By Henrique Cymerman
The Middle East is experiencing a geostrategic earthquake, and its epicenter is in Saudi Arabia. This seismic shift is leading to the creation of a military alliance between countries that, at least technically, are still enemies.
The political and commercial contacts between Israel and the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, led by Saudi Arabia, stopped being a secret in August 2020 when the dramatic signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain took place. Later, Morocco and Sudan joined the framework.
Now, however, the new alliance is on the cusp of evolving into a regional NATO-type system, with states cooperating under an all-for-one and one-for-all logic. There have been a series of recent reports regarding regular meetings between military chiefs from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan, as well as ongoing discussions about joint defense agreements against missile and drone attacks from Iran, or its proxies.
The publicizing of joint Israeli–Emirati air force drills employing F-15 and F-16 fighter jet pilots flying side by side would have been the stuff of science fiction just a few years ago. Today, it is a concrete reality.
During recent trips to the Gulf cities of Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, I received explanations that cast light on these developments. The Iranian threat – both nuclear and conventional – is the glue that binds together this unique coalition.
According to senior military officials say, as early as 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, the Arab powers already understood that there is no military option against Israel. A former Saudi intelligence chief explained this reasoning to me in detail, saying, “We surprised you on your Day of Atonement. You started the war on your knees, but in the end, you won it. And now Israel is much stronger, it is the greatest power between Indonesia and Gibraltar."
The rulers of Abu Dhabi, the capital city-state of the UAE, do not hide their dream of turning the Israeli "startup nation" into a "startup region.”
"What we are looking for is not to buy and sell like in a bazaar, but to do joint ventures," a prominent Emirati businessman told me. According to him, for the UAE, peace with Israel is a strategic bet on the future.
Many secret and private flights have occurred in recent years between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and heads of the Mossad have reportedly made such journeys.
Even a few weeks ago, a private jet with prominent Israeli businessmen and women was reported to have made this journey. All of them first landed in Jordan just for a few minutes so that they could not be tracked by any app and so that no questions were raised, and then they continued to Saudi Arabia.
In his first tour as American president in the Middle East, Joe Biden, who ultimately understood the extraordinary potential of the Abraham Accords achieved by the previous Republican administration, decided that Air Force One would be the first plane to fly directly from Tel Aviv, Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where a summit was scheduled to take place under the leadership of the Saudi kingdom.
Some say that Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), Crown Prince and strong man of the kingdom, is carrying out a revolution and that if his grandfather and some of his uncles saw it, they would roll over in their graves.
Many of the internal Saudi dynamics that enable this change are tied to a demographic factor that is so noticeable on the streets of Jeddah, Riyadh, and the rest of the Gulf’s capitals: 70% of the population is aged under 30. And for most of them, the 20th-century wars between Israel and the Arabs are as ancient and irrelevant as the wars of the Romans.
The Saudis have removed all antisemitic references from their school curriculum textbooks, and even the Secretary General of the Muslim World League, Mohammed al-Issa made it a point to visit Auschwitz and maintain close relations with rabbis from Israel and from around the world. His critics call him "the Zionist Imam". Last week, he was chosen by the Saudi authorities to deliver the main sermon for the festivity of Eid Al-Adha.
MBS, together with his Abu Dhabi mentor and the new Emirati President, Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ), Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, are now betting on Biden's help to push the Abraham Accords into a new phase.
The American president is seeking to reach an agreement that will be a win-win for the four countries.
According to this arrangement, Saudi Arabia will grant Israel complete freedom of flights over its airspace for all Israeli and foreign airlines operating out of Israel, effectively shortening all flights from Tel Aviv to many Asian capitals.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia will receive approval from Israel for the transfer of two strategic Egyptian-controlled islands in the Red Sea, Sanafir and Tiran, off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, to Saudi hands (Israel’s approval for this is stipulated by the 1979 Egypt – Israel Peace Treaty).
Cairo will be financially rewarded significantly by Riyadh, and this will pump plenty of financial oxygen into the very poor and fragile Egyptian economy.
Finally, the US will achieve an increase in oil production from Saudi Arabia, which is necessary to replace the black gold lost by the West as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden, who throughout his political career was one of the champions of the 80-year-old strategic alliance between the United States and Israel, also visited East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, to remind the region that the Palestinian issue remains pending. The Palestinians do not hide their concern that they have been relegated to the sidelines in world politics by the new cold war, the global energy crisis, and the ongoing normalization process between Israel and a growing number of Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries.
It is said that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. The events of recent times prove once again that what happens in the Middle East does not stay in the Middle East. And that, although American presidents want to leave the region, the Middle East will pursue them wherever they go.
Henrique Cymerman is a journalist of global renown whose writings regularly appear in media publications in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Israel. He lectures in five languages. Henrique has covered current affairs in the Middle East for over 30 years and has been nominated "Comendador," a title of nobility, by the King of Spain and the President of Portugal. Read full bio here.