‘After the holidays” is fast approaching, and the weeks and months ahead will likely see some dramatic and possibly far-reaching historic decisions in a number of spheres.
While attention will initially be focused on the government’s plan to advance the judicial overhaul and the demand by the haredi parties to pass a law exempting yeshiva students from military service, a potential tripartite deal between Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel, involving normalization of ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem, may overshadow domestic squabbles while simultaneously providing a much-needed boost to a beleaguered prime minister.
Contacts have been taking place for many months, but after last week’s United Nations General Assembly gathering the timetable now appears much closer than originally thought.
MBS gave a crucial interview to Fox News
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, gave an interview to Fox News during the General Assembly, saying that “every day we get closer” to normalizing ties with Israel, and describing a potential breakthrough as “the biggest historical deal since the Cold War.”
Even though a green light from Jerusalem is an obvious requirement for such an agreement, the substantive negotiations are being conducted between Washington and Riyadh. While the parties are keeping tight-lipped over the details of the emerging deal, the key elements are known: a defense pact between the US and Saudi Arabia; a civilian nuclear program for Riyadh; and Saudi normalization with Israel.
But MBS also stressed the centrality of the Palestinian issue as part of a deal.
“For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part,” the crown prince said. “We hope that will reach a place, that it will ease the life of the Palestinians, get Israel as a player in the Middle East,” he said.
Washington is also stressing the importance of the Palestinian element of any deal.
“One of the things... we have communicated... to our Israeli counterparts is that there will have to be a significant Palestinian component of any final agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “The Saudi Arabian government has made that clear publicly; they’ve made it clear to us privately.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his address to the General Assembly, which was broadcast live in Saudi Arabia, confirmed that Israel was “on the cusp” of a historic peace agreement with Riyadh.
“There’s no question the Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace. But I believe that we are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough, an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Netanyahu said. “Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East.”
In a Fox News interview he indicated that the window for such a deal was soon. “I think we are getting closer to peace with each passing day. We have a limited window of opportunity to reach an agreement in the coming months; otherwise, the process could take years,” he said.
This week’s visit to Saudi Arabia by Tourism Minister Haim Katz at the head of an Israeli delegation to a United Nations World Tourism Organization conference was a timely reminder that ties are warming. Katz became the first Israeli minister to visit the kingdom publicly.
“Tourism is a bridge between peoples. Collaborating in tourism can bring people together and stimulate the growth of economies,” he said. “I will seek to forge partnerships to promote tourism and Israel’s international relations.”
WHILE WASHINGTON will need to allay Israeli fears concerning both a defense pact and providing Riyadh with nuclear enrichment capability, there is no doubt that for Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners, the most worrying aspect of a potential deal is the possibility of Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.
During a visit to Ramallah this week to present his credentials to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the new Saudi envoy, Nayef al-Sudairi, who is also ambassador to Jordan, stated that Riyadh “is working towards establishing a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.”
Such comments are a red flag to a bull, as far as the Israeli Right, still haunted by the specter of Oslo, are concerned. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionist Party, already made clear his redlines during talks with Netanyahu before the prime minister’s US trip. These reportedly include no territorial concessions; no evacuation of outposts; no settlement construction freeze of any kind; and no transfer of weapons to the PA. Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of Otzma Yehudit, holds similar positions.
There is also significant opposition within the Likud Knesset faction to making any far-reaching gestures to the Palestinians. Just before the September 20 New York meeting between US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu, 12 Likud MKs published an open letter welcoming the possibility of normalization with Saudi Arabia “without relinquishing homeland territories and without equipping the Palestinians with lethal weapons.
“Israel stands by its rights, irrespective of the peace efforts, both on the war on terror and on enforcing the law regarding illegal Palestinian construction,” the letter stated.
In other words, the prime minister is unable to make any significant concessions to the Palestinians if he wants to keep his coalition intact.
The only room for maneuverability appears to be in the economic sphere: a massive transfer of Saudi funds to the cash-strapped PA, with some kind of monitoring mechanism in place to ensure the money is channeled to civilian projects.
The option of Netanyahu bringing in either Benny Gantz’s or Yair Lapid’s party to replace his two far-right coalition partners is not a realistic option at this juncture. The leaders of those parties have indicated that they may be willing to support a Saudi normalization deal from the opposition (with Lapid adding a caveat that he will only support a deal that doesn’t pave the way for a Saudi nuclear program), but they will not join a Netanyahu government.
The hope in some circles for a broad-based unity coalition, without the far-right parties, coalescing around a Saudi normalization deal, remains divorced from political reality at this juncture.
YAAKOV AMIDROR, former national security adviser under Netanyahu, is today a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.
In an interview with KAN, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, Amidror argued that the main obstacle to reaching a compromise on the Palestinian issue in the framework of a normalization deal will be with the Americans, not the Saudis. He urged Israel to be generous in granting economic benefits but not to repeat what he termed “the mistakes of the Oslo process.”
“We must allow the strengthening of the Palestinian Authority and allow the Palestinians to live better lives, but during Oslo a situation was created where we couldn’t fight terrorism. We must maintain the ability to act in areas A [of Judea and Samaria] to ensure security. This is a redline we cannot cross, along with maintaining full Israeli control over the Jordan Valley.”
Whereas possible gestures to the Palestinians are the most pressing issue for right-wing lawmakers, for many security and intelligence experts, enabling Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium is a much more worrying development.
Saudi Arabia not permitted
Last week a bipartisan group of 27 nuclear and Middle East experts urged Biden not to permit Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its soil, warning that such a development could trigger a regional nuclear arms race.
In an effort to allay these fears, Riyadh agreed this week to full inspection of its nuclear activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But, according to Amidror, such a promise is inadequate.
“Any inspection regime, however aggressive, is not enough, because it can be canceled overnight. Look what the Iranians did, for example. Therefore we must demand from the Americans and Saudis something else – that if the Americans are not there, the Saudis will not be able to enrich uranium,” he said.
And the bottom line: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” he warned. “The emerging deal has benefits and risks for Israel. We have to weigh the benefits against the risks.”
Despite the hype following the UN General Assembly, normalization is far from a done deal. Biden clearly seeks an agreement to present a major foreign policy achievement ahead of next November’s election, but Washington is also weighing benefits against risks. Any agreement would require Senate support, and there remains significant opposition within the Democratic Party to a deal with Saudi Arabia, because of Riyadh’s abysmal human rights record.
If Netanyahu is seeking a major diplomatic breakthrough to forge his legacy, then normalization with Saudi Arabia fits the bill perfectly. Opinion polls following the prime minister’s return from New York already indicated a boost in his personal standing.
There is no doubt that other Muslim countries would follow suit, if Riyadh establishes diplomatic ties with Israel. But talk of a new Middle East are premature. Normalization would not end Palestinian aspirations for statehood, Gaza is going nowhere, and Iran will remain a belligerent enemy state on the cusp of a nuclear threshold.