Patience Is the Key to Bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords

There is little doubt that Riyadh and Jerusalem have been strengthening their relationship behind the scenes for many years, and 2022 and 2023 saw much speculation in the Israeli press about the possibility of diplomatic normalization. While Eran Lerman is sanguine about the prospects in the long run, he also cautions against inflated expectations:

Israel must take into account that the diplomatic, political (i.e., intra-dynastic), and social dynamics in the Saudi kingdom are highly complex—and not easy to discern for observers from the outside or even from within. As the Saudis themselves are ready to admit, it will not be easy to remove overnight the legacy of decades of the Saudi population being fed a poisonous flow of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement. [Excessive] Israeli pressure—let alone dragging the issue down into the stormy Israeli partisan political arena—would do more harm than good. . . . The Arab saying, al-‘ajalah min al-shaytan—haste is from the devil—is an excellent guide to the insights necessary for conducting Israeli policy toward the Saudis at present.

It is clear to the Saudis, as well as to the Abraham Accords nations and the Biden administration, that the present Israeli government—like its predecessor—cannot find a zone of any possible agreement with Palestinian demands in the foreseeable future. However, unlike the UAE, the Saudis are not ready to take the issue off the table; and the Palestinians welcomed their position.

Expectations in Israel should therefore be modified. Even slow and measured progress with the Saudis could run into severe difficulties if Israel comes to be perceived as moving from “conflict management” toward a decisive situational transformation. . . . Caution and sound judgment are needed on issues that may have a bearing on the prospects for (measured) progress with the Saudis—and equally important, on the ability to persuade Washington to lend a hand in this effort.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Abraham Accords, Israel diplomacy, Saudi Arabia

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF