While the threat of a nuclear-armed and expansionist Iran played a role in bringing the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates together, Naftali Bennett’s recent visit to Abu Dhabi shows that the ties between the two go beyond a shared enemy. The UAE has made a number of conciliatory gestures to the Islamic Republic in recent months, but Bennett’s meeting with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed (MBZ) evidently went off without a hitch. Hussain Abdul-Hussain and Shany Mor write:

An examination of the leaders’ joint statement after their meeting, together with a close look at whom the Israeli prime minister did and did not meet in Abu Dhabi, suggests that it is the economy, rather than security, that is pulling the two sides closer together. Bilateral trade between the two nations reached close to $800 million by the end of September. In March, the UAE announced a $10 billion fund to “invest in strategic sectors in Israel.”

Bennett’s meeting with officials in charge of industry and culture but not security and intelligence suggests that—at least publicly—the UAE and Israel do not wish to be seen as creating an anti-Iran front or alliance. True, during their one-on-one meeting, which lasted more than two hours, MBZ and Bennett must have talked about Iran. . . . While MBZ might have expressed private support for a possible Israeli strike on Iran, he must have told his guest that the UAE cannot be publicly supportive of any such action.

The UAE and Israel share many of the same concerns about Iran and many of the same commitments and strategies—but not all. They are separate countries with differing interests and differing priorities. They don’t need to have identical interests and policies on Iran for a deepening of ties, just as they did not need normalization to cooperate on the Iranian threat.

A year on from the initial agreement, and despite all the sour grapes from critics and cynics, normalization seems to be, well, the new normal.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.