In Seeking Peace with Saudi Arabia, Israel Should Avoid Seeming Desperate

While David Weinberg is optimistic about the possibility of normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh, he fears that the Jewish state risks making unnecessary and even dangerous compromises in its eagerness for a deal. Israel occupies a position of strength, and should negotiate accordingly:

Too much zeal for a deal in Jerusalem will boomerang in Israel’s disfavor. Washington and Riyadh need the peace accord as much or more than Israel does right now, so they should pay for it—and not at Israel’s expense. Alas, it seems to me the over-ardor for a deal that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed in the U.S. . . . weakens Israel’s bargaining position. I hope that in behind-the-scenes negotiations Israel is playing a tougher game.

Let there be no mistake: I think that Israel stands at the brink of a grand, historic diplomatic breakthrough. Peace with Saudi Arabia, and by extension an effective end to 100 years of Arab-Israeli conflict, truly is at hand. . . . The opportunity should be embraced, even by Republicans who dislike the boost that President Joe Biden’s administration would get from a deal, and even by left-wing Israelis and liberal Diaspora Jews who detest the boost that Netanyahu would get from a deal.

For two decades, Israel has sought to block the Iranian nuclear program because it is aimed at producing multiple nuclear weapons aimed at Israel. Now Saudi Arabia is asking for U.S. support for a Saudi civilian nuclear program that includes uranium enrichment. Can Israel swallow this in the context of regional peace, or is the danger of a Saudi nuclear program going military down the road too high? Wouldn’t Israeli acquiescence in a Saudi program almost assuredly guarantee and legitimize Turkish and Egyptian nuclear programs?

[Another] issue is the Palestinian Authority, which Israel can bolster but not reward because it remains thoroughly anti-Semitic, violent, rejectionist, and corrupt. But if Israel makes commitments to the U.S. and/or Saudi Arabia about steps to calm the situation in the territories, and if the Saudis begin investing billions in propping up the Palestinian Authority (as their way of compensating for the peace with Israel)—what will be when Israel inevitably must strike at its enemies? Will Israel’s hands be tied?

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel-Arab relations, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Saudi Arabia

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy