Israel's critics became allies over Iran attack. But they're still pushing a Gaza cease-fire

As the dust settled across the Middle East after a fraught weekend that saw Iran launch a swarm of more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, Jordan’s foreign minister hit the Arabic and English-language news shows to hammer home what he sees as the root cause of the dangerous violence roiling the region.

“The issue here is the aggression in Gaza,” Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s top diplomat, told CNN. “The first step” to avoiding a wider war, he said, “is ending the aggression.”

Like much of the world, Jordan has been fiercely critical of the war in Gaza, where more than 30,000 people have died in Israeli military action since Hamas rampaged across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200.

But when Tehran launched its explosive swarm on Saturday, Jordan’s air force took to the sky, shooting down dozens of Iranian drones, joining the U.S., Israel, the United Kingdom and France in a defensive operation that knocked out nearly all the weaponry Tehran aimed at Israeli targets.

"This was the first time that such a coalition worked together against the threat of Iran and its proxies in the Middle East," said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for Israel's military.

Israel remains deeply isolated over its war in Gaza, where even President Joe Biden has now demanded a cease-fire. But when faced with attack by Iran, America’s top Middle East ally gained a lot of friends.

Who are Israel's allies against Iran?

Only a few countries remain that are willing to defend the six-month-old Gaza war, or to at least refrain from publicly criticizing it. On April 4, amid a backlash over the deaths of seven aid workers from chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau that future U.S. aid would depend on strong steps to protect civilians and humanitarian staff in Gaza.

Asked by USA TODAY why it had taken Biden so long to break with Netanyahu in Gaza, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk replied, “It goes against his beliefs and is risky when Israel is facing a manifest threat from Iran.”

In the face of that threat, regional strains over Gaza were briefly set aside.

More: Death of José Andrés' World Central Kitchen crew marks a new low in Gaza war, aid workers say

“We know that the Jordanian air force shot down dozens of Iranian drones that violated its airspace and were headed to Israel,” Michael Wahid Hanna, an analyst at the International Crisis Group said Monday.

Still, Jordan ? where one in five residents is Palestinian ? was quick to say it wasn't defending Israel. "There was an assessment that there was a real danger of Iranian barrages and missiles falling on Jordan, and the armed forces dealt with this danger," Foreign Minister Safadi told Jordanian state TV. "And if this danger came from Israel, Jordan would take the same action."

Some threats are just bigger than others. "The Arab states make a big show of being publicly furious about Israel’s war on Gaza, but many of these states still perceive Iran as a bigger threat than Israel," Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, told USA TODAY.

Will it spark a wider war? Israel's long-simmering conflict with Iran moves out of the shadows

Saudi Arabia, a strong critic of the Gaza war, provided intelligence to Israel about the timing of the coming Iranian attack, Reuters reported, while France, which has called for an immediate Gaza cease-fire, also took part in the massive air defense operation on Saturday.

None have signed on to help Israel in a possible armed response to Saturday's attack.

"No regional state is likely to join Israel in attacking Iran," Mohammad Ali Shabani, the editor of London-based Amwaj Media, told USA TODAY. "On the other hand, Iran can be expected to be joined in offensive military operations by its allies in places like Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen."

Who are Iran's allies against Israel?

Iran has carefully seeded the Middle East with proxy militias over that last 20 yearss, and gained the full support of one regional government, allowing it to project power through a so-called “Axis of Resistance.”

The axis includes Iran's longtime partner Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which has turned Israel’s northern border into a potential second front amid exchanges of rocket fire that have  led to the evacuation of Israeli border communities.

Syria is a member of the axis as well. Iranian and Hezbollah fighters – joined by Russia – helped save the government after Islamist forces including al Qaeda threatened to topple the state amid a general uprising against of President Bashar al Assad's brutal rule.

In Iraq, Iran supports and directs a number of militias that have in the past attacked American bases in that country. One of them, Kataib Hezbollah, congratulated Iran for its failed attack in a statement on Sunday. “The Zionist-American enemy and his followers only understand the language of weapons to curb their tyranny,” the group said. "We point out that shame will continue to haunt the rulers of Jordan throughout history."

And in Yemen, the Iran-supported Houthi movement has fired rockets at Israel and paralyzed global shipping through its attacks on cargo vessels in the Red Sea.

US, Russia, Europe warn of a wider war

Iran launched its broad attack on Israel – its first-ever direct assault on the Islamic Republic's arch-enemy – after a suspected Israeli airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, killed several people including a top official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni promised revenge.

More: Senior Iranian commander killed in Syria by apparent Israeli airstrike

Now, with Iran’s 300-projectile gambit having caused only minor damage to an Israeli air base, world leaders are calling for calm. Biden has told Netanyahu the U.S. will not join any Israeli response to Saturday’s attack. And on Monday the European Union and Russia also urged restraint.

Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister, said that extending the conflict with Iran would help Netanyahu by drawing attention away from a war that has alienated Israel from much of the international community.

Provoking Tehran will “dilute that pressure and take the focus away from Gaza,” Safadi told CNN. “Iran retaliated. It said it would do no more.”

“The regional states remain quite concerned that the longer the open-ended conflict in Gaza goes on, the greater the possibility – through a direct decision or miscalculation –  of a regional war,” Hanna said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel's critics helped during Iran attack, still push Gaza cease-fire