Jonathan S. Tobin
JNS, Aug. 2, 2023
“The main benefit of such a deal in Friedman’s eyes is that it would put Netanyahu in a tight spot.”
According to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, President Joe Biden is trying to do Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a big favor. That would involve the administration finally moving to follow up on former President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords triumph and brokering a deal normalizing relations between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
Lending some weight to Friedman’s speculation is the fact that Biden has himself signaled his interest in some sort of pact with the Saudis that would involve Israel. This would give Biden a rare foreign-policy triumph in the midst of his re-election campaign. At the same time, since achieving that upgrade from under-the-table ties to the exchange of ambassadors is a major Israeli objective, it would also be a victory for Netanyahu, who is currently under siege from both Biden and domestic opponents who are falsely labeling his push for judicial reform as an assault on democracy.
Even a far more sober and insightful commentator such as the historian Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, thinks that it’s entirely possible that such a scenario might actually come to pass.
But pulling it off will require some doing. And that’s why, in spite of the clear signs that the administration is acting as if it is working towards this goal, I remain skeptical about the whole thing. There are too many reasons why both the Biden administration and the Saudis are unlikely to sign off on any such agreement. More than that, the price that Israel is going to be asked to pay—in terms both stated and implied—for the privilege of exchanging ambassadors with the Saudis is not something Netanyahu ought to agree to. Biden’s motives in pursuing this course of action may seem to be in accord with Israel’s interests; however, his real object is more likely to be regime change in Jerusalem and a new deal with Iran.
The Saudis have already stated their demands for any normalization with Israel. That would involve the United States satisfying the wish list the Saudis passed on to Biden earlier in the year, as first reported in The Wall Street Journal. That included the gift of a civilian nuclear program, the sale of advanced American weapons and formal guarantees of their security.
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