Nearly 30 years ago, the United States used its diplomatic clout to persuade Israel and its Arab neighbors to meet publicly for the first time, at the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, which opened the door to greater Arab acceptance of Israel.

On Wednesday and Thursday, leaders of Israel and Arab states met publicly again, at an international conference in Warsaw staged by the Trump administration. But the goal of this meeting, drawing officials of some 60 nations, was not peacemaking. It was to rally support for economic and political war with Iran, for which the United States has found little enthusiasm among allies since withdrawing from the 2015 deal that restricts Iran’s nuclear program.

Administration officials initially tried to promote their agenda under an amorphous “seeking peace in the Middle East” rubric. But there was no denying the real purpose, especially when Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s militantly anti-Iran prime minister, sent out a since-deleted tweet that proclaimed “an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office on Thursday released a video of a closed meeting in which senior Arab officials played down concerns about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and defended Israel’s right to defend itself, while denouncing Iran as the greatest threat to regional peace.