by Akanksha Mishra
2257322, 4MAIS, 2022-24
Before the dawn of October 7, 2023, the day when Hamas shook the world with the initiation of a multifaceted attack and onslaught of thousands of Israeli citizens, secret negotiations between Washington and Riyadh were underway regarding a potential normalisation of relations with Israel. The pursuit of (re)aligning Tel Aviv and Riyadh's internal and geopolitical interests through these secretive negotiations surprised the political elite, who attributed the ongoing Hamas-Israeli conflict in 2023 to these normalisation efforts (Ahmad, 2023). Hence, it is crucial to trace the normalisation of ties and the attempts between the region's two Middle Eastern ‘middle-powers’ that began to increasingly come to the fore, particularly since 2020. On November 22, 2020, there was a sui generis clandestine meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister of Israel, along with Yossi Cohen, Chief of National Intelligence of Israel, with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman at the city of NEOM, located in the northwestern Tabuk Province of Saudi Arabia, facilitated under the auspices of Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State (Gupta, 2020). This meeting is very crucial in the context of the new geopolitical (re)alignment in the West Asian region, which holds a future for Saudi-Israel synergy.
In November 2023, the ‘secret meeting’ transpired under fierce premonitions of bilateral ‘normalization’ of the relations, endorsed by the trend of UAE and Bahrain signing the Abraham Accords. Additionally, US President Trump unilaterally reaffirmed Riyadh’s inclination towards normalization on multiple counts (Kelly, 2018). Nevertheless, the de facto leader of oil-money bolstered Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia has also, since last eight years, indulged the world’s fancies by irregularly recognizing the Israeli right to exist and coexist in the Middle East, via varied state-controlled religious sermons, pop-culture drama series on Ramadan TV and political interviews post ascendency of Mohammad Bin Salman in 2017 (ToI, 2018). Now, considering that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also the leader of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the ripple effects of any move that the ‘Custodian of the two Holy Mosques’ takes becomes all the more significant on at least 45 other Islamic nations globally. This is one of the reasons, besides simmering domestic acceptance, why Saudi Arabia yet hasn’t formally announced the closing in of already underway Israeli-Saudi ties, despite the urgent insistence of Trump before the 2020 US Presidential Elections leveraging the onset of covert negotiations between the three nations. The same has become more difficult after the 2023 Gaza war, although Saudi Arabia was considering otherwise upon exacting deals from the US regarding arms purchases and civilian nuclear agreements (Crowley, 2023).
Nevertheless, in view that the Zionist lobby ideologically and electorally constitutes a salient voting bloc for Republicans in general and Trump in particular, Donald Trump was uniquely incentivised, besides the bipartisan national interest, to leave marks on US-Israeli foreign policy before his first Presidential term comes to a close. But Biden’s victory in the 2020 US Elections wasn’t tethered to similar incentives. Moreover, Biden distinctly has to deliver his presidential performance on tricky grounds, appearing to satisfy the increasingly polarised Democrat stance on Israel, coupled with the Democrat legacy of ‘Pivot to Asia’ being the US's need of the hour to contain China. All these factors collectively, combined with the recent break-out of hostilities between Israel-Gaza, entail that at least the next five years before premonitions of normalisation can begin to set in again. The pace of normalisation depends upon which party secures the presidency in the next US Presidential election, besides the status and unfolding effects of the 2023 Gaza war. However, normalisation is inevitable given the following strategic, economic and security reasons for both Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Now, purely from the vantage of strategic interests relating to regional security, the Saudi-Israeli interests collude in the backdrop of threats both nations have faced from the staunch Islamic Republic of Iran ever since the Iranian Revolution (1979). Firstly, the Arabian country is plagued by the the Shia-Sunni conflict coupled with the aggressiveness of the Persian nation in oil transport– thus, economically strategic– Strait of Hormuz. As for Israel, Iran’s undisguised anti-Semitism and financial, arms and ideological support to Palestinian terror organisation Hamas menaces Israel consistently. Furthermore, the Iranian security threat was seen in the backdrop of the United State’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ warrants that the US comparatively defocuses on counter-terrorism and Middle Eastern operations. This defocusing, as seen in instances of US pull-outs from Syrian and Afghan conflict and the halt of US arms support to Saudis for the Yemeni conflict, further precipitates the Saudi and Israeli need to enhance strategic security assistance.
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Khamenei has additionally intensified the conflict in the region via securing a tight foothold in the Saudi-neighboring Yemen and, thus, consequently Bab-al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea, by militarily supporting the Shia Houthi-Rebels. The Bal-al-Mandab Strait in the Gulf of Aden is economically significant for maritime exports of oil for Saudi Arabia, making the Iranian threat on Saudi Arabia literally and metaphorically not that distant. In the past, the Houthi rebels have consistently claimed responsibility for missile and drone attacks on Saudi’s key military and economic installations, including noted 2019 Aramco Oil Facility Attack (Al Jazeera, 2019). Now that both Israel and Saudi see Iran as a collective enemy, they can ramp up clandestine security cooperation that’d be of particular benefit to Saudi, considering Israel is a regional economic and military giant that has carried out successful operations against Iran, notably the 2018 Tehran Nuclear facility raid. Subsequently, the two nations can cooperate on multiple intelligence and arms-related avenues, for example, Saudi Royals acquiring the Iron Dome Air Defense System for its security interest in the volatile Middle Eastern region against Houthi Rebels attacks and so on. Additionally, Saudi Arabia and Israel can also utilise their combative abilities against increasingly hostile Turkey, an enemy to both Tel Aviv and Riyadh. In light of such cooperation, even though the Palestinian two-state resolution is likely to be suspended as demonstrated by the trend of the Abraham Accords, either a one-state or a particular minimal basic framework for peace would still be drafted, not entirely abandoning symbolic reasons of Arab identity.
Lastly, the very conduct of the ‘secret meeting’ in an under-constructed but trillions-of-dollar-worth Saudi city of NEOM furthermore reveals the paradigm the two nations would adopt for future economic partnership. NEOM, short for ‘New Enterprise Operating Model’, is a smart-city project on the successes of which the personal legacy of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman will be shaped. Since, the Saudi Royals flourished in the economic development of the desert kingdom and appreciated their currency– Saudi Riyal– on the backs of overreliance on the natural resource of oil, the IMF projections of Saudi exhausting non-renewable resource of oil within the span of 15 years, particularly threatens the Saudi hegemony in the region. Thus, the construction of the township of NEOM is emblematic of the rise of ‘New Saudi Arabia’, marking the inception of the reign of ‘modern’ Mohammad Bin Salman. For the same, Mohammad Bin Salman has made extensive investments via national Sovereign Wealth Funds and hosted a motley of other Future Investment Initiatives (FII) to attract Foreign Direct Investment for multiple such diversification designs underway. Here, the economic cure to Saudi’s Dutch Disease of over-reliance on oil leaves a space wide open the potentiality of Israel and its economic interest in the ‘Tracks for Regional Peace’ initiative.
The Tracks for Regional Peace is an Israeli foreign-policy initiative to diversify and bring economic prosperity to the Middle Eastern region by connecting countries of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the European subcontinent via land and sea routes. As a part of the initiative, Israel proposes an extensive railway project from the Northern Israeli Port city of Haifa to South Saudi Arabia, that’d to Riyadh’s advantage, not only expands its trading and tourism market opportunities but bolsters the much-needed diversification of the Arab Kingdom’s economy. Therefore, conclusively taking into account Saudi’s geopolitical Cold War for paramountcy of the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Aden with the mutual enemy of Tehran, coupled with other strategic and economic interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia, the Israeli-Saudi synergy only demonstrates upward trends of consolidation in future. Saudi-Israel would demonstrate ‘more covert, until not overt’ regional security and economic synergy and alignment between the two nations.
References:
Ahmad, T., (2023, October 14), “A war that ends the Saudi-israel normalization process”, The Hindu, retrieved on 11 December 2023, from https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-war-that-ends-the-saudi-israel-normalisation-process/article67417900.ece
Al Jazeera, (2019, September 14), “Houthi drones hit Saudi Aramco Oil Facilities”, Al Jazeera, retrieved on 11 December 2023, from https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/9/14/houthi-drone-attacks-on-2-saudi-aramco-oil-facilities-spark-fires
Crowley, M., Nereim, V., & Kingsley, P., (2023, March 10), “Saudi Arabia offers its price to normalize relations with Israel” The New York Times, retrieved on 11 December 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/us/politics/saudi-arabia-israel-united-states.html
Gupta, S., (2020, November 24), “The implications of Netanyahu, Pompeo and Mohammad bin Salman’s Secret meeting”, The Print, retrieved on 11 December 2023, from https://theprint.in/opinion/the-implications-of-netanyahu-pompeo-and-mohammad-bin-salmans-secret-meeting/550680/
Kelly, L., (2020, October 23), “Trump says Saudi Arabia will soon recognize Israel”, The Hill, retrieved on 11 December 2023, from https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/522486-trump-says-saudi-arabia-will-likely-be-next-to-recognize-israel/
Times of Israel, (2018, April 29), "Palestinians must make peace or shut up, Saudi crown prince said to", Times of Israel, retrieved on 11 December 2023, from https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-must-make-peace-or-shut-up-saudi-crown-prince-said-to-tell-us-jews/
7. Times of Israel, (2018, June 24), "Israel to begin promoting railway linking Haifa seaport with Saudi", Times of Israel, retrieved on 11 December 2023, from https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-begin-promoting-railway-linking-haifa-seaport-with-saudi-arabia/
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