The history of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a faith-based international body founded in 1969 in Rabat, Morocco, is intimately intertwined with the history of Israel and its political actions in the West Bank and Gaza. This connection is already visible in the organization’s founding document. Its Charter, signed in the same year and effective from 1972, explicitly mentions only two of its 57 Member States (MS) and three of its MS’ cities (cf. Arts. 14, 18, 21, 39), and it implicitly alludes to only one non-MS: Israel. It can be read in its preamble that the OIC MS determined ‘to support the struggle of the Palestinian people, who are presently under foreign occupation’ and ‘to establish their sovereign State with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital’.
In this contribution, I argue that Israel acts as a quasi-non-MS within the OIC and, more specifically, as a case of what I define as negative memberness. Though formally excluded, it is able to shape the internal dynamics of the organization while serving as a constitutive other, or enemy, in Schmitt’s terminology (2007). The application of the friend/enemy distinction to International Relations is not uncontested: Teschke (2011) has argued that Schmitt’s conceptual vocabulary was forged within a specific ideological context, namely the legitimation of Nazi Germany’s spatial politics, which makes its de-contextualized application problematic. For this reason, the concept is employed here as a descriptive device aimed at mapping how opposition structures identity within an international organization, rather than as a general explanatory framework.
Religion and IR
IR scholars as social scientists were relatively late in recognizing the role played by religion, initially embracing the Orientalist tendency to label it as a primordial impulse destined to disappear as societies modernize (Modongal, 2023). Events such as the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the end of the Cold War led some scholars (Huntington, 1993; Juergensmeyer, 1993) to acknowledge that religion indeed plays a crucial role in IR. Such acknowledgment grew stronger after the 9/11 attacks and the rise and fall of ISIS, further consolidating the place of religion within the discipline. Authors have since re-interpreted old concepts in light of this perspective: for instance, the concept of ‘religious soft power’ (Ozturk, 2023) was developed from Nye’s idea of ‘soft power’ (1990). It is meaningful that, as of today, the second largest international organization after the UN is the OIC, a body founded on religious ground, whose very existence challenges earlier assumptions about the marginality of religion in global politics.
Although the OIC was founded in 1969, the idea of an Islamic supranational entity traces back to the concept of ʾummah, an Arabic term that means ‘community’ (cf. Quran 3:104). The idea of a political entity whose borders were defined not only by territorial conquest or treaties but primarily by the shared faith of its inhabitants took institutional form in the Caliphate immediately following the death of Muhammad in 632. The Caliphate, as a political institution, lasted until 1922 with the abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate by the Kemalist Turkish National Assembly. Since then, Islamist ideologues, pundits, thinkers, politicians, and theologians have advocated for the reconstitution of the Caliphate, often referring to the ideal model of the first four Caliphs, the Rašidūn, or ‘Rightly Guided’ (Rida, 2024). More generally, the renewed emphasis on unity on a religious basis in Islam has been labelled Pan-Islamism, a political movement initially proposed by Abdülhamid II to face the territorial losses suffered during his reign from 1876 to 1909, in opposition to the Tanzimat reforms (Chouinard, 2010). Influential thinkers such as Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (1839–1897), Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905), and Rashīd Rida (1865–1935) argued that the unity of the Islamic world could be both a source of decline, if neglected or misinterpreted, and a potential basis for its rebirth if properly understood.
Know your Enemy, Know your Friends
The straw that broke the camel’s back was the 1969 arson attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by Denis Michael Rohan, an Australian Christian fundamentalist. The subsequent summit in Morocco, which gathered representatives from 24 Muslim countries and preceded the First Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers in Jeddah the following year, effectively transformed the Pan-Islamic impetus into a recognized international organization. While religion was the common denominator, the Islamization of the struggle against Israel was simultaneously catalyzed, even though it would later crystallize in a more radical form with the Muslim Brotherhood’s activity in the Gaza Strip (Litvak, 1998).
Egyptian President al-Nāṣir’s Pan-Arabism was being counteracted by Saudi Arabia’s King Fayṣal through Pan-Islamism (Sheikh, 2003). After the death of the founder of the modern Saudi state ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in 1953 and the consequent loss of a powerful legitimizing factor, the tendency of his son Saʾūd (1953–1964) to align closely with Egypt and Syria became increasingly problematic. Events such as the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1958 formation of the United Arab Republic led to al-Nāṣir’s surging popularity as the leader of a secular, socialist, and republican Pan-Arabism (Baba, 1992). The values he represented posed a direct threat to the region’s autocratic regimes. After succeeding his brother, King Fayṣal, a political and diplomatic maven, seized the opportunity to champion Pan-Islamism. Following years of efforts that included the foundation of the Muslim World League in 1962, he leveraged the aftermath of the 1967 war to take decisive action in 1969.
Even though reading the OIC as a purely anti-Israeli institution would be far from reality, the political, in Schmittian terms, was deeply rooted in the designation of Israel as the enemy. The struggle against Israel provided a common framework through which cooperation on a religious basis could be promoted and the organization’s identity strengthened, while the pervasiveness of Palestine-related concerns allowed for a further complexification of the OIC’s structure through the institutionalization of Committees and Groups specifically dedicated to the cause, such as the Al-Quds Committee, the Six-Party Committee on Palestine, and the Ministerial Contact Group on the Question of Palestine and Jerusalem (Alrantisi, 2025). Moreover, Israel as a common reference point of opposition has continued to shape collective action, as shown by Saudi Arabia’s call for an unprecedented joint Arab-Islamic extraordinary summit on 11 November 2023 in Riyadh, a format replicated in 2024 and 2025. While the Arab League has historically proven unable to create a common front capable of transcending national interests or, in other words, of preventing nationalism from becoming national particularism (Manduchi, 2017), Pan-Islamism has confirmed its role as a primary vehicle for collective action, leveraging the identification of a common adversary to bridge the gap between divergent national agendas.
OIC’s Internal Role-play
Although, according to its Charter, OIC MS are ‘equal in rights and obligations’ (Art. 2), some nations exert more influence than others, effectively promoting their interests within specific niches. Constructivist analyses highlight, for instance, how the organization’s foundational principles are interpreted by MS according to their respective identities and interests. In such scenarios, the Saudi conception of the ʾummah as a purely religious entity contrasts with that of Iran, which views it as a theological-political entity; meanwhile, Pakistan perceives it as a security community, whereas Turkey and Malaysia reframe the concept through the lens of moderation and modernization (Sheikh, 2003; Kayaoglu, 2015). Balances of power, identities, and values, however, are mutable variables that need to be reassessed periodically in IR.
The crisis that divided the GCC in 2017, driven by Qatar’s proximity to the Muslim Brotherhood and promoted by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt, pushed the Gulf monarchies to find common ground with Israel in order to face the perceived threat posed by Islamism, Turkey, and Iran (Mohamed, 2024). Reading the Abraham Accords normalization process between Saudi Arabia and Israel in this light allows one to grasp a potential reconfiguration of roles within the OIC: once the country that hosts two of the holiest sites in Islam (Medina and Mecca) moves away from the centrality of the Palestinian cause, the space it had long occupied within the organization becomes open to contestation. The attacks on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war provided Turkey, the first Muslim-majority country to have recognized Israel, with an opportunity to recalibrate its stance: the normalization initiatives of 2022 were replaced by Erdoğan’s harsh criticisms and an escalation of tensions with Netanyahu.
Turkey, together with Qatar, played a crucial role in mediating the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, while at the same time pursuing a foreign policy aimed at consolidating its position as a regional power, a trajectory that has increasingly been perceived in Israel as a source of concern, at times even more significant than Iran (Ynet, 2020; Bar’el, 2025). To pursue this role, Turkey has progressively distanced itself from the position it had long occupied both outside and within the OIC: that of a bridge-country, an Islamic-Western actor able to mediate between different political and cultural spheres, as well as a secular leader oriented toward promoting Islamic art and culture (Kayaoglu, 2015). Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu’s election as Secretary-General in 2004 placed Turkey in a prominent role within the organization, promoting moderation and interreligious dialogue and further shaping its identity within the OIC. Whether Turkey will be willing to consolidate its increasingly confrontational stance towards Israel and to make the Palestinian cause a defining component of its role within the organization remains an open question. This issue also extends to other strategic choices, such as the OIC’s engagement with India as an emerging power (Kulaklikaya, 2025) or the possible intensification of tensions surrounding Kashmir (Rubin, 2025).
On the other hand, Turkey’s historical bridge-role could be reinterpreted or partially assumed by Pakistan. Unlike Turkey, Pakistan is a founding member of the OIC. To move in this direction would imply a shift from its traditional role within the organization, often characterized by a strong security orientation, its status as the only Muslim country to possess nuclear weapons, and its use of veto power in ways that have limited the inclusion of Indian and Chinese Muslims (Kayaoglu, 2015). The ‘Islamabad Peace Talks’ of April 2026, despite their limited results, were driven more by economic than security considerations (Peltier, 2026). Although Pakistan has previously engaged in mediation efforts, particularly with regard to Iran (Pirzada, 1987), its role in facilitating dialogue between the USA and Iran has contributed to presenting it as a potentially reliable intermediary, capable of repositioning itself within the OIC.
A Matter of Memberness: Where Does the Constitutive Enemy Fit?
In an article titled Porous organizational boundaries and associated states: introducing memberness in international organizations (2023), Hofmann et al. provide a useful framework to move beyond the binary conception of membership in international organizations (IOs) and the exclusive focus on formal members. They account for the influence exerted by so-called third-party states, namely countries that do not meet the formal criteria of membership, whether in terms of language, geography, or religious composition, but that can nonetheless acquire the status of observers, partners, or associates. Their objective is to conceptualize these actors as capable of influencing IOs. They introduce the concept of memberness, a variable aimed at capturing what associated states do within an IO. They distinguish between three types of memberness: payrollers, which provide general-purpose material contributions; sponsors, which provide ideational inputs that shape the allocation of resources; and advisors, which provide technical knowledge and expertise. In light of the dynamics outlined above within the OIC, and considering its specific historical and ideological trajectory, expanding this framework allows for a broader understanding of how IOs’ internal configurations are shaped in response to external actors and events.
Building on this typology, I propose the concept of negative memberness to describe a state that, while formally excluded from an IO, exerts structural influence over it by functioning as its constitutive enemy. Unlike payrollers, sponsors, or advisors, a quasi-non-MS shapes the organization not through direct participation but through its position in the international system, which compels member states to react, define themselves in opposition, and institutionalize that opposition.
If one asks which state most deeply influences the OIC, the answer depends on how the range of relevant actors is defined. Limiting the analysis to member states excludes actors such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, which have nonetheless influenced the organization (Karčić, 2013). Expanding it to include third-party states still risks overlooking a pivotal actor that has shaped the OIC’s agenda and identity to a considerable extent. Among Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Turkey, on the one hand, and Israel on the other, dismissing the latter on the basis of its non-membership obscures the extent to which many of the organization’s defining moments have been shaped, at least in part, by Israeli domestic and foreign policies. Even though critics have pointed to the OIC’s limited effectiveness in advancing the Palestinian cause, the organization has nonetheless contributed to the construction of what has been described as ‘a strong pro-Palestinian norm among Muslim states… [socializing] Muslim leaders across the globe into a pro-Palestinian world-view’ (Kayaoglu, 2015, 62). From a constructivist perspective, the identification of an enemy, understood in Schmittian terms, plays a significant role in shaping how an IO understands itself and its position in the international arena.
To revert the plot of Azem’s The Book of Disappearance (2019), in which Palestinians suddenly disappear and Israel is left to question its identity without them, one may ask what would become of the OIC if Israel’s role as a constitutive enemy were to be fundamentally altered. Whether through a full withdrawal from the occupied territories or through more coercive policies, such a shift would alter the condition of negative memberness on which a significant part of the organization’s identity has been built. This does not imply that the OIC lacks other functions: existing literature has highlighted its role in promoting economic cooperation and Islamic finance among its member states (Ma & Hou, 2015; Majeed, 2015; Badreldin, 2020). At the same time, the centrality of the Palestinian issue remains a key element in understanding its development.
How Israel’s position is framed, then, becomes crucial for extending this analysis beyond the OIC. Israel is neither a member state nor a third-party actor in formal terms, yet it exerts a form of influence that differs from that of both categories. Through its bilateral relations with member states, and through its capacity to activate or de-escalate issues such as the status of Jerusalem or the conditions in Gaza, it affects the organization’s agenda and internal cohesion. In this sense, Israel can be seen as one of the most structurally influential actors shaping the OIC, even if this influence operates differently from that of its member states. As the organization’s constitutive enemy, it does not promote a particular interpretation of the ʾummah from within the institutional framework. Its influence is indirect, and often not fully intentional in its mechanisms, even when it produces observable political effects. Processes of normalization with countries such as Morocco or Saudi Arabia, for instance, can contribute to redefining these states’ roles within the OIC and the positions they advance. Israel’s position can therefore be understood in terms of negative memberness: a quasi-non-MS whose influence operates through the structural pressure it exerts on member states’ identities rather than through institutional participation. The form of soft power at play in this case is peculiar, as it derives less from deliberate strategy than from the political consequences of Israel’s existence and policies.
Re-thinking the OIC
Starting the analysis of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation through a Schmittian lens risks overlooking the fact that enmity is a historically produced and institutionally mediated condition rather than a transhistorical constant. The concepts of quasi-non-MS and negative memberness are here proposed as correctives: heuristic tools aimed at mapping how a non-member state can, voluntarily or involuntarily, shape an IO’s identity, agenda, and internal equilibrium through its foreign and domestic policies.
In light of the most recent developments of the Israel-Palestine issue, a rethinking of the OIC appears necessary. Like other international organizations, it operates as an intergovernmental forum while also acting as a producer of collective norms and identities. In this context, Israel occupies a structurally central position within the OIC’s political and normative horizon. It is both an object of collective positioning and, indirectly, a factor that contributes to shaping that positioning.
Those member states that pursue normalization risk opening space for other actors, such as Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and various Islamist movements, to frame themselves as the primary defenders of the Palestinian cause and of a broader Islamic political identity. Developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict should therefore be read not only in their immediate geopolitical dimension, but also in terms of their implications for the internal equilibrium of the OIC and the ongoing reconfiguration of roles, identities, and forms of leadership within it.
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Further Reading on E-International Relations
