The Path to Acceptance: Why an Israeli-Saudi Normalization Agreement is So Important — and Why it Hasn’t Happened
Despite its military and economic strength, Israel is a mere 76 years old. For a region defined by empires rather than election cycles, that is hardly time to get over the initial shock of the creation of the Jewish state, let alone accept it as a legitimate partner. Slowly, however, Israel is becoming integrated into the fold of the Middle East. With the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, and the UAE joined the small-but-growing ranks of Arab countries to recognize Israel and establish normal diplomatic relations. Israel’s foremost partner, the United States, is similarly interested in promoting diplomatic solutions. The Biden administration had engendered a wave of normalization and de-escalation agreements, notably ones normalizing relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the ending of the Qatar blockade. It appeared a new era of cooperation was dawning, and in 2020, the Biden and Israeli administrations laid their eyes on a previously unthinkable goal: normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
At the beginning of the 2020s, it seemed the stars had aligned for the deal. The Houthis, originally viewed as a ragtag and dysfunctional extremist group, had become a formidable foe on the Saudi border with the help of Iranian funding. The situation was untenable for the Saudis, who do not have the capacity to deal with a constant threat on their borders. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, Saudi Arabia is the world’s fourth-largest importer of weapons while coming in at 91st on the list of the world’s largest weapons exporters. They cannot build an army on their own, and they are fully reliant on the West not only for the weapons themselves, but for the implementation thereof.
At the same time Saudi Arabia began to feel the pressure build on its border with Yemen, the United States was reconsidering its relationship with the Saudi regime. Outraged by the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamaal Khashoggi and in the process of attempting a dramatic pivot towards green energy, American lawmakers began to question whether they were getting as much out of the relationship with Saudi Arabia as they were putting in. Additionally, the Americans were questioning the Saudis’ ability to effectively manage their American weapons following their failure to prevent the Houthi’s rise. American officials had urged the Saudis to wind down their war, but the Houthis had no such interest, seeing a potential American disengagement as an opportunity to complete their takeover of Yemen.
In September 2019, the Saudis’ worst fears were realized when an Iranian attack on Saudi oil production facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais resulted in the largest single-day disruption in oil production in world history. In a shocking abandonment of the Carter doctrine, which had served as the foundation of American policy in the Gulf since the 1980s, the United States failed to respond to the attack on their ally and interest. The Saudis, feeling shocked and betrayed, set about ensuring that this would never happen again. More than anything else, Saudi Arabia sought to renegotiate the terms of their protection agreement with the United States. Thus, a treaty guarantee of defense, such as the Japan mutual security treaty, would likely be enough of an incentive for the Saudis to normalize their relations with Israel.
Luckily for them, current events would work in Saudi Arabia’s favor in their pursuit of a defense guarantee. Most important was the price of oil, which had skyrocketed as a result of a post-pandemic spike in demand. Perhaps as a response to the declining relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, the Saudis rebuffed President Joe Biden’s multiple requests for the Saudis to produce more oil and bring the price down, hurting the President domestically. The power of the Saudi trump card — oil prices — was rearing its head again despite the President’s best efforts. The crisis forced the United States to put their retrenchment efforts in the Gulf on hold, but it was clear that the relationship between the Saudis and Americans badly needed a reset. Thus, both the Saudis and Americans looked to Israel as a vehicle for normalized relations.
While the world was pushing Saudi Arabia closer to Israel, so too, it seemed, was the world pushing Israel towards Saudi Arabia. Tensions with Iran had been rising for decades and showed no signs of stopping amidst the countries’ mutual declarations of enmity. Israel was looking for every opportunity to further isolate Iran in both the Arab and Western world and saw an alliance with the Middle East’s richest country as a key step in creating an axis to oppose Iran and its proxies. Additionally, a controversial law to remake the Israeli Supreme Court had sparked mass protests in Israel, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was becoming more unpopular by the day. A deal with Saudi Arabia would have been a legacy-defining moment, and perhaps would have succeeded in bringing more centrist voices into his coalition. This would have allowed him to discard the far-right lawmakers he was grudgingly forced to accept into his coalition upon the formation of his government. For all intents and purposes, it seemed the time had come for Saudi-Israeli peace. There was just one problem: the Palestinian question.
The Abraham Accords, the most consequential normalization agreement in recent Middle Eastern history, did not address the Palestinian question. Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman believes that a deal with Israel that provides no relief to the Palestinian people will greatly anger both Saudi citizens and the royal family, the vast majority of whom support the Palestinian pursuit for self-determination. The Crown Prince believes that a deal that includes some kind of resolution to the conflict would both legitimize him further in the eyes of his people and assert him as the leader of the Arab world. Additionally, the Crown Prince is not the only party for whom an answer to the Palestinian question is non-negotiable. To secure the deal, Saudi Arabia would need concessions from the United States, such as support for a civilian nuclear program and a formal defense pact. Without some sort of progress on the conflict included as part of the deal, such concessions have no hope of passing the United States Congress.
It is this final piece of the puzzle that has been run through the shredder in the wake of the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas and the ensuing war. With the conflict raging and Israel’s prosecution of the war the subject of protests throughout both the Arab and Western world, the window for normalization appears to have been slammed shut for the time being. In time, that window may yet open again, but there is no doubt that Israel’s quest for acceptance has taken a backseat to its fight for survival.
