After the announcement of the renewal of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, mutual recriminations began to fly among the politicians in Israel. A senior political source in Rome, who by coincidence was celebrating his anniversary there, on Friday blamed the previous prime ministers, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, saying the rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran began on their watch. Meanwhile, Bennett and Lapid argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was so busy plotting the judicial coup that he stopped devoting time and attention to strategic issues, first among them the apple of his eye, stopping the Iranian nuclear project.
There is something to be said for the claims of both sides, and in both cases they are almost irrelevant. Israel, as usual, is certain that it is the center of the Middle East, if not the whole world. But it seems that behind the renewed Saudi-Iranian ties, after a disconnect of seven years, were cold calculations by the two longtime rivals that have almost nothing to do with Israel. The early signs, as Netanyahu argues, indeed accumulated during the Bennett-Lapid government (although negotiations began during Netanyahu’s previous term). But Israel could not do much to persuade the Saudis to change their minds.
To a certain extent the reconciliation stems from a change of leadership of the world powers, and not of Israeli governments. For years now, the United States has been signaling its intention to limit its involvement in the Middle East, while China has increased its own. The Chinese were in fact major go-betweens in the last round of talks, which ended successfully. The wake-up call for Saudi Arabia actually came during the Trump administration, which was considered very friendly to the kingdom. This was in 2019, when the Iranians caused major damage to the Aramco oil facilities in Saudi Arabia with drones and cruise missiles, while the Americans refrained from responding.
The government in the United Arab Emirates was the first to draw the conclusion when shortly thereafter, it withdrew from the war with the Houthis in Yemen, who are Iran’s allies. Now that the Saudis realize that the United States will not fight for them against Iran, that China is ready to broker a reconciliation and that Iran continues to grow stronger as a regional military power, perhaps it’s not surprising that they have chosen reconciliation, despite the boundless hatred between them and the ongoing competition for hegemony in the Middle East.
Even after the decision, which has not yet been put into action, there may still be a chance for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Saudi conditions, which were reported in Haaretz in December, and in American media outlets on Thursday, are directed mainly at the United States, not Israel. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, seeks a public alliance with Washington, equal status to that of NATO members in purchasing advanced American weapons, and a green light from the White House for a controversial Saudi civilian nuclear project. In the background, albeit less important, is the diplomatic process with the Palestinians that Netanyahu has refused for years to move forward. Riyadh can elegantly ignore events in the West Bank, but if the Temple Mount once again becomes the center of violent confrontation, it will probably not remain completely indifferent.
Before Netanyahu began to focus on the judicial coup, he energetically marketed two strategic promises ahead of his return to power, which were intertwined: One was full normalization with Saudi Arabia and the other was a solution, hinting at one of a military nature, to the nuclear threat from Iran. These baseless ideas are long gone from the agenda. As for an Israeli assault, despite the fairly aggressive line the Biden administration has adopted recently against the Iranian nuclear project, it seems that the airlift of senior American officials here over the past two months is meant to ensure the opposite: that Israel will under no circumstances operate in Iran without American permission.
Tehran, after a difficult time, is strengthening its strategic status. The first important move was drawing closer to Russia, although its military assistance to Russia in its war against Ukraine earned it a cold shoulder from the West. The second move was reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, with China as a key party to the agreement.
At the same time, Iran continues to advance toward the point marked in the West and in Israel as a red line – producing uranium enriched to weapons-grade 90 percent. The events of recent months have revealed Netanyahu’s empty talk when it comes to Iran. His fantasies of an Israeli-Sunni alliance in stopping the Iranians, going so far as a joint assault, are dissipating. At the moment they seem as real as the promise of “sovereignty on Sunday” that he made to the settlers in 2020 in connection with then-President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century.” This Israeli-Sunni alliance now looks about as realistic as annexation of the West Bank.
Trouble at home
The pace of events reported on Thursday night’s news was simply insane even in the extraordinary times Israel is experiencing. In the span of seven or eight hours, the pilot Col. (res.) Gilad Peled was suspended from reserve duty, the massive protests were renewed in Tel Aviv, the commander of the Tel Aviv District police, Maj. Gen. Ami Eshed, was transferred from his post and three young Israelis were shot and injured by a Palestinian terrorist in the heart of Tel Aviv. If this were a segment of a television series, we would say the scriptwriters had lost control of the plot.
In the midst of the drama, Netanyahu and his wife were spirited to Ben-Gurion airport in a police helicopter, with an air force helicopter for backup and deception, so they could make it to their flight to Italy on time. Netanyahu was informed of the continuing events of that evening, sometimes tardily, during his official visit to Rome. The broadcasting conditions from Italy were far from ideal, but on the news programs (which quickly became continuous live broadcasts) Netanyahu looked gray and exhausted and even a little out of it.
It is becoming more and more difficult to imagine how he will emerge victorious from the most important political battle of his life.
The senior ministers in Likud, except for Justice Minister Yariv Levin, are aware of Netanyahu’s dire predicament, and it looks like most of them would prefer to reach a compromise that will stop the protests, before they expand further. The junior ministers are the main figures going wild in their responses, along with back-bench Likud MKs and the rest of the toadies to the father and son. Under these circumstances, in other countries, one of the leader’s close associates would get up, approach him behind closed doors and suggest that it was time to compromise and cut their losses.
At the moment, it’s hard to see who would bear this burden. Not the senior ministers, who are fleeing for their lives from the protest vigils of the reserve officers that pursue them everywhere; not the circle of Netanyahu’s advisers, who are significantly weaker than the “hive” that accompanied him in previous terms; certainly not his family. It is also hard to gamble on the leaders of the defense establishment in this matter, who are younger than he by a decade and a half, and who were barely officers or were minor officials the last time he was elected prime minister, nearly 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, the two dismissals Thursday were rightly aborted. On Friday, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara froze the transfer of Maj. Gen. Eshed due to the suspicion that it was illegal. Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai was quick to obey, despite another verbal assault by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on the attorney general. To some extent, this was a preview of the constitutional crisis that may await up the road. Shabtai chose to accede to the judicial authorities, not the government.
A few hours later came the U-turn of Air Force Commander Tomer Bar, who had suspended Col. Peled from the reserves with the intention of dismissing him after receiving a go-ahead from the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, on the grounds that Peled had coordinated a decision not to report for duty with other reserve pilots. This accusation, as Peled immediately stated, was untrue. Bar, to his credit, re-examined the issue and came to his senses. Later he was told that his decision to cancel the suspension may have saved the air force. Hundreds of other air force reservists had been considering resigning from active service if Peled had been dismissed.
The IDF Spokesman’s Office released a logically worded statement. Unfortunately, someone saw to it beforehand to leak the lie that Peled has apologized in a conversation. He’d had no reason to apologize – and indeed there is no trace of this in the spokesman’s statement. Peled told his friends that he would be present Saturday night at the protest on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv. Among the scheduled speakers were two of his former commanders who greatly admire him: former IDF Chief of Staff MK Gadi Eisenkot and former Israel Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Eshel.
The well-oiled spin and propaganda machine developed by the Netanyahu family over the past decade has for the first time found a fitting adversary: hundreds of thousands of Israelis, more aware than ever of their situation and their rights. The work of the protest leadership is coordinated by some of the sharpest minds in the country, in high tech, business, air force veterans and veterans of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit and the intelligence community. No wonder the prime minister is sweating.
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