US President Joe Biden is set to visit both Saudi Arabia and Israel, with many speculating that a normalization deal between the two Middle East regimes will be top on the agenda. According to all signs that we have received, is there any indication that Riyadh will sign a normalization deal with Tel Aviv & what will this mean?
On Wednesday, Joe Biden is scheduled to fly to Tel Aviv, where he will meet Israeli leaders, before heading off to Riyadh in order to participate in discussions with Saudi officials. In the lead up to his visit, the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, has endorsed the idea of a Middle East NATO, whilst Tel Aviv has been proposing a joint air defense pact in order to defend against Iran. Most prominently, however, has been the question of Saudi normalisation with Israel.
Whilst Saudi Arabia has long maintained, on an official level, that it will not normalize ties with Israel until there is a political solution to the Palestinian issue, this has not stopped Riyadh from inviting Israeli intelligence officials and others to the Kingdom on secret visits. Nor did it prevent Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, from allegedly playing a crucial role in the so-called “Abraham Accords”, under which Bahrain, the UAE, Sudan, and Morocco normalized ties with Tel Aviv, according to former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Any deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia would not be a “peace deal”, but primarily an economic one. This is because Riyadh and Tel Aviv are not at war and have already normalized ties with each other under the table. All that is now left is an official declaration to bring things out of the dark. Similar was the case when Manama and Abu Dhabi normalized ties. Except, in the case of Saudi Arabia, normalizing ties with Israel has the real potential to cause political unrest, hence, it is a touchy issue for Saudis.
According to reports this Monday, an aircraft, that was allegedly under the control of the Israeli Mossad, landed in Riyadh ahead of Biden’s visit to the region, in order to prepare for what is to come. In the past, Saudi Arabia has been careful to try and conceal such information and even got upset about leaked reports of a meeting between Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, back in 2020. At the time, Yoav Galant, then Israel’s minister of education, noted that “the very fact the meeting happened and was outed publicly, even if only half official right now, is a matter of great importance”. From this, some could read into it that perhaps Riyadh is attempting to warm people up to the idea of normalization.
Number one on the agenda for the United States is expected to be the formation of a Middle East air defense alliance. This would entail using Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf regimes, as part of an anti-Iran air defense alliance. The top goal being the defense of Israel from possible Iranian missile attacks. Such an alliance would do little for all the others involved. It would seem that the US is fixated on such a prospect, as talk from Washington indicates that President Biden will consider lifting its ban on the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, in addition to meeting with the Crown Prince, who he formerly refused to recognize as the country’s legitimate leader. Aside from that, the visit is likely to be focused around the issue of Saudi oil and its relationship with Moscow.
What is important to pay attention to, is that there has been little to no emphasis placed on solving the war in Yemen, nor solving the Palestinian issue. Israel is responsible for assassinating Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, yet faces no accountability, just as the Saudi forces continue to wage war in Yemen, and are being rewarded for it. Neither of these moves should be surprising in the moral analysis, as it is almost expected that the US government will never care about human rights. What is, however, surprising, is the lack of a coherent strategy in the Middle East from the point of view of Washington.
If the Biden administration is simply chasing normalization of ties between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, as its top priority, then it can only mean one of two things; the US government is looking for a symbolic win on the foreign policy front, or they are seeking to give Israel’s interim PM, Yair Lapid, something to run on against Benjamin Netanyahu in the November elections. It is no joke that the Democratic party clearly favors Israel being controlled by anyone but Netanyahu, but even this position would make no sense as Lapid will never reach the popularity of Netanyahu, hence, forming a government may turn out as a failure for the anti-Netanyahu block anyway.
If Washington is seeking a symbolic victory, a moment that will cement legacy for Biden, they are completely mistaken in this case. If implemented, even an anti-Iran air defense alliance will quickly crumble and be shown to be practically useless, whilst normalization of ties between the two does not help secure US imperial interests in the region, especially as it heads towards a crash course with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Allying the Saudi regime with Israel will pave the way to the demise of both.
So, will we see Saudi-Israeli normalization in the coming weeks? Anything is possible, but if Saudi Arabia’s rulers know what’s good for them, it’ll take a lot longer for such a normalization to come about. It is not really the US which holds the cards with Saudi Arabia, they cannot pressure Riyadh in the way they did Morocco or Sudan, it’s about what is right for Mohammed Bin Salman. Saudi Arabia could end up paving the way towards the creation of a new Hejaz railroad project, connecting the Mediterranean to Asia, which would certainly bring all those involved major economic benefits. Yet such moves to normalize ties take time. Any alliance formed as a result of Biden’s meetings are sure to doom all parties involved to failure, especially in the face of the regional camp of resistance’s coming military offensives. If Washington can’t see this, in the long run it is doomed to failure in the Middle East.
