The Brics alliance has maintained complete silence since Israeli forces killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. More than 550 people died in the strikes, including at least 165 children. Iran holds permanent membership in the expanded bloc of eleven nations. The grouping, frequently championed as a voice for the Global South, has offered no collective response three days after the attack.
Analysts warn that this paralysis could permanently damage how the world views Brics. The organisation currently operates under India’s chairmanship. New Delhi has pursued increasingly close ties with Israel, complicating any unified stance. Individual members have issued separate statements, yet the bloc itself remains mute.
“This conflict will have significant repercussions on how the group is perceived and understood, not just by its members, but by the whole international community,”
Priyal Singh, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, delivered this assessment to Middle East Eye. He noted that India’s recent upgrade of relations with Israel to “a special strategic partnership” has created friction within the alliance.
Fractured Unity Among Members
Divisions within Brics run deeper than the current crisis. The original core members, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, have frequently failed to align on major international issues. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s actions in Gaza previously exposed these fault lines. The attack on a permanent member’s leadership represents an unprecedented test of the bloc’s cohesion.
India’s position has drawn particular scrutiny. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly, signalling a strategic pivot that sits uneasily with Iran’s membership.
“Modi was basically in Israel, hugging Netanyahu and making it very clear that, seemingly, there’s a much stronger solidarity or kinship between these two leaders, and this is going to extend officially into the respective bilateral relations, officially,”
Singh explained that Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes against the United Arab Emirates have further complicated consensus-building. The UAE joined Brics between 2024 and 2025 alongside Egypt and others. These newer members bring their own regional rivalries and alliances into an already crowded forum.
Economic Interests Versus Solidarity
Some observers argue that Brics lacks the institutional mechanisms for decisive action. Collective decisions carry no binding weight on individual states. This design flaw allows members to pursue bilateral relationships that directly contradict any nominal bloc solidarity.
Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg, offered a stark assessment of what truly unites these nations. He suggested that commercial calculations will ultimately override any principled support for Iran.
“If the Brics don’t break, it will probably be because for most, their commonality is more powerful, namely corporate profiteering in Israel,”
Bond predicted that ruling elites across Brics nations would prioritise their economic interests in Israel regardless of the circumstances. He cited recent patterns of behaviour toward Venezuela and anticipated similar treatment of Cuba as evidence of this trend.
“No Brics ruling class will come to Iran’s aid when at the same time, their class interests are in Israel’s prosperity, genocide or not,”
China has reportedly supplied weapons to Iran, marking the only significant material support from a major Brics power. This unilateral action underscores the absence of coordinated policy.
Calls For Leadership Dismissed
Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs argued that Brics possesses the collective power to halt the conflict. He positioned the bloc as the sole counterweight to American global dominance.
“This is the only way the world can be safe. And so this is actually a responsibility of the Brics right now, which is the only standing bulwark against America’s global empire,”
Bond rejected this characterisation entirely, labelling it “banal hype”. Singh similarly dismissed expectations of unified action as unrealistic given the shifting geopolitical landscape.
The researcher identified the United Arab Emirates as particularly unpredictable within the grouping. The Emirates’ normalisation of relations with Israel and its involvement in regional disputes such as Somaliland have created additional friction. Singh described emerging power axes centred on the UAE and Saudi Arabia that operate independently of Brics structures.
He expressed doubt that even an emergency meeting would produce meaningful results.
“I could be wrong, though we may get some kind of extraordinary meeting or something in which we get a statement, but I wouldn’t be too confident of that,”
Brics leaders are scheduled to convene in New Delhi this September. Whether the alliance can repair its damaged credibility before then remains an open question.