenkot manages to clear the near-impossible hurdle of cobbling together a functional coalition, the incoming government will face cascading existential domestic and international challenges. Unresolved hostilities in Gaza, where Hamas retains significant armed capabilities, spreading regional conflict that now extends to Saudi Arabia, and escalating settler violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank all demand immediate coordinated policy action. The shifting landscape of U.S. politics, where Democratic control of both chambers of Congress during the remaining term of President Donald Trump has introduced unprecedented unpredictability to U.S.-Israel bilateral relations, adds another critical layer of external risk. Eisenkot has publicly acknowledged the scale of the task ahead, stating recently that “all of us will need to compromise” to break the deadlock, and vowing to do his utmost to be “worthy” of the historic mandate he has been granted.

A joint probe by Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye has uncovered that the UK government has issued a total of £10.7 million (equivalent to $14.4 million) in public procurement contracts to multiple companies with documented links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a development that comes weeks after Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband formally unveiled strict, cross-government sanctions targeting settlement activity during a parliamentary address on 8 September.

During his September speech, Miliband delivered a stark public warning to entities involved in settlement operations, stating explicitly: “To those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this: you will face the full force of UK sanctions. Settlements are illegal.” Yet behind the scenes, government insiders confirm the full sanctions package has not yet been enacted, with a projected implementation timeline stretching up to nine months from the initial announcement.

In the interim window between the public policy pledge and the rules coming into effect, public procurement approvals have already gone out to firms named on the United Nations official database of entities engaged in settlement-related activities. Two contracts totaling £87,900 ($118,000) were granted to Motorola Solutions and its local subsidiaries to supply communications technology for UK police forces. The UN has long flagged Motorola Solutions for its settlement ties, with multiple independent verifications confirming Israeli security forces deploy the company’s surveillance and communications hardware across security infrastructure in the occupied West Bank.

The largest chunk of the awarded funding, roughly £10.4 million ($14.5 million) spread across 14 separate contracts, went to three subsidiaries of global construction materials giant Heidelberg Materials for road maintenance and resurfacing projects across England. The parent company’s Israeli arm, Hanson Israel, owns and operates the controversial Nahal Raba quarry in the West Bank, a site built entirely on land expropriated from adjacent Palestinian villages.

Two smaller additional contracts were also issued in this period: an £84,000 ($113,000) award to Thomas & Adamson International Limited, a subsidiary of French engineering firm Egis, which the UN has listed for providing core utility and operational services that sustain illegal settlements, a designation Egis has formally disputed; and a £98,000 ($131,000) contract to Breas Medical, a firm owned by Chinese conglomerate Fosun International that also appears on the UN’s settlement activity registry.

Internal government tensions over the shape of the upcoming sanctions regime have also come to light, per anonymous senior UK officials who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity last month. Insiders note that even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves office, the current UK administration remains committed to rolling out the full set of sanctions, including restrictions on firms that support settlement construction and real estate expansion. But multiple cross-party sources from government and the ruling Labour Party have raised alarms that a cohort of civil servants are erecting administrative “blockages” in an explicit attempt to weaken the final sanctions framework. Leaks from inside the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office confirm some officials are pushing to narrow the sanctions scope to target only Israeli firms tied to settlements, excluding complicit British companies entirely. These same officials have also proposed carve-outs for any firms that operate primarily within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, even if they run secondary operations in occupied Palestinian territory. If adopted, these revisions would drastically curtail the reach of Miliband’s original announcement, limiting sanctions only to entities whose core business is conducted exclusively inside illegal West Bank settlements.

Despite the internal pushback, sources close to the Foreign Secretary confirm Miliband is unwavering in his commitment to implement the full, unwatered-down sanctions package as initially outlined. When fully enacted, the rules will mandate all UK banks, pension funds and asset managers to divest holdings in companies operating in illegal settlements, and bar all British financial institutions from issuing mortgages, insurance policies or any other financial products that directly support settlement expansion.

Requests for comment submitted to the UK Cabinet Office regarding the timing of the public contracts and the ongoing internal disputes over sanctions implementation have not received a response at the time of publication.