This Tehran Times article shows the real fear that Iran has: that Israel will take over lands closer to Iran, just as Iran has taken over Syria and Lebanon and parts of Gaza to threaten Israel.
President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday condemned an agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Zionist regime of Israel to normalize ties, warning Abu Dhabi that the agreement must never prepare the ground for the presence of the Zionist regime in the Persian Gulf region.
Noting that even until the present time the UAE has done a “great mistake and treasonous act”, Rouhani said, “We warn the Emirates that lest it (agreement) finds a place for the Zionist regime in the region… then it will be different and they will be treated differently,” Rouhani said while speaking at a meeting of the National Task Force for Fighting Coronavirus.
Recent interest by Israel in the history of Jews of the Gulf, including the Himyar kingdom in what is now Yemen and parts of Saudi Arabia, has been fueling this – an article in Al Sharq this weekend makes it sound like Israel has only shown interest in this topic after the Israel/UAE agreement.
That same article refers to a recent conspiracy theory that a Saudi development initiative named NEOM is in fact a cover for Israel to recreate a fictional Hebrew Biblical kingdom of “Noam.”
This has been a theme in the Arab world – especially in Jordan where many are convinced that Israel is planning to make a Biblical claim on Petra.
But it is natural for Iran to be concerned with an Israeli presence on its doorstep – so much so that it has warned the UAE that an agreement with Israel would make it a legitimate military target.