According to three regional sources familiar with the negotiations, Saudi Arabia is determined to secure a military agreement requiring the United States to defend the kingdom in exchange for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia will not obstruct a deal even if Israel does not grant significant concessions to the Palestinians in their quest for statehood.
When the matter was initially addressed between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Joe Biden during the U.S. president’s visit to Saudi Arabia in July 2022, a treaty might fall short of the ironclad, NATO-style defence guarantees the kingdom initially envisioned.
Instead, a U.S. official was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters that it would resemble the treaties Washington has with Asian nations or, if that did not garner support from the U.S. Congress, it might resemble a deal with Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet is stationed. Congress wouldn’t have to approve such a deal.
According to the U.S. source, Washington might further sweeten any agreement by classifying Saudi Arabia as a Major Non-NATO Ally, a position also granted to Israel.
However, all sources concurred that Saudi Arabia would not accept anything less than legally enforceable pledges of American support if attacked, as it was on September 14, 2019, when missile strikes on its oil sites rattled world markets. Saudi Arabia and the United States blamed Iran, the kingdom’s adversary in the region, although Tehran denied any involvement.
Agreements uniting two longtime enemies and tying Riyadh to Washington after China’s intrusions in the region would transform the Middle East by providing safety to the world’s largest oil exporter in exchange for normalisation with Israel. It would be a diplomatic triumph for Biden to celebrate before the 2024 presidential race.
Israel may relax some of its limitations on the Palestinians, but such actions wouldn’t fulfil their hopes for a state. The three regional sources acquainted with the negotiations indicated that, similar to prior Arab-Israeli agreements negotiated over the years, the Palestinians’ primary desire for statehood will be subordinated.
“The normalisation will be between Israel and Saudi Arabia. If the Palestinians oppose it the kingdom will continue in its path,” said one of the regional sources.
“Saudi Arabia supports a peace plan for the Palestinians, but this time it wanted something for Saudi Arabia, not just for the Palestinians.”
The Saudi government did not respond to emailed questions about this article.
The terms of a defence pact are still being worked out, according to a U.S. official who, like others, chose not to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation. He or she also noted that the agreement under discussion “would not be a treaty alliance or anything like that… It wouldn’t be a real treaty; rather, it would be a mutual defence arrangement.
The official predicted that it would more closely resemble American relations with Israel, which receives the most cutting-edge American weapons and participates in combined air force and missile defence exercises.
MbS requested a treaty modelled after NATO, according to a source in Washington familiar with the discussions, but Washington was reluctant to go as far as NATO’s Article 5 guarantee that an attack on one ally is considered an act of war.
According to the source, Biden’s advisers may take into account a deal similar to those with Japan and other Asian allies, whereby the United States guarantees military support but is less clear about whether U.S. troops will be sent. The source did warn that some American senators would oppose such a treaty.
Another model, not requiring congressional approval, is the agreement the United States made with Bahrain on September 13 in which it promised to “deter and confront any external aggression” but also stated that the two countries would confer before taking any action, if any.
The designation of Saudi Arabia as a Major Non-NATO Ally, according to the source in Washington, is something that has long been discussed. This status, which a number of Arab countries, including Egypt, have comes with a range of benefits, such as training.
In order to help reach an agreement, the second of the two regional sources claimed that Riyadh was conceding on some of its goals, particularly its intentions for civilian nuclear technology. The source claimed that Saudi Arabia was prepared to ratify Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, which creates a framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and other countries. Previously, Riyadh had refused to do so.
The Gulf source claimed that Saudi Arabia was willing to accept a deal that fell short of a NATO Article 5 guarantee but insisted that the United States would have to promise to defend the country in the event of an attack. The insider added that a pact might be comparable to Bahrain’s arrangement but include additional requirements.
In response to emailed questions about details in this article, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said: “Many of the key elements of a pathway towards normalisation are now on the table and there is a broad understanding of those elements, which we will not discuss publicly.”
“There’s still lots of work to do, and we’re working through it,” the spokesperson added, saying there was not yet a formal framework and stakeholders were working on legal and other elements.
In the reply, the spokeswoman avoided going into specifics on the US-Saudi defence agreement.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, has praised the prospect of a “historic” peace with Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam. However, in order to win the prize, Netanyahu must gain the support of members of his far-right coalition who are opposed to making any concessions to the Palestinians.
In a recent interview with Fox News, MbS said that the kingdom was progressively edging towards normalising relations with Israel. The necessity for Israel to “ease the life of the Palestinians” was mentioned in his speech, but he made no mention of the existence of a Palestinian state.
However, diplomats and regional sources claimed that MbS was demanding specific guarantees from Israel in order to demonstrate that he was not deserting the Palestinians and that he was working to maintain the possibility of a two-state solution.
These include putting pressure on Israel to hand over some of the West Bank territory it currently controls to the Palestinian Authority (PA), restrict Jewish settlement development, and stop any attempts to annex territory. According to diplomats and insiders, Riyadh has also vowed to provide financial support to the PA.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has stated that any agreement must recognise the Palestinians’ claim to a state within the boundaries of 1967, including East Jerusalem, and must halt Israeli settlement construction. All sources, however, agreed that a Saudi-Israeli agreement was unlikely to address those flashpoint issues.
According to Netanyahu, the Palestinians shouldn’t have a veto over any peace agreement.
But even if the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia concur, getting support from US Congress members will still be difficult.
For its military intervention in Yemen, its efforts to support oil prices, and its complicity in the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who worked for the Washington Post, Riyadh has already come under fire from Republicans and members of Biden’s Democratic Party. MbS denies directing the murder.
“What’s important for Saudi Arabia is for Biden to have the pact approved by Congress,” the first regional source said, pointing to concessions Riyadh was making to secure a deal.
According to Biden, a pact that solidifies a U.S.-Israeli-Saudi axis might halt China’s advancement in international relations after Beijing helped bring together Saudi Arabia and Iran, which Washington accuses of wanting nuclear weapons. Iran disputes this.
“There was a sense that the U.S. has abandoned the region,” said one diplomat.
“By courting China, the Saudis wanted to create some anxiety that will make the U.S. re-engage. It has worked.”
