Riyadh: Israel’s longest-serving prime minister pops up on Saudi state-run television from Tel Aviv. An Israeli-American declares himself the “chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia” after arriving on a tourist visa. A prominent Saudi family invests in two Israeli companies and doesn’t bother to hide it.
All these recent events would have been unthinkable not long ago. But previously clandestine links between Saudi Arabia and Israel are increasingly visible as some of the Middle East’s deep-seated rivalries cautiously give way to pragmatic economic and security ties. Saudi crown prince and de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman is seeking to accelerate his plans to overhaul an oil-reliant economy, while Israel is keen to build on 2020’s diplomatic breakthroughs with smaller Gulf nations.
“We do not view Israel as an enemy, but rather as a potential ally,” Prince Mohammed said earlier this year in a striking reassessment of one of the region’s most consequential fault-lines.
For decades after Israel’s founding in 1948, Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf neighbours shunned the Jewish state in solidarity with the Palestinians expelled to create it. The thought of doing business with Israel was anathema. Even today, polling shows a vast majority in the Gulf oppose accepting Israel as just another country, suggesting developments have more to do with the agenda of autocratic ruling elites than a sea-change in Arab views.
“It’s more of a thawing of relations rather than a warming of relations,” said Abdulaziz Alghashian, a researcher who studies Saudi foreign policy toward Israel. “It’s still nevertheless pretty significant.”
Read the article by Vivian Nereim and Daniel Avis in WAToday.