JERUSALEM, March 12 (Portal) – Saudi-Iranian détente is throwing back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to isolate Tehran, but time will tell if it also includes his reach into Riyadh or planning an eventual military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites handicapped.
The more pressing concern for Israel, some experts argue, is that the China-brokered deal between top Sunni and Shia Muslim powers on Friday suggests the United States will relent in the region just as the Netanyahu government says it will urgent needs.
An Israeli official, who asked not to be identified, described the détente as an unsurprising and preliminary process that should not impede parallel advances toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. After all, Israel has moved closer to the United Arab Emirates, although Abu Dhabi also engages Tehran.
Meanwhile, Israel maintains a campaign of veiled threats to attack Iran alone when it sees nuclear diplomacy as a dead end.
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But all scenarios still depend on Washington — a sponsor and sweetener of the Israeli-Arab peace accords and protective ally that Israel will be reluctant to transgress if it signals military action.
“This is a brilliant strike by China and Iran to undermine Saudi-American and Saudi-Israeli normalization. It helps bring Tehran out of the cold and undermines American and Israeli efforts to build a regional coalition to confront Iran as it stands on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons,” said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
However, there are unrelated strains on the Israeli-US alliance. President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which has not yet invited Netanyahu to the White House, has expressed unusually strong concerns about his religious-nationalist coalition.
Netanyahu is also being beset by unprecedented mass demonstrations in Israel against his push for judicial reform. The protests included a promise by some Air Force reservists not to show up for training, a signal that combat readiness and morale were being shaken.
WAKE-UP CALL
Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief under Netanyahu, said the Saudi-Iranian detente should be a wake-up call.
“The government’s focus on the judicial overhaul that is tearing the nation apart and weakening Israel in all dimensions reflects a deep disconnect between Netanyahu and international geopolitical trends,” Yadlin said on Twitter.
Yadlin accused Netanyahu of “causing extraordinary damage to our national security” and said he should abandon the reforms – which critics say are an attempt to subordinate the government’s courts – and join forces with Biden to forge Israeli-Saudi ties and work together address Iran’s nuclear program.
That suggested that Yadlin — who was among the pilots who bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and served as a top general during the 2007 Israeli attack on a suspected reactor in Syria — might not place much value on Israel’s ability to stand alone against the To take action against Iran, whose nuclear facilities are removed, dispersed and defended.
Similarly, Ehud Barak, a former Netanyahu defense minister-turned-political critic, described Iran as “confidently on the path to becoming a de facto nuclear emerging power.”
“US-Israeli coordination seems strong on defense but weak and needs to be changed on attack,” he wrote in the best-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons.
Eitan Ben-David, a former deputy national security adviser to Netanyahu, said Israel is building capacity to take necessary unilateral military action, with the US partnership and possible alliances with the Gulf Arabs being a secondary priority.
Saudi Arabia is aware of the key US role in the region and the value of bilateral relations with Israel, he said.
“Even today there are vigorous efforts to deepen, renew and advance these connections — with US participation, of course, but also directly,” Ben-David told Israeli public radio Kan.
The New York Times reported over the weekend that Riyadh wants help to develop a civilian nuclear program and ease restrictions on US arms purchases in exchange for normalizing relations with Israel.
Yadlin warned of Netanyahu, who was politically squeezed at home and at odds with the White House, accommodating such calls “in his eagerness to uphold a Saudi peace plan as an achievement.”
The Saudi government media office did not immediately respond to a Portal request for comment on the New York Times report. Saudi Arabia has linked any move by the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel to a resolution of Palestinian statehood goals.
For its part, the White House appeared to downplay China’s involvement in the development on Friday. National Security spokesman John Kirby said the White House believes internal and external pressures, including an effective Saudi deterrent against attacks from Iran or its proxies, ultimately brought Tehran to the table.
Writing by Dan Williams, editing by William Maclean
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