Extract from ABC News
Analysis
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Foreign Ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council nations as part of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly. (Reuters: Stefan Jeremiah)
For 57 minutes on Tuesday, the world literally had to sit and listen to an address that had potentially huge ramifications for all its inhabitants.
But the speech wasn't addressed to the world's representatives; it was aimed at the speaker's political base in the United States.
Donald Trump's unique speaking style — often stream of consciousness and always self-congratulatory — seemed particularly jarring in the halls of the United Nations, which, for all its flaws, aspires to consensus building, goodwill and international interests.
At one point, after once again making his dubious but (for him) hopefully Nobel Peace Prize-winning claim to having ended seven wars since returning to the White House in January, Trump said that "no president or prime minister, and for that matter no other country, has ever done anything close to that".
US President Donald Trump addressed the 80th United Nations General Assembly, in New York City, earlier this week. (Reuters: Al Drago)
"I did it in just seven months. It's never happened before. There's never been anything like that. Very honoured to have done it. It's too bad that I had to do these things, instead of the United Nations doing them, and sadly in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them.
"All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle … And then a teleprompter that didn't work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much.
"I didn't think of it at the time [I was ending wars] because I was too busy working to save millions of lives. That is the saving and stopping of these wars. But later I realised that the United Nations wasn't there for us. They weren't there."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appears on screens as he addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly. (Reuters: Jeenah Moon)
Another, more important meeting
The US president's speech may have stolen much of the oxygen at the UN meeting, particularly on Tuesday.
And the General Assembly witnessed its usual multiplicity of frenzied bilateral meetings.
But it was one meeting in particular that will perhaps be the most important development to come out of the 2025 UNGA.
This was the meeting on Tuesday afternoon between Trump and eight Arabic and Islamic states including the Gulf states of Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as well as Türkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Trump put particular weight on his relationship with the Gulf states — making visits there one of his priorities when he returned to office.
"In May, I travelled to the Middle East to visit my friends and rebuild our partnerships in the Gulf and those valued relationships with Saudi Arabia. Qatar and the UAE and other countries are now, I believe, closer than ever before," he told the UN this week.
Well, it's good that he thinks so, because that is not quite the way the Gulf states see it.
The Arab nations have been key players this year in the formulation of what is known as the New York Declaration, which formed the backdrop to 12 more nations, including Australia, this week recognising Palestinian statehood.
UN General Assembly focuses on Palestinian recognition (Laura Tingle)
A 21-point plan
The statehood move was part of a very detailed, multi-page agreement in which Western and Arab nations supported statehood in return for commitments from the Palestinian Authority that are designed to make it a credible government. The agreement also sets out a series of plans for stabilising Gaza and for seeing Hamas off the stage.
It's not clear at this stage how much the 21-point plan that Trump put to the Islamic and Arabic states this week echoed elements of the New York Declaration.
Some regional sources insist that statehood is at the very least implied in the 21-point plan.
The plan certainly includes details of who would govern and secure the enclave once the conflict has ended, with an international supervisory body providing oversight of a Palestinian committee that would administer Gaza for an interim period, various media have reported.
It also calls for all the remaining hostages held by Hamas — around 20 of whom are believed to be alive — released in one group up front.
Israeli forces would also have to redeploy to positions they held during a temporary ceasefire between January to March and fully withdraw from the strip once a stabilisation force is in place.
Hamas would have no role in governance.
Are the United Nations at a crossroad? (Sarah Ferguson)
The plan also stipulates that there would be no forced displacement of Gazans.
A lot of this sounds familiar to the language of the New York Declaration.
Trump reportedly told the leaders at the Tuesday meeting that he would tell Israel not to proceed with annexing the West Bank — which he had been warned would be an absolute red line for Gulf states.
"I think the president of the US understands very well the risks and dangers of annexation in the West Bank," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told reporters.
And on Thursday, the president told a White House Press Conference that he "will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank … It's not going to happen".
The problem is that the ultra-hardline members of the Netanyahu government have already said that the West Bank would be, or should be, annexed in retaliation for 12 countries, including Australia, this week recognising Palestinian statehood.
But there's a bigger underlying regional shift underway here, which will affect not just whether there is any prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza, but whether, alternatively, there is the prospect of an eventual regional war.
World leaders react to Israel's strike on Qatar
Israel's Doha strike shifts thinking
It is still only a couple of weeks since Israel launched a strike in a residential neighbourhood of Qatar's capital, Doha.
The target may have been Hamas leaders. But they were Hamas leaders who were in Doha by general agreement to try to negotiate a peace deal.
The neighbourhood were they were targeted was home to many embassies and the location of many schools and childcare centres.
The strike came around 3.30pm, just as people were picking up their kids from school.
The shock in Doha — and the region — has been profound and transformative.
Diplomats speak of how all that was found of a 22-year-old local security guard was his hand.
The attack in a neutral country, which has made mediation the stock in trade of its foreign policy dealings — and the fact it was one of seven strikes against other countries by Israel in the space of a week — has completely shifted the way the Gulf states (and many others) now think about regional security.
For decades, Gulf sources say, they sought a security guarantee from the United States as a protection against Iran.
"Now the only threat in the region is Israel," one official said this week. "It's no longer a situation driven by Israel being surrounded by a hostile environment but of Israel being the hostile player.
"The question being asked by the military in neighbouring countries now is how to protect our countries against Israel."
There is no confidence that Israel would not attack Egypt or even Türkiye.
Analysts have tended to dismiss the concerns of the Gulf states in the past on the pragmatic basis that — wedged between Iran, Israel, and the US — they don't have many options about where they go next and are often divided among themselves.
But a few things have happened that shake that up.s
Sources question ties to US
For a start, Saudi Arabia has now signed a "strategic mutual defence agreement" with a nuclear power: Pakistan.
Then there's the fact that, even in reasonably tightly controlled states like those in the Gulf, "these Israeli attacks made our governments look bad to people".
"They rightly ask: what's the point of our links with the US if this can happen?" a Gulf source said.
In Qatar's case, it also had to fend off an earlier strike by missiles from Iran on an air base used by the US.
"At least they apologised for that," the source said.
The Doha attack earlier this month also revealed a practical problem in being heavily dependent on US military hardware: US military hardware can't defend against US-built missiles and planes.
The Gulf states, as a result, are now looking to diversify their military hardware: talking to China and the other emerging military equipment suppliers about buying protection systems and other weaponry with which to fend off, or detect, for example, incoming strikes by F-35 jets.
"There are no pre-conditions put on purchases by China," the source says.
Leaders of the Gulf states started heading to Qatar to express their solidarity within hours of the strike in Doha.
A source involved in the meeting said that the collective statement that was eventually released contained much softer language than the sentiments expressed at the meeting that followed.
What came out of the meeting was agreement for an increased sharing of military intelligence among the Gulf states, increased military exercises without the US, and increased military spending — which won't all be going to the US.
Instead of taking in intelligence from the US and sharing it around, the Gulf states are going to be sharing their intelligence amongst themselves and sharing it back to the US. For now.
The Gulf states — long fragmented — are now seeing themselves as having to play the role of a balance of power bloc in the region in their own right.
They face the uncertainty of a US president who they say "flip-flops" on his position on Gaza, and who they have observed this week walk away from his self-proclaimed role of bringer of peace to Ukraine when it became clear he wasn't getting his way.
The Gulf, along with Israel, will be wondering just how far Trump really is prepared to push Benjamin Netanyahu.
While some regional analysts believe that Trump still has the capacity to intervene to stop the Gaza conflict if he is serious about it, others are deeply pessimistic.
The impunity shown to Netanyahu, particularly over the past two years, means he has been emboldened to act in whatever way he wants, the argument goes, even overriding the advice of his own military and intelligence agencies.
On that basis, the argument goes, not even Trump can deliver the first condition of a ceasefire in Gaza: the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.
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