Several weeks ago, I raised a question in my weekly column that the Biden administration’s Middle East shop is no doubt asking itself on a daily basis: Would a normalization pact between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Washington’s two most significant partners in the region, actually provide the United States with tangible security benefits? The answer, as I suggested, depends on what price the U.S. is willing to pay to move an accord across the goal line.
Since then, the prospects of an Israeli-Saudi deal have stayed roughly the same. It’s still a heavy lift, and despite President Joe Biden’s confidence that an agreement is in progress, his advisers are far more skeptical. The entire effort, however, has become more convoluted. There are a multitude of actors at the negotiating table beyond Israel and Saudi Arabia — and if the history of diplomacy tells us anything, it’s that the chance of a successful negotiation goes down immeasurably when the number of participants goes up.
Indeed, the whole notion of Israeli and Saudi diplomats engaging in a white-knuckled negotiation is a bit deceiving and doesn’t begin to grasp what’s truly going on. In reality, four separate negotiations are happening simultaneously, and the one occurring between the Israelis and Saudis may not even be the main event.
First, we have intensive discussions going on between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk, Biden’s top Middle East policy official, have all flown to the kingdom and spent considerable time with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. As one would expect, the crown prince is trying to use the prospect of open ties with Israel to extract maximum concessions from Washington, including a U.S. security guarantee for the kingdom and U.S. support for a Saudi nuclear energy program.
Although the White House hasn’t ruled anything out, a formal (or even informal) U.S. pledge to defend Saudi Arabia from attack would rub a lot of U.S. lawmakers the wrong way. This is the same country, for instance, whose leadership approved the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and U.S. permanent resident, and used one of its diplomatic facilities to commit the slaying. This is also the same country Biden vowed to treat as a pariah during the 2020 presidential campaign. Signing on to Saudi Arabia’s demands would essentially be a 180-degree turn from his previous position, one Biden would have a difficult time justifying.
Talks are also occurring between Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, a governing entity whose legitimacy in the eyes of the Palestinian population has depreciated markedly over the years. In 2020, when the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco agreed to normalize their relations with Israel, Palestinian officials were left on the outside looking in. One senior Palestinian official at the time likened the normalization deals to a “poison dagger
More Top Picks Pizza Ovens
” at the heart of Palestinian statehood aspirations. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has no intention of reliving the experience and has urged the Saudis to protect Palestinian interests as it engages Israel diplomatically.Unfortunately for the Saudi monarchy, it can’t simply disregard what the Palestinians are saying. While Prince Mohammed may not have much love for the Palestinian leadership, he can’t afford to bring the kingdom’s bilateral relationship with Israel out in the open without some support from the Arab street. The best way to receive this support is by earning concessions on behalf of the Palestinians. At the same time, the Saudis are hoping that the promise of financial aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, which Riyadh suspended in 2021, will give Abbas enough of an incentive to get out of the way.
Meanwhile, the Israelis and Americans are talking among themselves. As much as Israel would like to normalize ties with Riyadh, it remains concerned with some of what the Saudis are asking. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with McGurk last month and presented him with a list of reservations. At the top of the list: the possibility of Washington supporting a Saudi nuclear program, which could mean the enrichment of uranium on Saudi soil. Such a development would be a big deal for Israel, which has maintained a decadeslong policy of preventing regional states from acquiring nuclear weapons. The Saudis continue to insist that any nuclear program would be purely civilian in nature. Yet Prince Mohammed is also on record stating matter-of-factly that Saudi Arabia would construct a nuclear weapon if Iran did the same.
The last thing the Israelis want is a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Finally, there are discussions going on in Washington. The Biden administration has briefed senior senators on the entire Israel-Saudi normalization track to ensure they are kept abreast of what is going on and to begin cobbling together the congressional support that may be required if the Senate is tasked with approving whatever deal is drafted. This will be a heavy lift for the White House, particularly if a U.S. security guarantee on behalf of Saudi Arabia is part of it.
There is no love lost between Capitol Hill and the kingdom; the stench of the Khashoggi killing, not to mention Riyadh’s adversarial oil policies and pitiful human rights record, hover over the Capitol dome. Lawmakers will rightly ask why the U.S. is willing to bend over backward for the kingdom, whose interests often undercut America’s own.
The bottom line: There are multiple threads attached to a potential Israel-Saudi normalization deal, any one of which could unravel the entire project. For the U.S., the job remains the same — getting the best deal possible at the most reasonable price.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the baiduhai.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].