Dr. Richard Benkin
Originally published in the Daily Asian Age of Dhaka. It is the first part of a two-part article about negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, with strong US involvement, that would normalize relations between the two countries and again change the way people understand the Middle East conflicts. It is written to address the people of Bangladesh, whose population is 92 percent Muslim, and whose leaders can use this moment to advance the interests of their people and re-join the democratic alliance against tyranny.
The issue of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia can be a sensitive one given the centrality of the Kingdom in the history of Islam, its being the home of the Kaaba and the site of the Hajj, and the religious overlay attributed to the Israel-Arab conflict; but that sensitivity has changed. The 2020 Abraham Accords de-coupled religion from what is essentially a geopolitical conflict whose anti-Israel partisans have used religion to get people to ignore reality and their own interests in favor of pure propaganda. This soon became very clear. During conflicts in 2021 and 2022, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, and other actors tried to compel support for Islamist and Palestinian attacks by going reflexively to their false claims that “Al Aqsa is at risk,” and the only way to save it is to eradicate Israeli authority over it and Jerusalem. It seemed to work in the past, but this time it fell on deaf ears. Iran might have been the only Muslim-majority nation to ape those cries. Most Muslims refused to be fooled and allow these radical forces to drag them back to a previous era from which they now evolved. And they were not going to subordinate their people’s well-being to that of radical rejectionists. The world had moved on, and it was high time that Palestinian leadership allowed their people to move into the 21st century.
Signed on the White House lawn in Washington, the Abraham Accords saw the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain extend full recognition to Israel; Sudan and Morocco later joined the Accords and embraced Israel as a friend and ally. It resulted in strong people-to-people contacts with Israelis and brought immediate dividends to the peacemakers. None of this, however, could have happened without the tacit approval of Saudi Arabia, which the Kingdom granted heartily.
Israel and Saudi Arabia have been growing closer for some time, with ever increasing cooperation in areas like defense, security, the environment, and business development. While relations were kept secret for a while, they’ve been an open secret for quite some time. Even previous taboos against speaking about it long ago evaporated, and both countries acknowledge the interaction. Two months after the Accords were signed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Saudi city of Neom on the Red Sea. It was an historic moment, though Saudi spokesmen still had to deny it occurred. But a year and a half later, in May 2022, more Israeli officials visited Saudi Arabia to meet with Saudi leaders about critical security matters—and this time, nobody tried to hide it.
After the Accords, we also saw a notable shift in how Saudi leaders talked about the Palestinians, who had been held up for years as being the victims of Israeli intransigence and refusal to give them a state. Pundits and partisans alike chirped for years that Middle East peace was dependent on (read: held hostage by) them. But the inconvenient truth of multiple Israeli offers of statehood, and multiple Palestinian rejections without so much as a counteroffer made it clear that Palestinian leaders were never going to accept a Jewish state in the Middle East; and other Muslim leaders had grown frustrated with their refusal to consider negotiation, holding only to their own maximalist demands. Thus, in March 2022, MBS said publicly and without the slightest attempt to hide it, “We don’t look at Israel as an enemy, we look to them as a potential ally, with many interests that we can pursue together.” Four years before that, the future Saudi monarch said "It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining." He further said that Palestinians have rejected one opportunity after another to make peace and that Palestinian statehood is no longer a priority for the Saudis.
And it shouldn’t be. The Saudis could be in for a difficult future if they do not pivot from an economy dependent on oil revenues to something else. Most of their traditional customers already are weaning themselves off fossil fuels, a process that only will accelerate and leave the Saudi economy in tatters unless it evolves beyond oil. MBS is one of the young Saudi leaders who recognized this need and (often with Israeli help) has been steering the Kingdom’s economy on a more sustainable course. There are not very many ruling monarchies left, let alone any ruling major international players, and MBS knows that it would not take much to push things over the edge—if the Saudis do not modernize. Leaders in power when their people’s economic well-being plummets soon encounter popular anger, social unrest, and often even revolution; and there are plenty of adversaries looking to topple and replace the Saudi monarchy. Besides, modernizing is an obligation leaders owe their constituents. That economic development is well underway among the nations already in the Abraham Accords. Their trade with Israel saw an immediate billion dollar plus jump in trade just from Israel. By the end of 2021, direct Israel-UAE commerce alone exceeded a billion dollars, on top of increased tourism, investment, and trade with the US. UAE officials predict trade with Israel to top $1 trillion over the next decade, and the two countries are putting the final touches on a free-trade agreement. They also have benefitted from Israeli investment in both business and social projects, joint projects in clean energy and other critical areas, and defense purchases from the US and Israel.
Mutual defense was an initial motivation for what has become known as the Sunni alliance with Israel. The Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia have a lot more to fear from Iran than Israel does. Israel has held its own and then some in its conflicts with Iran and its proxies; Arab nations have not done as well. Egypt’s leaders toppled a short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government, which Islamists allied with Iran want to bring back to power, even though it lost the Egyptian people’s support before it was brought down a decade ago. And nations from Jordan to the Gulf States see their unity and alliances with Israel and the United States as their best chance of stopping an imperialistic Iran and their terrorist proxies, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels. Taking that next step from even open cooperation to full, mutual recognition has been slower because of the religious overlay in which the Israel-Arab conflict has been cast; which is another reason why Saudi recognition of Israel will be so impactful.
Representatives of several Arab and Muslim-majority countries attending the September 15, 2020, signing of the Abraham Accords, with more than a half dozen gleefully telling people that they will be next to join. Change appeared to be happening with lightning speed. Unfortunately, COVID and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine focused attention away from the Middle East; and domestic US politics also slowed momentum for expanding the Accords. President Joe Biden and his administration did not pursue the Accords as actively as did former President Donald Trump. Biden and the Democrats wanted their voters to see the administration as a clear break from everything associated with the Trump Administration, which was their primary reason for electing him. For a while, State Department employees were not even allowed to use the phrase, Abraham Accords. But negotiations never stopped. Intense negotiations are going on now, led by Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and confirmed as recently as the Spring, on normalizing Israeli ties with Mauritania, Somalia, Niger, and Indonesia; Mauritania seems to be furthest along in the process.
The Saudis were on the White House lawn that day, too, to signal their support for normalization publicly. US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told me that he was with the Saudi representative who told him that the Kingdom expected to join the Accords and embrace Israel as a friend and ally; that full recognition was a matter of when, not if. Cruz, who is on the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and its Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, & Counterterrorism Subcommittee, also agreed with me that once Saudi Arabia joins the Accords, there will be a rush of Arab and Muslim-majority nations will be lining up to join them.
Over the past weeks, however, there has been a great deal of chatter about intense three-party talks involving the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. We know this is not simply rumor because the individual participants and even issues being discussed have been identified. Sources have confirmed that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer (who also used to be Ambassador to the United States, Israel’s most critical diplomatic post, and Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman (MBS’s brother) are leading the negotiations. All three countries have a great deal to gain from an agreement. For the United States, it would re-assert leadership in the Middle East and more generally, and it would sideline China despite the latter’s brokering a Saudi Arabia-Iran rapprochement. It is clear to all parties involved, as well as others looking at it from the outside, that the US is the only nation with the strength to insure the deal’s specifics; and that China simply is incapable of doing that.
Israeli officials have told me on several occasions that they are always very keen on building relations with other countries, all but three of which are Arab and Muslim majority. Moreover, Saudi recognition would signal to everyone else that the supposed religious aspect of the conflict does not exist. With that barrier gone, it would not be long before the Israeli economy was fully integrated with those states, providing it with new markets and joint ventures, and opening opportunities for social and humanitarian projects in those countries. (Israel’s humanitarian projects are renowned globally for the countless lives they have saved throughout the world.) Saudi gains were mentioned earlier: developing new economies to take the Kingdom through the 21st century; surviving the end to a fossil fuel based global economy; cementing its regional alliance to defend against an expansionist Iran. In fact, all three nations are key beneficiaries of that international pact.
For each of the three countries, full relations would have a positive impact on their most pressing issues: for Saudi Arabia, military security against attack and the means to evolve their economy; for Israel, further normalization and cooperation with allies; for the United States, a re-asserted geopolitical role and checking Chinese geopolitical expansion.
Dr. Richard Benkin is an American scholar and a geopolitical analyst.