Two days ago, Jerusalem announced that it will not be able to arrange the hoped-for direct flights to Saudi Arabia for Israeli Muslim pilgrims wishing to travel to Mecca for the hajj. This was but one of several recent news stories suggesting that formal diplomatic relations between the two countries will not emerge any time soon. Nonetheless, Robert Silverman sees a way forward:

[A]chieving Saudi-Israel normalization will take years of positive contact between Israelis and Saudis in order to counteract decades of demonization. Saudi institutions have drawn on the negative portrayals of Jews found in their religious tradition—ignoring positive portrayals that also exist.

The good news for eventual Saudi Arabia-Israel normalization is the potential synergy between the two countries’ economies (the largest and fourth-largest in the Middle East, respectively). That synergy—between Saudi finance and planning and Israeli technology and entrepreneurship—offers potential common ground on a positive agenda. The best thing that the U.S. government can do is to let Saudi and Israeli businesspeople explore the synergy without interference, encouraging the Saudi side and, where needed, providing seed capital for joint ventures.

Americans should have learned by now (after Bill Clinton’s Camp David summit in 2000 and John Kerry’s peace initiative in 2014, among others) that attempts to force the Middle East onto a U.S. presidential four-year cycle often ends in failure or worse, as in the second intifada.

If Saudi Arabia and Israel allow business ties, businesspeople will find each other and make deals. With business comes employment and familiarity with products and people. Over time, the portrayal of Jews in Saudi society will become more diverse, with positive remembrances of Jewish-Muslim interactions emerging from a long shared history. We should have the strategic patience to let this process take its time, at a Middle Eastern pace.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.