Saudi Arabia’s state-aligned media outlets have been adopting an increasingly anti-Israel tone in recent months, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, calling the phenomenon a sign of the fading chances for normalized relations between the two countries.
“Wherever Israel is present, there is ruin and destruction,” an editorial published by the Riyadh Daily said early last month. Another Saudi publication, Arab News, criticized Israel last week, accusing it of consistent violations of international law and disregard for state sovereignty.
“Israeli incursions, settlement expansion, arrests and military raids across the Occupied Territories have systematically eroded trust in diplomacy,” the editorial said. “No political process can survive when one side experiences daily dispossession while the other enjoys impunity.”
The increasingly harsh rhetoric is not limited to Saudi newspapers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Sheikh Saleh bin Humaid, an imam at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, used a recent sermon to denounce Israel, saying, “Oh God, deal with the Jews who have seized and occupied, for they cannot escape your power.”
The criticism came amid the ongoing war in Gaza, which strained Israel’s relations across the region. Most recently, Saudi Arabia joined seven other Muslim-majority countries, including the United Arab Emirates, in a joint statement condemning what it described as Israel’s “repeated violations of the ceasefire in Gaza.”
Before the outbreak of the war, Saudi Arabia had been engaged in US-brokered talks that The Wall Street Journal described as a pathway toward joining the Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic, economic, and security relations between Israel and several Muslim-majority states.
According to US and Israeli officials, those negotiations were halted following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the war in Gaza that followed.
Saudi Arabia has long conditioned normalization with Israel on the recognition of a Palestinian state, a position that Riyadh maintained after the start of the war. However, the Wall Street Journal noted that the shift in tone across Saudi media underscored a new level of anti-Israel sentiment.
The Anti-Defamation League called out Saudi media outlets and clerics last week in a public statement, saying the rhetoric spread anti-Israel sentiment that undermined paths to normalization with Israel.
“ADL is alarmed by the increasing frequency and volume of prominent Saudi voices - analysts, journalists, and preachers - using openly antisemitic dog whistles and aggressively pushing anti-Abraham Accords rhetoric, often while peddling conspiracy theories about ‘Zionist plots,’” the group said.
“This is harmful on many levels, diminishing the prospect of peaceful coexistence in the region and weakening regional initiatives promoting tolerance, understanding, and prosperity.”
Backdrop of a Gulf state rivalry
Analysts noted that the sharpening tone toward Israel also unfolded against the backdrop of growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a key signatory of the Abraham Accords.
The two Gulf states clashed in recent years over economic competition and regional influence, backing opposing sides in conflicts in Yemen and Sudan while vying for dominance over Red Sea trade routes, according to reports from the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Analysts at the Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi columnists and commentators increasingly linked their criticism of Israel to attacks on the UAE’s relationship with the Jewish state.
In one column, Saudi writer Ahmed bin Othman Al-Tuwaijri accused Abu Dhabi of acting as “the Israeli Trojan horse in the Arab world.”
Analysis by the Wall Street Journal said this rhetoric reflected an effort by Saudi leadership and state-aligned media to tap into widespread public anger over the war in Gaza while simultaneously applying pressure on regional rivals.
Saudi officials denied that the negative coverage of Israel was coordinated with the government, though Israeli officials told the Journal that Riyadh’s security and diplomatic posture had shifted significantly since the war in Gaza began.
US officials continued to push for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, with former US president Donald Trump stating he hoped the kingdom would “very soon” join other Muslim nations in the agreement.
The increasingly hostile media environment, however, raised concerns in Washington that normalization was slipping further out of reach, according to a report from Bloomberg.
“It does raise a question of whether [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] is committed to the path of moderation both Trump and Biden have invested in,” Daniel Shapiro, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, told the Wall Street Journal.
Israeli officials also voiced concern. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said Israel was closely monitoring developments in Saudi Arabia.
“We expect from anybody who wants normalization or peace with us that they not participate in efforts directed by forces or ideologies that want the opposite of peace,” Netanyahu said at a press briefing last week.
At the same time, Saudi officials signaled that they remained open to normalization under certain conditions during a visit to Washington. The Jerusalem Post reported that Saudi defense officials met with US counterparts last week to discuss overlapping regional interests.
Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who participated in the meeting, said Saudi officials were aware that the dispute with the UAE had “crossed into an anti-Israel posture of increasing virulence” and was creating difficulties in Washington.
“The Saudis understood that this was creating serious problems for them in Washington,” Dubowitz said, adding that Saudi officials expressed a commitment to easing tensions with Israel.
The UAE foreign ministry declined to comment on the Saudi media coverage, according to The Wall Street Journal.