Pan-Islamism and solidarity among all Islamic nations have long been a pipe dream throughout Islamic history. And this delusion carried itself further post-1950s as multiple nation-states that professes their allegiance to Islam were established. The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) was established with a vision of forming a bloc of Islamic nations that stretches from Morocco to Southeast Asia that will counter the western, liberal influence on geopolitics. The reality is far different. There has never been pan-Muslim solidarity throughout the history of Islam. And the situation did not change at all despite the establishment of OIC. And given the competing priorities of some of the strong (and some delusional) Islamic nations, one can safely bet that such unity will continue to be a pipe dream.
The Israel Question:
The issue of Israel is quite interesting here. It's been going on for so long that it's hard to remember what is it about, to begin with. But the issue did serve its purpose for multiple state actors for decades. Under the guise of fighting with Israel, various Islamic nations of middle-east attempted to either spread their influence or straight up gobble additional geographic areas. For this blog's scope, let's have in-scope only the Arab nations and Iran. That is, let's ignore the Islamic nations of southeast Asia, Africa, and Pakistan. Now, get ready for the whirlpool of competing priorities and messed-up histories!
Saudi wants to assert itself as the vanguard of Islam. That means taking up every issue - real or imagined, related to Islam. Since Israel - a Jewish state is established literally at the heart of Islam's birthplace, Saudis have to fight against them. Since they are too lazy to fight, they outsourced it to Hamas. But the fight against Israel is rather secondary when it comes to priorities. The priority is to project Saudis are the only ones steadfastly fighting against Israel and as the only true friends of Palestine. That's the important objective. Because they do not want Persians (Iran) or Turkic (Turkey) influence to grow in their backyard. The conflicting ethnicities of these three nations are to be paid attention to here.
This brings us to Iran - For Iranian theocracy to survive, they have to keep fighting the enemies of the state - real or imagined. These enemies are Israel and US. Since the US is too far for Iran to showcase any sort of 'fighting' spirit against, they have to make do with Israel. All the big and fervent rallies in Tehran aside, the reality is Iran does not possess any military capabilities to harm Israel. So Iran chooses the Saudi way of outsourcing the fight. They support Hizbollah - another terrorist organization. Iran funds them and asks them to die so that they can tell their domestic audience how Shia power is growing and how they are raining hellfire on the Jews.
Since Saudis are Sunnis who hate Shias and Iran is Shias who hate Sunnis for Sunnis hating them, the fight between them, for all practical purposes, eternal. Hate each other more than they hate Israel! The cause is Israel and the battleground is Palestine, far far away from their lands.
Now, Turkey is an interesting case here. They believe they are Europeans but they also think they ought to own pretty much the whole of middle-east since it once belonged to the Ottoman empire. And, also, most importantly, they believe all Islamic nations should bow to them since they were the last Caliphs. (The Caliphate was discontinued post-WW 1 by Britishers. For some reason, Gandhi in India decided to start a moment - the 'Khilafat' movement against this British decision. The so-called devoutly Hindu leader wanted to bring back the Caliphate, which will disfranchise Hindus as non-believers. But let's not digress here!)
The only way Turkey can showcase their military chops, you guessed it right - is by going after Israel. For the record, modern-day Turkey was not like this for the last several decades. The emergence of Erdogan meant the emergence of the delusional self of Turkey. Now Turkey is not only meddling or trying to meddle with Israel but attempting to increase its sphere of influence in various theaters. They want to be an actor in Syria / Lebanon conflict. They are openly siding with Pakistan against India. They are trying to play a role in Azerbaijan - Armenia conflict. They are all over! But this is what happens when one gets free money and free armaments for years. Turkey has been one of the largest recipients of military aid from the US for decades.
Turkey not only considers their identity as Caliphs of Islam, which puts them at odds with Saudi and Iran, but their Turkic ethnicity is increasingly becoming a focal point of its expansionist mindset. Turkey readily supporting Azarbaijan in a recent skirmish between Armenia and Azarbaijan is an indicator of this new worldview.
Iran is Persian, a proud one at that. Saudis are Arabs, a proud one at that too. So, not only Turkey is fighting with Saudi Arabs and Irani Persians for a numero uno position in the Islamic world, both Irani and Saudis are worried about ethnic Turks overpowering them again as the Ottomans once did. All in all, it's an excruciatingly confusing theater of violent ethnic-nationalistic-Islamic secretariat conflict.
This brings us back to the recent development of the UAE embracing Israel. For the last several decades this anti-Israel mindset had a great hold over the Islamic nation bloc's foreign policy. The first break in the rank was Egypt deciding to be diplomatic with Israel in 1979 and then Jordan following the course in 1994. However, for the next two decades, the so-called resistance in Palestine intensified further. Till the lull that happened in the mid-to-late part of the 2010s. As the realization that the Palestine issue is no longer critical to even Israel and the fact that Palestine is nothing but a pawn leveraged by external powers to serve their interests sets in, more Arab countries will join the bandwagon of being friends with Israel.
However, this does not mean the state actors, the self-proclaimed vanguard of Islam, will stop their attempt to establish hegemony. That will continue. It will only need a new enemy. And the whole cycle will begin again.
