Saudi deal with Iran worries Israel, shakes up Middle East
In Israel, bitterly divided and gripped by mass protests over plans by Netanyahu's far-right government to overhaul the judiciary, politicians seized on the rapprochement between the kingdom and Israel's archenemy as an opportunity to criticize Netanyahu, accusing him of focusing on his personal agenda at the expense of Israel's international relations.Seth Frantzman: Who are the winners and losers in Iran-Saudi ties?
Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of Israel's opposition, denounced the agreement between Riyadh and Tehran as "a full and dangerous failure of the Israeli government's foreign policy."
"This is what happens when you deal with legal madness all day instead of doing the job with Iran and strengthening relations with the US," he wrote on Twitter. Even Yuli Edelstein from Netanyahu's Likud party blamed Israel's "power struggles and head-butting" for distracting the country from its more pressing threats.
Another opposition lawmaker, Gideon Saar, mocked Netanyahu's goal of formal ties with the kingdom. "Netanyahu promised peace with Saudi Arabia," he wrote on social media. "In the end (Saudi Arabia) did it … with Iran."
Netanyahu, on an official visit to Italy, declined a request for comment and issued no statement on the matter. But quotes to Israeli media by an anonymous senior official in the delegation sought to put blame on the previous government that ruled for a year and a half before Netanyahu returned to office. "It happened because of the impression that Israel and the US were weak," said the senior official.
Despite the fallout for Netanyahu's reputation, experts doubted a detente would harm Israel. Saudi Arabia and Iran will remain regional rivals, even if they open embassies in each other's capitals, said Guzansky. And like the UAE, Saudi Arabia could deepen relations with Israel even while maintaining a transactional relationship with Iran.
"The low-key arrangement that the Saudis have with Israel will continue," said Umar Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham, noting that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank remained more of a barrier to Saudi recognition than differences over Iran. "The Saudi leadership is engaging in more than one way to secure its national security."
China has clearly sought to expand its relationships in the region, and the decision by Iran and Saudi Arabia to work with China on normalization with each other is part of China becoming a diplomatic broker in the region.IAF fighter jets, refuelers hold air drill with US forces, thought to focus on Iran
Though this is a win for China, it was also a natural country to host this final step. Iran and Saudi Arabia already held talks in Baghdad about reconciliation, talks that began in 2021 and continued off-and-on with some stalls in 2022. Overall, the trajectory was clear.
Saudi Arabia had also reconciled with Qatar early in 2021, and it was rumored to be considering closer ties with Israel, a slow process that began back in 2015. The train was on the tracks for Saudi-Iran ties, all it needed was a bit of a push – which China gave
Does Israel lose out?
The potential for better Israel-Saudi ties have been a constant issue of speculation. Days before the Saudi-Iran deal was announced, there were reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times about Riyadh seeking security pledges from Washington as part of some kind of upgrade of ties with Israel.
Clearly, Saudi Arabia has been working on multiple policy tracks: China, Russia, the US and potentially Israel, all part of Riyadh’s new positioning of a more complex independent policy.
It’s unlikely that Iran ties will necessarily impact Israel negatively. Saudi Arabia has interests in Yemen and Lebanon, as well as in Syria and Iraq. In many ways, Saudi Arabia’s interests dovetail with Israel’s in terms of stability and not wanting Iran’s militias or proxies running these countries.
The Gulf in general is moving to reconcile with Syria, which can reduce chaos in the region. The era of war that defined the period after the Arab Spring, and the era of conflict that began decades ago with the rise of extremists, appears to be coming to some kind of a close.
The shifts in the Gulf are important for this to happen. Extremist groups have, one-by-one, been ejected by most Gulf states, except in Qatar. There is less funding for these groups; al-Qaeda and ISIS have been mostly defeated.
Stability and state-to-state relations are part of the new era. This is underpinned by big country politics and also deals that Israel has played a role in such as the Negev Summit, I2U2 and the Abraham Accords. Iran-Saudi ties can be viewed as part of that larger process of diplomacy.
As such, Israel might not lose out. Saudi Arabia can now articulate its concerns to Iran through diplomacy, rather than being at loggerheads. Countries tend to listen more than they have a way to speak and engage with one another, rather than portraying each other as enemies. New ties could reduce the Iranian threats.
Israeli fighter jets and refueler aircraft on Sunday began a two-week air drill with the US Air Force at an airbase in Nevada, a joint activity thought to be focused on Iran, with officials saying the exercises would include long-range flights and simulate strikes in unfamiliar enemy territory.
The seven F-35I fighter jets and two Boeing 707 refueling planes of the Israeli Air Force had been arriving at Nellis Air Force Base since Wednesday, ahead of the drill, known as Red Flag 23-2.
In a statement Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said the exercises would include a “strategic strike in the depth,” an apparent reference to a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Additionally, the air drills would simulate “achieving aerial superiority in the region, joint aerial strikes, area defense, interception of enemy aircraft, low-altitude flights and striking in an unfamiliar area with an abundance of anti-aircraft defenses.”
During the drill, the IAF refueler planes were to refuel American fighter jets, and Israeli fighter jets were to refuel from an American Boeing KC-46, of which Israel has ordered four and is expected to receive the first in 2025.
For Israel, the KC-46 aircraft are seen as necessary to conduct potential major strikes against targets in Iran, some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from Israel and far outside the normal flight range of Israeli jets.
Hmmm pic.twitter.com/C2FAtmRwQA
— Mike (@Doranimated) March 11, 2023