Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia tested by Gaza

By LAHOUARI ADDI

The October 7 attack and the war on Gaza put an end to attempts at normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, much to the chagrin of the United States. But the kingdom has been seeking for several years to follow a more independent course in a context marked by the weakening of the West.

National security advisor to President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan recently welcomed the stability of the Middle East. He wrote in the September-October 2023 issue of Foreign Affairs: “Although the region faces ongoing challenges, it has not been calmer in years.” These lines were written a few days before the attacks perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023 which shook the region: dozens, even hundreds of deaths in Gaza per day, the West Bank on the verge of explosion, Hezbollah engaged against Israel, Islamist groups targeting US military personnel in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, Yemen's Houthis launching rockets at merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden.

FALSE CALCULATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES

How is it that the United States, with its experts specialized in international relations and its multiple intelligence agencies, has developed such an erroneous perception of the region and has failed to understand the extent of the conflict in the Middle East? ? Before October 7, as Jake Sullivan's article attests, the United States was confident and planned to disengage from the region, supposedly stabilized, to devote itself to "containment" of China and Russia. The Palestinian question was no longer central, being reduced to sporadic clashes in the West Bank and periodic friction in Gaza. The American perception was that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, permanent rivals, no longer had the capacity to formulate political demands consistent with their nationalist discourses. This dynamic was desired by the Israelis and the Americans, satisfied that the Palestinians, demonetized, were no longer a political adversary to fear.

If there was a fear, it was that of Iran and its armed wing in Lebanon, Hezbollah, which has acquired new offensive weapons. From then on, with the Middle East becoming relatively calm, it was necessary to consolidate the fragile stability in the region, by encouraging Arab countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in order to integrate it into local geopolitics. This would dissuade Shiite Iran from attacking Sunni Arabs now allied with Israel, who could come to their aid. It is in this spirit that the Abraham Accords signed in 2020 under the Trump administration were designed and which his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, sought to extend to Saudi Arabia. The hope of the United States — and also of Israel — is that the wealthy Gulf monarchies will invest in the West Bank and Gaza, which would benefit the Palestinians economically and the Israelis politically. Nevertheless, like a natural disaster, the deadly attacks of October 7 perpetrated by Hamas revealed another face of the Middle East.

THE LIMITS OF ABRAHAM’S AGREEMENTS

Given the reactions of Arab countries after the attacks of October 7, it seems obvious that the Abraham Accords were not really useful since none of the signatory countries lined up behind Israel and provided it with diplomatic support. , even if security cooperation between Israel and the Gulf States continues, and even if reports confirmed by Israel indicate a "land bridge" allowing goods to be transported from Abu Dhabi to the port of Haifa, across the Saudi, Jordanian (which Amman has denied) and Egyptian territories, to bypass the passage of the Red Sea.

However, the Gulf states have all expressed solidarity with the people of Gaza and called for an end to Israeli air strikes. Only the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has condemned the Hamas attacks. Their representative to the United Nations (UN) even defended, on February 12, 2024, the maintenance of relations between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, while expressing the concerns of the Gulf countries about the war on Gaza. But the Emirates also defied Israel by presenting a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire, which was rejected due to a US veto.

Furthermore, no Arab country, with the exception of Bahrain which hosts a US naval base, has disapproved of the Houthi attacks on ships crossing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, nor agreed to join the military coalition against them. Even Egypt, whose revenues have been affected by the decline in activity in the Suez Canal, has expressed irritation over the bombing of Yemen by the United States and the United Kingdom.

It is clear that the Abraham Accords had no political return and did not provide the diplomatic assistance that Israel expected from its new partners. One wonders if these agreements did not contain something unsaid which limits their scope. Did Israel not expect the signatories to renounce solidarity with the Palestinians? Were the signatory Arab states not hoping to encourage Tel Aviv to recognize, in one form or another, a Palestinian state? But Israelis and Americans persisted in believing that the Abraham Accords had definitively marginalized the Palestinian question, hoping that Saudi Arabia would join in in turn. This hope, however, does not take into account Riyadh's desire to balance its strategic alliances and modify the regional geopolitical game to assert its autonomy.

DESIRE FOR AUTONOMY OF A STRATEGIC ALLY

The United States and Saudi Arabia have had common interests in the region since at least 1945. The Americans needed Saudi oil, and the Saudis needed a powerful ally to defend themselves against hostile neighbors, whether it was Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s, or Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini in the 1980s and 1990s. The informal protection pact worked until two events introduced doubt into Riyadh.

The reaction of the Trump administration was considered disappointing after the attacks on oil wells in the kingdom on September 14, 2019. The Saudis pointed the finger at Iran, which denied it. The other disappointment came from the Biden administration which did not support Crown Prince Mohamed Ben Salman (aka MBS) in the affair of the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. From there was born the desire of the Saudis to rebalance their geopolitical relations. Since Iran is allied to Russia and China, the game consisted of getting closer to these two powers, without breaking with Washington, their strategic ally. With this in mind, the kingdom reestablished its diplomatic relations with Iran in May 2023, to the great dismay of Israel and the United States who wanted to isolate Tehran.

Riyadh has developed economic relations with China, which has become its first customer, with 66 billion dollars in exports and 40 billion in imports. He is waiting for Beijing to provide him with technologies that he cannot acquire in the West. Against all expectations, in January 2024 the kingdom joined the BRICS, whose members want a change in the international order dominated by the West. But what worries the Americans the most is the rapprochement with Russia in the OPEC+ organization which sets the level of the volume of hydrocarbons on the market. Speaking on CNN on October 10, 2022, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy urged Saudi Arabia not to choose Russia over the United States.

But Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman did not follow the advice and intensified relations with Moscow. Displaying a neutral position in the conflict in Ukraine, he did not condemn the Russian invasion, greatly irritating the Americans. At the beginning of December 2023, he received Vladimir Putin in Riyadh to talk about economic and military exchanges, which further displeased Western capitals invested in isolating the Russian president. However, the divergence with the United States mainly concerns the Palestinian question. The day after the attacks of October 7, and following the Israeli bombings on the enclave, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “the continuation of the occupation, the deprivation of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and the repeated provocations against the holy places” (“Hamas attack: the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia put to the test of war”, Hélène Sallon, Le Monde, October 9, 2023).

And it is no coincidence of timing that the suspension of negotiations on normalization with Israel was announced on October 14, 2023, the same day that American Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Riyadh. All of these elements indicate that the United States has lost influence over Saudi Arabia. While being flexible in form, Crown Prince MBS is intransigent in substance. What US officials and the Western press fail to see is that as the spiritual center of the Muslim world, the kingdom cannot afford to dissociate itself from the Palestinians and not support their claim to Jerusalem, third holy place of Islam.

DIFFICULT CONDITIONS TO FULFILL

In an interview with the American channel Fox News in September 2023, MBS said that negotiations over diplomatic relations with Israel were on track, but that the importance of the Palestinian issue should not be forgotten. Journalists commented extensively on the first part of the statement while downplaying the second. Examination of the conditions set by Saudi Arabia indicates that the normalization of relations is not for tomorrow, because they are unacceptable for Tel Aviv and for Washington: a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, the acquisition of a civilian nuclear industry and a military defense treaty with the United States. The first two conditions will be refused by the Netanyahu government, which does not want a sovereign Palestinian state, and does not want to displace the more than 700,000 settlers installed in the West Bank.

Furthermore, Israel will oppose the principle of a country in the region having access to nuclear energy, even civil. As for the United States, it does not wish to be bound by a military mutual defense treaty with a country located in a very conflictual region. They fear being drawn into a war against Iran or Yemen's Houthis, should they attack the kingdom. Mohamed Ben Salman knew that at least two of his conditions were unlikely to be met. But by accepting the idea of negotiations, he responded in a polite manner to pressure from the United States, his strategic ally. Saudi Arabia is now aware that its financial power allows it to play a diplomatic role in regional geopolitics without being aligned with one country or another. In the bipolar world of the Cold War, it had no choice in its alliances. In the multipolar world of the post-Cold War, it can modulate its alliances according to its strategic needs.

LAHOUARI ADDI

Professor emeritus at Sciences Po Lyon; he is the author of several works including Algeria and democracy