There is a seductive simplicity to geometry in foreign policy. A line is a border. A circle is a sphere of influence and a ‘Hexagon’, with its six perfect sides, suggests a structure that is robust, balanced, and designed to hold firm against external pressure. It is precisely this image of strength that Benjamin Netanyahu is projecting with his proposal for a new ‘Hexagon of Alliances’, a strategic bloc intended to connect Israel with India, Greece, Cyprus, and a selection of some Arab (most probably UAE, Jordon, Syria) and African partners. Interestingly, India’s inclusion in the alliance itself a question of stability and consistency as India’s history shows that India could easily be compromised or influenced by any threat or power.
Framed as a necessary bulwark against an Iran-led “radical Shia” axis and the nebulous threat of a “radical Sunni” resurgence, the proposal has the clean, architectural logic of a fortress. The only problem is that the Middle East has never been a place where walls stand still for long. At its core, this initiative is an attempt to formalize a set of relationships that have been quietly solidifying for years. The Abraham Accords normalized ties between Israel and several Gulf states. The EastMed pipeline project and trilateral summits have deepened cooperation between Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, creating a natural eastern Mediterranean caucus. In addition, the relationship with India, long a quiet friendship, has blossomed into a robust strategic partnership built on defence sales, counter-terrorism cooperation, and a shared wariness of cross-border extremism.
The proposed hexagon, therefore, is less a sudden bolt of diplomatic genius and more an attempt to put a roof on a house that has been under construction for some time. The declared objective is to create a “geopolitical, realistic” bloc that serves as a counterweight to Iran and its proxies. In a region where Tehran’s influence stretches from Baghdad to Beirut and into the waters of the Red Sea, the impulse to build a coalition of like-minded states is understandable. Israel has long felt encircled by forces dedicated to its destruction. The Gulf monarchies, particularly the UAE, view Iran’s missile program and nuclear ambitions with existential dread. India, for its part, watches the growth of Pakistan-based militancy and the spread of extremist ideology with a deepening sense of unease.
On paper, these nations share a common adversary and a common interest in stability. Yet, it is in the details that the elegant geometry begins to fray. The proposed inclusion of unnamed Arab and African partners is a diplomatic sleight of hand that papers over a multitude of sins. Which Arab nations, beyond the UAE, are willing to sign up to a bloc so explicitly defined by its opposition to Iran? Saudi Arabia, the gravitational center of the Arab and Muslim worlds, has been engaged in its own painstaking reconciliation with Tehran, brokered by China. To ask Riyadh to choose sides in a new cold war is to misunderstand the multipolar reality of 2026.
Similarly, the mention of Syria is a geopolitical fantasy. A country shattered by more than a decade of civil war, with its government propped up by Iran and Russia, is in no position to join an Israeli-led alliance. To suggest otherwise is to indulge in a form of cartographic delusion. The reaction from the region’s other power centers has been predictably hostile, and for good reason. Turkey, which sees itself as the legitimate leader of the eastern Mediterranean and a protector of Muslim interests, views the Greek-Cypriot-Israeli axis as a direct challenge to its influence. President Erdoğan has already begun to reframe his rivalry with Athens and Jerusalem in civilizational terms, and this hexagon will only deepen that divide.
More concerning, however, is the reaction from Pakistan. To describe the proposed alliance as an “anti-Muslim” initiative is, of course, a self-serving overstatement designed for domestic consumption in Islamabad. But it is also a warning shot. By framing its partnership with India as part of a broader regional security architecture, Israel risks being dragged into the subcontinent’s deepest and most dangerous fault line. For New Delhi, the hexagon is a tool to counter Pakistan. For Islamabad, it is proof of a Hindu-Jewish conspiracy. In such a polarized environment, the alliance ceases to be a stabilizing force and becomes another vector for conflict. This is the fundamental paradox of the hexagon.
It is presented as a framework for security, but its primary effect may be to harden the very identities and divisions it claims to be managing. By defining itself against a “radical Shia axis” and an “emerging radical Sunni axis,” the alliance forces the region’s complex web of loyalties into a simplistic, sectarian mould. It asks nations to pick a side in a binary struggle that most would prefer to navigate with more nuance. The Gulf states, for instance, are masters of hedging their bets, maintaining ties with Washington, engaging Beijing, and talking to Tehran, all at the same time. They will be reluctant to surrender that flexibility for the rigid comfort of a six-sided room. For India, the opportunity is clear.
The proposal offers a pathway to deepen its role as a security provider in the western Indian Ocean, to secure cutting-edge Israeli technology such as the Iron Beam laser defence system, and to advance the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). The IMEC project, in particular, provides the economic underpinning that the hexagon desperately needs. Without trade routes, energy pipelines, and digital highways, a security alliance is just a collection of nervous nations pointing at the same horizon. India’s challenge will be to reap the benefits of this partnership without being consumed by its contradictions.
To do so, it must resist any attempt to turn the hexagon into a formal, treaty-based military bloc. Its strength must lie in its flexibility, in its ability to function as a network of overlapping interests rather than a walled garden. Netanyahu, a man who has spent his entire political career trying to redraw the map of the Middle East, clearly sees this as his crowning achievement. After years of being cast as a pariah by much of the Arab world, he has succeeded in normalizing his country’s presence and building bridges with former adversaries.
However, the hexagon he envisions is not a structure for peace; it is a structure for permanent confrontation. It assumes that Iran cannot be contained by diplomacy, that Sunni extremism can only be fought, not addressed, and that the region’s future will be defined by endless conflict. The Middle East deserves better than another alliance built on fear. It needs a framework built on the infinitely more difficult task of coexistence. In addition, no geometric shape, however perfect, can deliver that.
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