A delegation of Saudi academics, businessmen, and other notables, led by a retired general, came to Jerusalem last week, where they met with Knesset members as well as with Dore Gold, Israel’s top diplomat. Aaron David Miller comments on the visit’s significance:

No current Saudi officials were included, but the visit could not have happened without high-level governemnt approval. This is not necessarily a harbinger of strengthening ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But it indicates how Saudi Arabia and the region are changing. . . .

[N]on-governmental meetings between Israelis and Saudis in academic and policy forums are fairly common. . . . But publicly announced meetings in Jerusalem at the King David hotel are different. The nominal purpose was discussion of the 2002 [Saudi peace] initiative. . . . It stands out that the Saudis did not call for Israel’s blanket acceptance of the 2002 initiative [as they have previously done]. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken about his willingness to accept the Saudi plan—with modifications. . . .

A decade ago, sending a Saudi delegation to Israel without some significant quid pro quo or breakthrough in the peace process would have been unimaginable. . . . [But] testing the waters is one thing; to make major and unmatched concessions on a matter that still resonates broadly and deeply amid the Arab world’s divides and dysfunction would be quite another. The Saudis may be less hostile to Israel, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t require big concessions as the price of getting closer.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”