Concessions for Peace: The Expected High Costs of Israel-Saudi Ties
As speculation grows that Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States are working towards Saudi-Israel normalization, questions arise over the significant compromises that may be needed, and whether the price might be too high for some
Amid the flurry of speculation surrounding potential Saudi-Israel normalization, many questions about the conditions for such an agreement remain unanswered.
The deal would be a tripartite agreement between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The Biden Administration is “cautiously optimistic” that terms can be agreed within 10 months.
However, a panel of experts who discussed the matter this week concluded that “peace for peace’s sake,” as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously described the 2020 Abraham Accords, has never been a reality.
The webinar panel was hosted by the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) and the Regional Organization for Peace, Economics, and Security (ROPES), a non-profit NGO dedicated to leveraging the Abraham Accords and the Arab Peace Initiatives to connect people across the region. It was moderated by former Israeli lawmaker and ROPES Executive Director Ksenia Svetlova.
The panelists said that the paradigm of future Israel-Middle East relations will necessarily shift towards “concessions for peace,” as the previous concept of “land for peace” is too politically expensive and “peace for peace” has no leverage.
This means that normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia may come at a cost that would be too expensive for the current Israeli government.
If implemented improperly, the plan could backfire … [Without concessions from the US and Israel] any normalization with Israel could perhaps hinder or even exacerbate [problems]
“If implemented improperly, the plan could backfire,” said Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi panelist and fellow with the UK-based Sectarianism, Proxies and De-Sectarianization Project, which focuses on Saudi-Israel relations.
Alghashian said that Saudi Arabia’s primary goals in any agreement will focus on its own economic and security concerns. Without certain concessions from both the US and Israel, “any normalization with Israel could perhaps hinder or even exacerbate” some of those problems, he said.
Panelist Nir Boms, a former vice president of the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Herzliya, said that concessions will be at the heart of any normalization, as the word itself implies.
He said that the term “normalization” denotes the “old normal,” in which Israel existed despite the will of its neighbors, surrounded by animosity and conflict, whereas “the new normal we seek to create is to have Israel as an equal neighbor in the Middle East.”
Normalization such as the one achieved by the Abraham Accords does not necessarily mean tacit support by each country for one another’s policies, said the third and final panelist, Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar for the AGSIW. He said that normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel would be similar to the way that many European countries, and now Abraham Accords countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, deal with Israel.
“They have normal trade and direct relations, but reserve the right to reject the occupation and keep specific Israeli officials at arm’s length,” Ibish said.
Outlining the conditions for peace
It is important to understand the interests of the three parties necessary for a normalization deal: the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
For Israel, an agreement would be one of the top three diplomatic breakthroughs in its history, alongside gaining membership to the United Nations in 1949 and signing the peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, Ibish said.
It opens the door to forging diplomatic and commercial ties with every other Sunni majority state in the world
“It opens the door to forging diplomatic and commercial ties with every other Sunni majority state in the world,” he said.
It would also marginalize hostilities towards Israel from Iran and its proxies, and from extremist groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaida, all of whom are enemies of both Israel and Saudi Arabia.
However, contrary to popular belief, forming a joint opposition to Iran has little to do with the normalization negotiations.
Alghashian said the Saudis have always been pragmatic and are aiming for a “zero conflict” paradigm, with diversifying its economy and making the region prosper its primary concerns. Aiming for peace on the basis of mutual animus towards Iran “may even have disrupted normalization talks,” he said.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is more interested in what it can gain from Washington.
According to Ibish, Riyadh above all wants “a formalized security agreement with the United States to replace the Carter Doctrine,” by which the US only uses military force where necessary to defend its national interests.
The panelists agreed that for Saudi Arabia, economic benefits, while a bonus, are a secondary goal in normalization, as is the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That said, Saudi Arabia does not see enough utility in forging ties with Israel alone to leave out the Palestinian issue completely.
For this reason, Riyadh is attempting to leverage the talks in such a way as to alleviate Palestinian suffering.
Given the opposition from hard-right Israeli coalition partners such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the Netanyahu government may not be in a position to give in to Saudi demands regarding the Palestinians. So the Saudis may simply wait to finalize a deal until a more flexible government is in place.
In response to a question from The Media Line during the discussion, Boms said that Riyadh is likely already talking to members of the opposition in Israel’s Knesset.
As for the United States, it is the one driving a sense of urgency into the talks.
Ibish said that Washington is looking to solidify a unified front in the Middle East that could defend the three major points for international trade around the Arabian Peninsula: the Suez Canal, the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, and the Strait of Hormuz.
Keeping these channels open is particularly important in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as much of the world’s oil and food travels through these trade routes.
Similarly, the US is hoping for a quick resolution of concerns that Riyadh will move away from the US strategic framework and into the arms of BRICS, the emerging economic bloc based on the combined economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia were recently invited to join the BRICS bloc, starting from January 2024.
Washington’s rush to sign the deal with Saudi Arabia is apparently also why the US is pressuring Jerusalem to acquiesce to potential demands on the Palestinians.
Ibish said that from Washington’s perspective, the deal must include Israel, so as to sell the agreement to Congress.
The question remains whether the agreement can really be signed within the next 10 months. The current conditions and each party’s interests suggest that major change is needed to make that happen.
