After Iran and Saudi Arabia announced their agreement to formally restore diplomatic ties, Israel is now realizing that normalizing relations with the Kingdom is not that easy to reach.
After years of cold relations and political tensions, Iran and Saudi Arabia finally decided on this Friday to break the ice and restore diplomatic ties. According to the agreement between Tehran and Riyadh, which was inked in China, embassies and other forms of diplomatic relations between the two sides will be completely resumed within two months.
The new was most of a shock for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, since coming to power this past January, has been restlessly trying to normalize Israel’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
For Netanyahu, normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthy Arab state, would not only legitimize Israel as a real state in the region and the world, but it also help Israel’s economy because Saudi Arabia has the potential to become one of the fixed customers of Israeli weapons an technology.
But there is an even bigger goal that Netanyahu hopes to achieve through allying with the Kingdom; and it is to contain, isolate and neutralize Iran and whatever threats it poses to Israel. The 73-year-old Israeli Prime Minister also hopes that in the event of attacking Iran, a scenario he is really interested in, having Riyadh beside Israel can increase the chance of victory and effectiveness of strikes against Iranian targets.
In a speech to American Jewish leaders last month, Netanyahu described a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia a reachable goal and one that he and his government are “working on in parallel with the goal of stopping Iran.”
Saudi Arabia disappointed Netanyahu like never before!
Many political experts in and out of Israel, however, believe that the Saudi-Iran normalization of ties that was announced Friday was like throwing cold water on all such ambitions. To read between the lines, the Kingdom’s surprising decision to restore relations with Israel’s biggest foe cannot leave any window of opportunity open for Netanyahu that, at least in the foreseeable future, he can get Saudi Arabia on his side against Iran.
The move has in fact left Israel largely alone as it leads the charge for diplomatic isolation of Iran and threats of a unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. What should be concerning for Netanyahu is that even the UAE, which has formally signed normalization agreements with Israel, decided last year to resume formal relations with Iran.
“It’s a blow to Israel’s notion and efforts in recent years to try to form an anti-Iran bloc in the region. So if you see the Middle East as a zero-sum game, which Israel and Iran do, a diplomatic win for Iran is very bad news for Israel”, says Yoel Guzansky, an expert on the Persian Gulf at the Israeli-based Institute for National Security Studies.
Hours after the announcement of friendly days ahead for Riyadh and Tehran, a senior Israeli official who was then traveling with Netanyahu on his trip to Rome, blamed both Israel and the US for the development; “The agreement is the result of weakness toward Tehran by the U.S., the West and the previous Israeli government, and this is why the Saudis started looking for new avenues. It was clear that this was going to happen” the official said Friday.
