Israel’s longest-serving prime minister pops up on Saudi Arabian 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 Arabian family invests in two Israeli companies and does not 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 Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, is seeking to accelerate his plans to overhaul an oil-reliant economy, while Israel is keen to build on diplomatic breakthroughs in 2020 with smaller Gulf nations.
Illustration: Mountain People
“We do not view Israel as an enemy, but rather as a potential ally,” Prince Mohammad 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 neighbors 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 Arabian foreign policy toward Israel. “It’s still nevertheless pretty significant.”
Israelis are traveling to the kingdom with greater ease using third-country passports, a few routing their business through overseas entities and even discussing it in public.
Qualitest is an Israeli engineering and software-testing company acquired by international investors in 2019.
It does not operate directly in Saudi Arabia, but sells its product to other firms who then use it in the kingdom, said Shai Liberman, Qualitest’s managing director for Europe, Israel and the Middle East.
Investment is heading in the opposite direction, too.
Mithaq Capital SPC — controlled by the Alrajhi family, Saudi Arabian banking scions — is now the largest shareholder in two Israeli companies: mobility intelligence firm Otonomo Technologies Ltd and London-listed digital advertiser Tremor International Ltd.
Israel and Gulf nations established largely hidden security ties over shared concerns, especially Iran, but it is primarily the strong economic motivation that is driving more visible relations now as Prince Mohammad tries to lessen Saudi Arabian reliance on oil and develop advanced industries.
“We like the innovation and the technology culture that Israel has, and we try to find ways to benefit from that,” said Muhammad Asif Seemab, managing director of Mithaq Capital.
Officials in Riyadh are also allowing the wider debate around Israel to be reframed.
Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed on Saudi Arabian television channel Al Arabiya, sitting in front of a Hebrew-language map and warning of the danger of a potential nuclear deal with Iran. Less well known is Jacob Herzog, a rabbi who has been allowed to minister to a tiny Jewish community of foreign workers in the Saudi Arabian capital.
When the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain in 2020 signed US-brokered normalization pacts with Israel, which became known as the Abraham Accords, there was speculation that Saudi Arabia would follow.
For Israeli leaders, receiving recognition from Saudi Arabia — the region’s geopolitical heavyweight — would be a coveted prize, and that is unlikely to change no matter what government is installed after elections later this year.
They did not get it, partly because the kingdom’s religious and regional prominence dictates different political considerations than those of smaller neighbors. An Israeli business owner visiting Riyadh still cannot make a direct phone call to Tel Aviv, let alone a money transfer.
Jason Greenblatt, who was a special envoy for the Middle East under former US president Donald Trump and one of the accords’ architects, said the Saudi Arabian leadership “recognizes that Israel can be a huge benefit to the region” even if it is not yet ready to sign any kind of normalization agreement.
Greenblatt is raising funds for a blockchain and cryptotechnology investment vehicle, and said it is an “aspiration” of his to facilitate Saudi Arabian investment into Israel, although he concedes that will take time.
Polling by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy suggests growing disappointment with what the Abraham Accords have delivered, with only 19 to 25 percent of respondents seeing them positively across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain.
Yet their existence appears to have encouraged acceptance of unofficial ties with Israel among some in the Gulf, the institute said.
Others continue to voice their disapproval. In July, an imam of Mecca’s grand mosque included a supplication against “the usurping, occupying Jews” while leading Friday prayers. And when an Israeli journalist who traveled to Saudi Arabia during a July visit by US President Joe Biden found a way into the holy city that is off-limits to non-Muslims, condemnation was swift.
In this mixed atmosphere, Saudi Arabian officials maintain that a resolution between Israelis and Palestinians remains at the core of their policy.
Normalization is “borderline offensive to keep talking about” and is not a policy goal in and of itself, Princess Reema bint Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US, said in July.
The real goal should be a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, she said.
It would be counterproductive for Israel to push Saudi Arabia too hard, said Yoel Guzansky, a senior research fellow in Gulf politics at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.
“Why go too fast?” he said. “You can actually cause damage to the relationship.”
The US political landscape is another obstacle, said Alghashian, as Saudi Arabian leaders assess that Biden is unlikely to muster the will to offer sweeteners they would want, including security guarantees.
Still, American entrepreneur Bruce Gurfein is among those betting that even the current gradual opening will be good for business.
Gurfein, who is Jewish and has family in Israel, recently drove a White Nissan Armada from his base in Dubai through Saudi Arabia to Jerusalem — a 26-hour road trip that he spread out over a week, meeting businesspeople along the way.
He is working on a business accelerator called Future Gig, connecting Israeli start-ups to the Saudi Arabian market and vice versa, with a focus on renewable energy, water scarcity and desert agriculture.
Neom, the crown prince’s vision for a high-tech region on the Red Sea coast a 40-minute drive from Israel, could also fuel collaboration.
On a popular Arabic-language podcast, Saudi Arabian political sociologist Khalid al-Dakhil recently laid out his ideas for strengthening the kingdom, touching on nuclear energy and the military — and a possible partner, if the rewards are worth it.
“We honestly need to learn from the Israelis,” he said.
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