The UAE's Image Problem: How Gulf Soft Power Rebalanced After October 7th

Since October 7th, 2023, the United Arab Emirates has faced a sustained erosion of its carefully cultivated international image. Dr. Andreas Krieg, a Gulf security expert affiliated with the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, identified the trajectory plainly in a May 2026 assessment: the UAE's public relations standing has been on a downhill slope since that date, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia have moved to dominate the regional information space. The observation points to a recalibration of Gulf soft power that carries implications well beyond media optics.

The UAE spent much of the preceding decade building a brand as the region's business hub, a gateway between East and West, and a voice for pragmatic modernity. Dubai's infrastructure, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth, and a network of state-linked media platforms gave Emirati diplomacy a particular resonance in Western capitals. That architecture remains intact. What has shifted is the competitive landscape—and the terms on which regional actors are judged by audiences both inside and outside the Middle East.

The October Shock and Gulf Calculations

The events of October 7th, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza forced every Gulf monarchy into a position it had long avoided: explicit engagement with a conflict that polarised international opinion in ways the region had not seen for decades. The UAE, whose 2020 Abraham Accords normalisation deal with Israel had been framed as a landmark diplomatic achievement, found itself holding an asset that suddenly carried significant political cost. Western publics and progressive institutions that had once praised Emirati pragmatism were now associating Abu Dhabi's normalisation agenda with a broader dynamic they found morally untenable.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia, by contrast, were operating from different starting positions. Doha had maintained its Hamas-back-channel role for years—controversial in Western capitals but legible to audiences across the Arab world as a form of solidarity with Palestinians. Riyadh had not normalised with Israel and faced less direct association with the Abraham Accords framework. When the October conflict ignited, both states found themselves narratively positioned in ways that resonated differently across regional and international audiences.

The shift was not simply a matter of which Gulf state expressed sympathy for Palestinian civilians. It was structural: Qatar's Al Jazeera network and Saudi Arabia's expanding media portfolio—including the MBC Group and various digital platforms—found themselves at the centre of information flows that Western outlets could not fully neutralise. These outlets operate on a spectrum, from state-adjacent to state-aligned, and their coverage of the Gaza conflict drew audiences who had grown sceptical of coverage filtered through Western editorial frames.

Why the UAE's Position Proved Vulnerable

Several factors made the UAE's image apparatus particularly exposed. The Abraham Accords, which the UAE signed alongside Bahrain in September 2020 under the Trump administration's mediation, had been a centrepiece of Emirati foreign policy. The deal was marketed in Washington and Brussels as a model of moderate-arc engagement: normalisation as a path to regional stability. By late 2023, critics inside and outside the Gulf pointed to that same normalisation as evidence of misalignment with Arab public sentiment.

The UAE's media ecosystem, while sophisticated, was also more visibly aligned with state interests than its rivals'. When Western audiences encountered Emirati-backed messaging, the institutional fingerprint was often legible in ways that reduced persuasive impact. Qatar's Al Jazeera, whatever its editorial constraints, had over three decades built a brand that retained residual credibility as a platform that challenged official frames—even as its coverage of Doha's own domestic politics remained tightly managed.

Saudi Arabia, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had undergone its own image rehabilitation since the 2018 Khashoggi affair. The kingdom's Public Investment Fund, its entertainment sector opening, and its gradual post-pandemic re-engagement with Western partners had partially reset its international standing. The Gaza conflict arrived at a moment when Saudi Arabia was positioned to claim moral ground without surrendering the practical gains it had made in its economic transformation agenda.

Soft Power as Strategic Infrastructure

The Gulf monarchies have long understood media and narrative as infrastructure rather than ornament. Qatar's investment in Al Jazeera, which launched in 1996, was from the outset a foreign policy instrument: a platform that gave Doha leverage disproportionate to its population or military footprint. The network's coverage of the 2003 Iraq War made it essential viewing in Arabic-speaking households across the region, and its English-language service gave it reach into Western policy circles.

Saudi Arabia's media investments have been more recent but no less deliberate. The kingdom's 2017 boycott of Al Jazeera—alongside Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE—in the context of the Gulf dispute signalled Riyadh's recognition that media presence mattered. The subsequent expansion of Saudi-aligned outlets, including the Saudi Press Agency's digital expansion and various entertainment industry investments, reflected a strategy in which narrative infrastructure served economic diversification goals.

The UAE's approach had been to position itself as a neutral facilitator—business hub, logistics node, diplomatic intermediary. That positioning was a competitive advantage when the regional environment rewarded pragmatism over ideology. The October 2023 inflection point revealed the limits of that approach: neutrality became difficult to maintain when the conflict demanded a position, and taking the position the UAE had taken in 2020 made a return to neutrality strategically incoherent.

What Comes Next

The trajectory Dr. Krieg identified does not necessarily spell permanent decline for Emirati soft power. The UAE retains substantial assets: its financial infrastructure, its strategic geographic position, its relationships across multiple power centres including Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and European capitals. These are not erased by a challenging information environment.

But the competitive dynamic among Gulf states is intensifying in ways that reward narrative coherence. Qatar's continued engagement with all parties to various conflicts gives it flexibility that single-alignment cannot match. Saudi Arabia is pursuing normalisation negotiations with Israel that, if completed, could shift the competitive dynamic again—potentially placing Riyadh in a position more similar to the UAE's 2020 starting point, but from a position of greater leverage. The UAE's challenge is to rebuild narrative credibility without surrendering the pragmatic positioning that has underpinned its economic model.

The sources reviewed for this article do not indicate a specific Emirati response strategy, and Dr. Krieg's assessment is an analytical observation rather than a policy prescription. What is clear is that the regional information environment has become a more active site of competition, and that the Gulf monarchies are calibrating their positions accordingly. For investors, diplomats, and regional observers, the shifting balance of Gulf soft power warrants close attention—not as a discrete media story, but as a leading indicator of how the region's power architecture is being rebuilt.

This article was filed from regional open-source monitoring. Monexus cross-referenced the Telegram post with available public-source coverage of Gulf state media positioning. The assessment by Dr. Andreas Krieg was the most direct source on the specific trajectory of UAE public relations standing.