Saudi-Iran deal rattles Israel, jolts Netanyahu
JERUSALEM — Israeli leaders have for years considered Iran an existential threat, viewed Saudi Arabia as a potential partner and hoped that shared fears of Tehran might help forge formal relations for the first time with Riyadh.
The news of a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday was therefore greeted in Israel with surprise, anxiety and introspection. It also compounded a sense of national peril set off by profound domestic divisions about the policies of the government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And it seemed to catch Netanyahu — who has long presented himself as the Israeli leader best qualified to fight Iran and most able to charm Saudi Arabia — off guard.
The announcement undermined Israeli hopes of forming a regional security alliance against Iran. It suggested that although other countries in the Middle East may see Iran as a menace, they see little gain in isolating and opposing Tehran to the extent that Israel does. Israel views Iran and its nuclear weapons program as a danger to Israel’s very survival. But the Saudi decision was a reminder of how Iran’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf see Tehran as a troublesome neighbor that must nevertheless be engaged with.
These realizations also sparked soul-searching about Israel’s internal crisis. Israelis are currently consumed and divided by a contentious government proposal to increase its control over the judiciary. To politicians in both the government and the opposition, the news underscored how that domestic turmoil risked distracting the country from more urgent concerns such as the threat of Iran.
For Netanyahu, the news was perceived as particularly damaging. For years, his two chief foreign policy goals have been the isolation of Iran and the normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia, which has never recognized Israel. Although analysts agreed that the timing of the Saudi decision had little to do with Netanyahu, who reentered office in December, it still provided his opponents with a chance to present him as weak on foreign policy.
“The agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a complete and dangerous failure of the Israeli government’s foreign policy,” Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition, said in a post on social media. “This is what happens when you deal with legal madness all day instead of doing the job.”
Netanyahu, who is in Italy, did not issue a formal statement, and his office ignored requests for comment. But an anonymous senior Israeli official quoted in Israeli news reports and widely assumed to be Netanyahu briefed reporters traveling with the prime minister that Lapid’s administration, which left office in December, was to blame for the Iranian-Saudi thaw.
Some Israeli experts on Iranian and Persian Gulf affairs said it was long known that Riyadh was negotiating with Tehran.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have never had formal ties, because of Saudi reservations about recognizing Israel before a resolution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.
Israel normalized relations in 2020 with three other Arab countries — Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates — as leaders there appeared to calculate that the economic, technological and military benefits derived from a relationship with Israel superseded the importance of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Although Friday’s announcement suggested that Riyadh was not rushing to follow suit, Saudi officials have still been quietly discussing with U.S. counterparts about their conditions for normalization with Israel at some point in the future.
“I don’t think it is such a terrible thing for Israel,” said Sima Shine, an Iran expert and former senior official in the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. “In a way, it even improves the possibility of kind of a normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”