The ISIS-inspired murderous attack not only did not cloud the Negev summit, but rather emphasized the connection between its participants.
If there is anything in common between Israel and the foreign ministers of the four Arab countries who came here, to a public event that has never been like it before, it is opposition to Sunni Islamic extremism, embodied in the form of ISIS, and Shiite extremism, embodied by Iranian emissaries.
The condemnation of the attack in Hadera, voiced here by the foreign ministers of Egypt, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, was not said as a lip service.
Many hundreds of Egyptian officers, soldiers and civilians lost their lives in the wake of the ISIS branch attacks in Sinai, which also operated in Jordan and other Arab countries.
This is while Shiite terrorism is working to overthrow the regime in Bahrain and the Gulf states declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
ISIS, which has been defeated by a huge international coalition, is in retreat, but the ideology it has led is not dead and manages to occasionally produce terrorist attacks around the world.
The claim that the murders in Be'er Sheva and Hadera indicate the existence of dozens of dormant ISIS cells in Israel, which are now waking up to action, seems excessive.
These are at most a few hundred people, who do not receive support among the general public of Israeli Arabs.
This does not eliminate the need for appropriate preparations and increased vigilance by the security forces to thwart attacks in the territories and within the Green Line, against the background of the tension that already exists in the coming month of Ramadan.
But there is one thing for sure: what brought Arab foreign ministers to Sde Boker is the understanding that Shiite terrorism, led by Iran, is several times more dangerous than ISIS terrorism and even from the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The oil money, which will flow to Iran after the forthcoming signing of the nuclear deal, will accelerate the ballistic missile project, which is planned to carry a nuclear warhead.
The planned removal of the Revolutionary Guards from the list of terrorist organizations will help Iran increase its subversive activities throughout the Middle East.
The United States was, admittedly, the driving force behind the signing of the Abrahamic Accords. But all the signatories to these agreements, whose representatives came to the Negev, now see Washington in its weakness. Assad with chemical weapons against civilians, President Biden seems to be broadcasting an eagerness to sign a bad agreement with Iran, which will only increase the threat to the security of Israel and the Gulf states.
Under these circumstances, the moderate countries that reached Sde Boker - and so did Saudi Arabia, which did not reach but gave its blessing to the summit - see Israel, rightly or wrongly, as the only factor that can and is willing to face the Iranian threat.
The Saudis also expect that Israel, thanks to its ties with the US administration, will try to mediate and help improve the murky relations between Riyadh and Washington.
In addition, there is no doubt that the Negev summit marks a dramatic change in the map of interests in the Middle East and in the process of Israel's integration into the region.
It is true that decisions were not made there, but words were said there that had never been said before.
The Emirates' foreign minister is saddened that his country did not establish peace with Israel 43 years ago, immediately after the Egyptians did, and his Moroccan counterpart said that the peace between us is not a temporary move but a real turnaround.
In difficult days of ISIS-inspired tensions and terrorist attacks, such statements, in and of themselves, are a good reason for optimism.
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