JUST IN: In late February 2026, two weeks into the Iran war, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan picked up a phone in Abu Dhabi and called Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran had fired 563 missiles and 2,256 drones at the United Arab Emirates, more than any other country in the region, more than Israel itself. Emirati air defenses were saturated. MBZ asked for help. Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces to deliver a complete Iron Dome battery, dozens of interceptors, and several dozen IDF operators to UAE soil. The system was operating in Abu Dhabi within days. It intercepted dozens of Iranian missiles. Axios reported yesterday afternoon that it remains in country.
This is the first time in the seventy-seven year history of the State of Israel that the IDF has deployed an active combat air defense system to defend an Arab capital. It is the first time the Iron Dome has been used outside Israel or the United States since it became operational in 2011. The Tamir interceptor, designed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to protect Israeli population centers from rocket fire originating in Gaza and southern Lebanon, was built in 2007 to defend Sderot from Hamas Qassam rockets. It was deployed in 2026 to defend Abu Dhabi from Iranian Shahed drones and Fattah ballistic missiles. There is no precedent for this.
The detail that breaks the story open is the timing.
The Wall Street Journal reported on March 27 that Iran’s sustained barrages had pushed Israel’s own anti-missile systems beyond their physical limits, forcing the IDF to ration its most advanced interceptors while Israeli civilians took direct hits. Times of Israel reported today that Netanyahu’s coalition had repeatedly refused to fund interceptor production, with some members arguing for offensive capability over defense. Netanyahu sent a complete Iron Dome battery to Abu Dhabi while rationing the same weapon for Tel Aviv, while his coalition had blocked the production line. The decision was acknowledged by Axios sources as likely to “provoke backlash in Israel.”
That is what an alliance looks like when the diplomatic frame becomes operational.
The Abraham Accords were signed on September 15, 2020 as a normalization treaty. They have now been demonstrated, in combat, against a shared adversary, with Israeli weapons defending Arab cities and Israeli soldiers commanded by an Emirati president’s phone call. Senator Ted Budd’s Abraham Accords Defense Cooperation Act, introduced March 26, would codify what Netanyahu and MBZ have already operationalized. The Accords have transitioned from agreement to architecture inside a sixty-day window.
A senior Emirati official told Axios: “We are not going to forget it.” Tareq al-Otaiba, former UAE national security council official: “It was a real eye-opening moment. To see who our real friends are.”
Three readings of the deployment.
A wartime favor between leaders that ends with the ceasefire. Priced.
Operational normalization that survives the war and seeds further bilateral integration. Narrow.
The first publicly verifiable rewriting of the post-1948 strategic order, in which Israel becomes the security guarantor for the Sunni Gulf against Iran, the Abraham Accords transition from treaty to defense architecture, and Israel’s own civilians wait for interceptors that were sent to Abu Dhabi because the threat there exceeded the threat at home, with Saudi Arabia watching and a US Senate bill already drafted to fund what just happened.
The headlines are pricing the first.
MBZ is calling Netanyahu directly.
https://t.co/vLQh7ydMdk
This is my 3rd time but @Niantic@PokemonGoApp won’t listen to my plea…after successfully raidng remotely, App froze and I was not able to encounter the pokemon anymore to catch it….this is a big issue for me! 😤🤦🏻♂️
I want thank ALL of the lovely people for their kind birthday wishes for me today on my 60th birthday.
I am the luckiest man in the world.
I have a wonderful partner in life, my beautiful wife Patricia and three lovely daughters; Elle, Miranda and Madeline.
Today, I am reminded of what Dr. M Scott Peck told me over 30 years ago: At 40, you feel like you can conquer the world and there’s a sense that nothing can stop you.
But at 60 you realize the very real fragility of life and temporariness of it all. A humbling knowledge that there is indeed a time limit for all things and that God’s design though perfect, is precious far beyond its brevity.
Today, I am also reminded of the Hindu story that my friend Bill from Lowell Arkansas told me about a man at his funeral. Looking at the man, “Would this man lying here ask for more riches and Gold from the world? Would this man ask to be more famous and well regarded by others? Would he ask to be taller or look more handsome? No. The only thing this man lying here today would ask for was much simpler…more time.”
If you are reading this now, then you too have time! Use it wisely, use it unwisely too! But USE it. Be IN it. Be aware that you are part of ALL of it and that the separateness you sometimes feel is an illusion. Just as your heart beats without being told, you are as integral to the Sun that fires and the planets that circle it as your heart is a part of you.
For the atheists, God loves you too. The mistake you make is to think the universe is a stupid thing that just bumps into things and expands ignorantly and without reason or intelligence.
And that somehow we human beings, with our intelligence is just some kind of ‘freak’ universal accident.
To you I say this, if there is such a thing as kindness, empathy, compassion and love…it is because you found it in other people. And as my dear friend Norm Macdonald once said, “We are part of this universe, indeed a mere fraction of it, so if we have kindness and love, how much more the universe itself.”
For if we are capable of love, it is because it is endemic to the universe itself.
To quote Alan Watts, “For we didn’t come ‘in’ to the world, we came ‘out’ of it. We are the universe evolving to the point of consciousness, so that the universe, us, can experience existence and life in all it’s wonder and beauty and glorious exuberance.”
Lastly, as I am a new convert to Catholicism, I offer my apology for my lack of Christ’s forgiveness to my fellow man.
I was so angry at the people who shut down schools and indeed the world and who coerced others to do things against their will which hurt many people deeply.
I offer my unconditional forgiveness and amnesty.
For how can I stay mad at the famous singer who would not let others in to his Broadway show unless they had an experiential jab. I will never forget how kind he was to me and my friends when he was the musical guest on SNL.
How can I continue to hold a grudge against the actor who shamed people like me but has been such a great example for other actors to never give up and keep fighting for their dreams.
How can I still be mad at the lovely actress that said she could no longer be friends with people like me who didn’t ‘get’ it, knowing how incredibly kind she is with every child she meets.
I am humbled by the example of my mother Pilar and how she was able to forgive the WW2 occupiers of her Philippines who killed both her brothers.
At last it is forgiveness itself that is the gift that we give ourselves because it frees us as The Christ intends for all of us to be free.
For His gift of ultimate and unlimited forgiveness is indeed the gift for all humanity.
May God bless you and your families now and forever.
With all my “You can do it” love,
Robbie Schneider