Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, recently told me that he has sensed an oncoming revolution in Sunni thinking. “For the first time, the majority of the Arab world thinks that Iran is the real danger, not Israel. Seventy percent of the Arabs are Sunnis. The Sunnis look upon us, whether they say it or not, not as a problem but as a hope.”

Peres may be overstating, but moderate Arab leaders would obviously like a Sunni-Jewish alliance: Israeli compromise—an agreement, for instance, to freeze settlement growth on the West Bank—would prove to their pro-Palestinian constituents that Arab states, and not Iran, are guarantors of Palestinian interests, and it would allow them to deepen their subterranean military-intelligence connections with Israel on the Iran question. Such an alliance has even more obvious strategic advantages for Israel: Netanyahu has said he will lobby Europe, China, and Russia on the necessity for strong action to stop the Iranian nuclear program. His case would be strengthened immeasurably if he could make these arguments in concert with Arab leaders.

So, how to make use of what the Middle East expert Martin Indyk calls the “symbiotic anxiety” shared by Israel and its Sunni Arab adversaries? It might be too late, of course, to forge a Sunni-Jewish alliance, though not because the two parties hate each other; hate has never stopped the formation of pragmatic alliances in the Middle East. It might be too late because the Arab enmity for Israel in the wake of last December’s Israeli attacks in Gaza might make it impossible for Arab governments to be seen entering even a tacit alliance with Israel. “It’s a good time in theory for something like this, but it won’t happen now unless Israel makes certain strategic decisions to bring real compromises to the table,” says Abdel Monem Said Aly, of the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, in Cairo. “It is a difficult situation because Iran has presented itself as a guardian of Islamic and, in particular, Palestinian interests by taking the maximum stands, however hollow. If Israel and the Palestinians can be seen making progress, there is a chance. But this requires Israel to rethink its strategic priorities.”

There are other reasons why such an alliance could prove to be chimerical. Half of the future state of Palestine is under the control of a Sunni fundamentalist group, Hamas, that is theologically opposed to the Shia dogma, but more than happy to take Iranian money and weapons. In April, an Arab leader told me he expects Iran to continue encouraging Hamas—as well as the Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon—to subvert any upcoming negotiations. “There will be another round of the Israeli-Iranian war this year,” he predicted.

Which makes the effort to forge an alliance between Israel and its Arab adversaries even more vital. Trust-building steps must be taken more or less concurrently, but Israel is in a position to make a first, decisive step, by freezing settlement growth on the West Bank. Arab leaders who don’t now have diplomatic relations with Israel are ready to reciprocate with direct flights between their capitals and Tel Aviv, and a host of other symbolic yet important moves. But there is an even more dramatic way to move forward on the peace process, while at the same time marginalizing Iran: demarcate the future borders of the state of Palestine. David Makovsky, one of the most respected experts on the peace process (and the co-author of a new book, Myths, Illusions, and Peace, about how to revive the process), suggests that freezing settlements should not become an end in itself. “There is a convergence of interests between the Arabs and Israelis on Iran. As such, this moment is a gift that shouldn’t be wasted,” Makovsky says. “The two sides need to put their differences in perspective to address the common challenge.” He suggests leapfrogging the settlements issue and moving to border demarcation. “This is not like the issues of Jerusalem and the status of refugees or security arrangements,” he said. “Both sides have already come very close on the West Bank land issue.” The former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, before leaving office, suggested that the future state of Palestine be built on 93 percent of the West Bank, and receive additional territory from Israel in a land swap.