Reports that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is ready to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a possible trip to Abu Dhabi should come as no surprise. This is not only because of a rumored meeting last November, but because of wider regional dynamics that have brought Israel and Saudi Arabia closer together, as well as Israel and the Abraham Accord partners in the Gulf.
While support for Saudi Arabia has waned in some Western countries, perceptions of Saudi Arabia’s importance to the recent Abraham Accords – and thus to the region and Israel in general – have grown.
This paradoxical change in affairs has happened for a variety of reasons, including Iran’s increasing threats through groups like the Houthis in Yemen, and changes in Riyadh over the last decade that led to the conclusion that a possible US reduction in focus on the region required a closer alignment with Israel.
The milestones on the way to the current mutual interests between Israel and Saudi Arabia include several key symbolic incidents.
Like Israel, Saudi Arabia had an increasingly acrimonious relationship with the Obama administration in the wake of the 2015 Iran deal. It intervened in Yemen that year to stop the Iranian-backed Houthis taking Aden and putting an Iranian foothold on the strategic Bab el-Mandab straits. It is also suffering an onslaught of daily attacks by the Shi’ite Houthis using ballistic missiles and drones, much as Israel within its narrower territory has endured from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Reuters reported in 2017 on secret contacts between Israel and Saudi Arabia. It was known then that former Saudi Intelligence head Prince Turki al-Faisal had shaken hands with Yaakov Amidror, a former senior adviser to Netanyahu, at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
In 2018, Israel denied a report that Saudi Arabia was seeking to purchase its Iron Dome air defense system. Saudi Arabia was key to enabling the Abraham Accords and signaled its support. Since then rumors included the November meeting in Saudi Arabia, and a February report about a possible four-country defensive pact.
For Israel, the positive position of Saudi Arabia on various issues is important. More challenging is the cold shoulder Riyadh has increasingly received from the US. That is balanced by Washington’s signals that it wants to listen more to Israel and the Gulf states regarding any new Iran deal. This is a major departure from the lead-up to the 2015 agreement. It also represents a shift in perceptions of Israel and Saudi Arabia in top level circles.
Where once Israel was seen as needing to make concessions to the Palestinians to get closer to peace with the Gulf, recent statements indicate the US wants Riyadh to make changes to get closer to peace with Israel. This is a major shift in how the US views these pillars of its strategic partners and allies in the region.
The Kingdom has shifted in the last decades, from accusations that it was exporting extremism during the rise of al-Qaeda, to its quest for economic reforms as well as political and religious reforms. The broader winds of change in the Gulf are part of that, with Bahrain and the UAE pushing coexistence as a national agenda. Saudi Arabia, a leader of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and the Gulf states historically, as well as of the Islamic world, has a key role to play in shifting views across the region.
However, it is also challenged by Iranian attacks like the assault on Abqaiq in 2019, by threats from Iranian-backed groups in Yemen and Iraq, and by Turkey’s current support for the Muslim Brotherhood. These threats have encouraged closer partnerships between Israel and the Gulf, and more broadly with Egypt, Greece, Jordan, India and other states.
The crown prince has been the lightning rod of harsh human rights criticism in many US circles because of accusations, backed by the CIA, that he was involved in the killing of former Saudi insider Jamal Khashoggi. Others, however, point out that MBS has been key to Saudi Arabia’s shift toward a less repressive society.
They describe the crown prince – who has driven these changes – as “a visionary.” He is moving his country to a different place, say those who have met him. Therefore, Saudi Arabia should not be pushed into a corner by US policies that are critical of the kingdom.
It has already lost US support for offensive operations in Yemen, but it should be listened to regarding Iranian threats, even as Washington has been messaging a desire to recalibrate relations with Riyadh because of the Khashoggi murder. as well as taking a tougher line on human rights issues in Egypt.
It may be that a tougher line toward the Saudis from the US, and renewing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, will accelerate Israeli relations with Riyadh. But Saudi Arabia has been cautious. Last year, when rumors spread that it might normalize relations with Israel, it waited.
Saudi Arabia is carefully assessing elections in the US and Israel. In recent days it has held high-level meetings with Jordan,Malaysia, Sudan and other countries. Unsurprisingly, this dovetails with other high-level meetings that link Israel and Egypt, Israel and several countries in Europe, and a growing relationship between Greece, Cyprus, France, Egypt, Israel and the UAE.
A constellation of broader questions mark Saudi Arabia’s relations with this regional realignment. These include Riyadh’s and Abu Dhabi’s views on Syria’s role in the Arab world, concerns about Lebanon’s stability, its relationship with Russia, patching up the aftermath of the crisis with Qatar, and keeping an eye on Turkey’s ambitions.
They involve finding solutions to the conflict in Libya and increasing Gulf influence in east Africa, in Sudan, and farther afield in Pakistan.
Israel’s growing sense of being part of the region now puts it increasingly at the crossroads of these discussions as well. While Israel wants the US to stay vitally connected to the region, the overall trend binding Israel and the Gulf and partners from central Europe to India is visceral.