Israel and Saudi Arabia: Forging Ties on Quicksand
RSIS presents the following commentary Israel and Saudi Arabia: Forging Ties on
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by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link.
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No. 132/2014 dated 8 July 2014
Israel and Saudi Arabia:
Forging Ties on Quicksand
By James M. Dorsey
Forging Ties on Quicksand
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Distrust of US-led efforts for a negotiated end to the Iranian nuclear crisis,
animosity
towards
the Muslim Brotherhood, a shared determination to defeat Al Qaeda, and
questions
about the reliability of the US as an ally have persuaded Saudi Arabia and
Israel
to go public with their tacit alliance despite the absence of diplomatic
relations
between
the two erstwhile enemies.
Commentary
LONG
GONE are the days when Saudi Arabia was the only Arab country that had
visa
rules to bar Jews from entering the kingdom and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince
Saud
al Faisal gave visiting US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger the Protocols of
Zion,
a 19th century anti-Semitic tract, as a gift. Saudi Arabia still declines to
forge
official
ties with Israel as long as it refuses to withdraw from territories it
conquered
during
the 1967 war. But perceptions of common threats have expanded long-
standing
unofficial ties to the point that both the kingdom and Israel feel less
constrained
in publicly acknowledging their contacts and signalling a lowering of the
walls
that divide them.
As states, Saudi Arabia and Israel share few, if any common values, despite
some
cultural
values that are common to Wahhabism, the austere form of Islam adopted
by
the kingdom, and ultra-orthodox Jews. But they increasingly have common
interests.
Both states perceive Iran, particularly an Iran that is a nuclear power, as
an
existential threat; both also share a determination to defeat the Muslim
Brotherhood
as
well as Al Qaeda-inspired groups and defend as much of the political status quo
in
the
region as possible against change that threatens to replace autocratic regimes
with
ones dominated by Islamist militants.
Breaching secrecy
A series of recent events indicate that those common interests have made Saudi
Arabia,
which projects itself as a the leader of the Arab world, less sensitive
about
going
public about relations with Israel in the absence of a settlement of the
Palestinian
problem.
As a result, Israel, which has long accommodated a Saudi need for secrecy,
is
also becoming more public about cooperation between the two states.
“Everything is underground, nothing is public. But our security cooperation
with Egypt
and
the Gulf states is unique,” said General Amos Gilad, director of the Israeli
defence
ministry’s
policy and political-military relations department “This is the best period of
security
and diplomatic relations with the Arab. Relations with Egypt have improved
dramatically”
since last year’s military coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected
president,
Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brother.
Describing Israel’s security border with Jordan, the only Arab state alongside
Egypt to
have
signed a peace treaty with Israel, as the border between Jordan and Iraq, Gilad
went
on to say: “The Gulf and Jordan are happy that we belong to an unofficial
alliance.
The
Arabs will never accept this publicly but they are clever enough to promote common
ground.”
Despite repeated Saudi denials of any links to Israel and official adherence to
an Arab
boycott
of anything Israeli, the kingdom has signalled a relationship in recent weeks
with
an encounter in Brussels between former intelligence chiefs of the two
countries
and
the first time a Saudi publisher has published an Arabic translation of a book
by
an
Israeli academic.
Step by step
The exchange in late May between Prince Turki bin Faisal al Saud, a full
brother of
Foreign
Minister Prince Saud who headed Saudi intelligence for 24 years, and General
Amos
Yadlin, a former Israeli military intelligence chief, constituted the most high
profile
Saudi acknowledgement of relations. Saudis and Israelis have met before in
public
but Prince Turki went out of his way this time to promote a 2002 Saudi-
sponsored
peace plan that offers Arab recognition of the Jewish state in exchange for
a
full Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and a solution for the
Palestinians as a
step-by-step
process rather than a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.
The exchange followed the controversial publishing of an Arabic translation of
‘Saudi
Arabia
and the New Strategic Landscape’ by Joshua Teitelbaum, a professor at Bar
lan
University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. While Saudi newspapers
have
long published columns by left-wing, dovish Israeli writers opposed to their
government’s
policy, Teitelbaum’s book was the first by a mainstream Israeli writer
published
by a Saudi publisher.
The openings notwithstanding, Israelis and Saudis appear to differ in their
expectations
of how far closer relations can go. Prince Turki signalled in Brussels that
he
saw cooperation between the two states on specific issues as a first step
towards
a
solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. That was a far cry from Gilad’s tone who
compared
Israel’s improved ties to conservative Arab states as “good weather” and
cautioned
that one should not forget that “clouds will come” in a region in which states
are
collapsing, tribes dominate and Israeli military superiority is its only
guarantee.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International
Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of
Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The
Turbulent
World
of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.
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