A year ago, Saudi Arabia was preparing to recognize Israel in a normalization deal that would have fundamentally reshaped the Middle East and further isolated Iran and its allies while barely lifting a finger to advance Palestinian statehood.
Now, that deal is further away than ever, even after the killing of the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, which has been widely seized upon as a potential opening for a peace deal. Instead, Saudi Arabia is warming relations with its traditional archenemy, Iran, while insisting that any diplomatic pact now hinges on Israel’s acceptance of a Palestinian state, a remarkable turnaround for the kingdom.
A diplomatic détente is underway in the Mideast, but not the one envisioned by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who continues to say that his administration can clinch a deal with Riyadh. This month, the foreign ministers of the Persian Gulf states met for the first time as a group with their Iranian counterpart. It is a shaky, early-stage rapprochement that will only chip away at centuries of sectarian antagonisms, but it represents a sharp shift in a region where the rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran has drenched the region in bloodshed for decades.
Tehran’s outreach continued after that, with the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, visiting Saudi Arabia before heading to other countries in the region, including Iraq and Oman, in an effort to ease tensions.
Israel was always incredibly unpopular with Arabs. Saudi Arabia, the friendliest Arab nation to Israel, has 90% of its citizens not approving of Israel. The only real “friends” of Israel in the middle east were countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia who have monarchies that don’t have to care as much about the opinions of the masses, to an extent of course. Either public dissent against Israel has reached a turning point where these monarchs have to care, or they’re starting to realize the Israel is becoming too emboldened and they won’t just stop at Palestine and Lebanon. Or both.
Probably both. If I were looking from the side and seeing Israel has a blank check and weapons from the US, casually bombing neighbouring capitals, I would consider mine could be next. The Arabs can probably also see the blatant racism displayed by parts of Israel’s government, a part that’s expected to grow.
The friendliest Arab nation to Israel is the Emirates, but yeah Saudis unsurprisingly aren’t fans of Israel.
And Egypt. Definitely Egypt. The people hate it of course, but pro-US administrations have continued for 45 years so… yeah.
I haven’t heard anything about Jordan changing its policies, but in Saudi Arabia it’s more that they were hoping to finish naturalization relatively quietly when October 7 happened and Israel was in the forefront of Arab consciousness. Naturalization had been off the table since then, because—to paraphrase how it would be talked about in the Arab world—they’d be “abandoning our Palestinian brothers while they’re bravely fighting the Zionist enemy”. Not a good look for their citizens or abroad. Prince Mohammed’s position can be summarized by his position when Biden wanted him to approve of an Israeli-occupied Gaza or some such (don’t remember the details), when he basically said “do whatever you want, but I won’t be signing on that shit. Do you have the slightest idea how it’d look like to my people if I did?”.
UAE has been so westernized thanks to tourism and foreign workers that the only “Arab” quality the country has is that it’s in the middle-east. Besides, they don’t have the regional influence the way other middle-eastern countries do.
I forgot about Egypt when typing my comment if I’m being honest. Apart from the obvious American dollars, it’s mainly against Hamas due to it’s history and ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. Still, a significant chunk of the country is also anti-Israel. So I don’t expect it to respond too kindly to Israel’s recent aggression. Maybe just a little more politely.
The recent (post-2014) levels of dedication to their imperialist overlords is mostly American dollars. We’ve had pro-US administrations, but the Sisi one is the first to cooperate with Israel this much.
They, or well we to be more accurate, aren’t doing anything. Sisi can’t afford to say, much less do, anything because he both needs to maintain the bare minimum of appearances against the Egyptian populace and can’t afford to actually make an enemy of Israel and the US.