Biden’s much-ballyhooed trip to the Middle East amounted to very little. The Saudis did not agree to increase their oil production. Nor did they make any move toward joining the Abraham Accords, as so many had confidently predicted they would. They insisted that while they would let Israeli planes use Saudi airspace, this should not be interpreted as a step toward joining the Abraham Accords. The Saudis were sticking with the condition precedent that King Salman had laid down years ago: the Saudis would not be normalizing ties with Israel until a Palestinian state was established “on the 1967 lines.” On the plus side, at his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, Biden did not make any of the announcements that the Palestinians had been hoping for. There was no mention about reopening the “consulate to the Palestinians” in Jerusalem, no mention of removing the PLO from the list of terrorist organizations, and not a word about letting the PLO reopen its office in Washington. And Biden refrained, too, rom recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, despite reportedly being urged to do so by Abbas.
For all those things Biden did not say, the Israelis were quietly grateful.
Veteran Israeli analyst Yoav Limor describes the state of play after Biden’s visit here: “The Saudis See Israel as Key to Regional Stability,” JNS.org, July 17, 2022:
Anyone who expected a dramatic breakthrough in Israel-Saudi relations during US President Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom was disappointed, as was predictable. The Saudis still aren’t ready for far-reaching moves and want to take things slowly. On the face of it, they are also sticking to their standard policy of recent years—the assertion that progress toward normalization will be achievable only after the Saudi peace proposal is implemented, including the establishment of a Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.
But behind this official stance, there is another Saudi Arabia. One proof of this is the approval it gave on Friday [July 15] for Israeli flights to use its airspace. Other evidence is still under wraps, from senior Israeli officials visiting Saudi Arabia, to a long series of deals, mostly related to security and technology.
For years, behind the scenes, the Israelis and Saudis have been sharing intelligence on Iran, and Israel has been supplying the Saudis with technology useful in their own campaign against their common enemy. The Crown Prince has gone beyond those security ties to try to change his people’s view of the Jewish state. He has had most of the antisemitic content removed from Saudi schoolbooks, as reported by the NGO IMPACT-se. He has also given a prominent place during this year’s Hajj to the “Zionist imam,” a move which is deserves to be widely known: “Saudi cleric known for Auschwitz visit, interfaith dialogue gives main hajj sermon,” Times of Israel, July 10, 2022:
A cleric known for visiting Auschwitz and for his involvement in interfaith dialogue gave the main sermon at the height of the annual hajj pilgrimage at the Nimrah Mosque on Mount Arafat outside Mecca on Friday, after being chosen earlier in the week for the role by Saudi Arabia’s de factor ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The decision to give the honor to Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Karim al-Issa, the head of the Muslim World League, was read by veteran Channel 12 Arab affairs analyst Ehud Ya’ari as “a significant signal” from Saudi Arabia regarding its attitude towards normalization with Israel. Ya’ari said Al-Issa, who has invited rabbis to Saudi Arabia and has visited Yeshiva University in New York, is known in the country as the “Zionist imam.”
Back to Yoav Limor’s analysis:
The thawed ties between Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) will certainly help continue this process. Officially, of course, both sides stuck to their guns: Biden said in a briefing that he scolded MBS about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and MBS’s staff said that the crown prince had taken the president to task for the death of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
Yoav Limor appears to believe that the ties have “thawed” between Biden and the Crown Prince, which I have been unable as yet to discern. But as an Israeli analyst, Limor is no doubt privy, as I am not, to Saudi-Israel communications that bespeak warmer (“thawed”) relations, which would suit both Biden, who is still hoping for that Saudi increase of oil, and the Crown Prince, who needs American security guarantees against Iran.
We can assume that notwithstanding these official accounts, the atmosphere of the meeting was productive. The US wants the Saudis to increase their oil output to help bring down global fuel prices, and the Saudis want improved relations with Washington. They see Israel as a vital conduit to the Americans and a key player in regional stability. The two countries — along with most of the nations in the region, whose leaders took part in a conference with Biden — will try to promote an alliance against hostile entities in the Middle East, primarily Iran….
Morocco has already signed a contract to buy, for $500 million, Israel’s Barak MX air and missile defense system. When the IDF head Aviv Kochavi is in Rabat, one can expect there will be other deals for other weapons, possibly including missiles and, especially, drones. Morocco needs these weapons in order to hold onto the Western Sahara, and to fend off any aggression from its hostile neighbor, Algeria.
But while Israel’s diplomatic-security apparatus is focused on regional strategy, it finds itself dragged back into local affairs. On Saturday night, four rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, a reminder that the Palestinians aren’t going anywhere. It appears that Hamas was not directly or indirectly responsible for the rockets, but the defense establishment is concerned that residents of Ashkelon had to run for shelter in the middle of the night for the second time in a month….
In response, the IDF implemented its policy since Operation Guardian of the Walls and carried out airstrikes against key Hamas targets—in this case, an underground facility used to produce raw materials for long-range rockets and a second facility….
Of the four rockets launched from Gaza into Israel, one was shot down, and three landed harmlessly in open fields. Hamas was greatly surprised by Israel’s response. which was to completely destroy, using GPU-28 bunker buster bombs, a major weapons manufacturing plant built underground, that produced missiles and drones, and to destroy another, above-ground facility as well. The damage was enormous. Sixteen tons of explosives were blown up in the first airstrike. Hamas had apparently been expecting a tit-for-tat reprisal. Instead, the Israelis caused destruction on a scale Hamas had not experienced since Operation Guardian of the Walls. Israel has delivered a double-barreled message to Hamas. First, no matter what group launches attacks on Israel from Gaza on Israel, the IDF will hold Hamas responsible. Thus Hamas has to police the other groups including, especially, the even more violent Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to prevent them from launching attacks. Second, the Israeli response will from now on be “disproportionate,” in an attempt to promptly persuade Hamas to stop its own attacks, and to prevent by force any planned attacks by other terrorist groups.
The impoverished residents of Gaza are eager to be given permits to work in Israel, where they earn at least twice as much as what they receive in Gaza for similar work, and are also covered by Israeli labor law, which insures that they won’t be subject to the kind of mistreatment they must endure from their Palestinian employers in Gaza. The quieter the border with Gaza, the more Palestinians will be allowed to work in Israel. That’s the carrot.
And the stick? The stick is those massive attacks carried out by those superb Israeli pilots, now well-supplied with GPU-28 bunker busters, who are able to destroy an entire weapons manufacturing plant in a single airstrike.