“I believe that together we can repel Iran's march of aggression and terror in the region and thwart Iran's unrestrained desire to become nuclear power“said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, welcoming US President Donald Trump to Jerusalem. The only time the word “terror” was heard in the speech of an Israeli politician was in relation to Iran.

Israeli and American leaders mentioned this power in their speeches more often than any other, demonstrating that, as during the visit to Saudi Arabia, one of the main goals of Trump's trip to Israel is the creation of an anti-Iranian axis of Tel Aviv and Er -Riyadh under US patronage.

The American president spoke openly about this goal during his visit to Israel. Thus, while telling Netanyahu about his trip to Riyadh, he could not help but mention the Iranian problem.

“During my visit to Saudi Arabia, I met with many leaders of the Arab and Islamic world, including King Salman.<…>These leaders expressed the same concerns that we share - regarding ISIS, Iran's growing ambitions<…>and the dangers of extremism,” Trump said.

Earlier, at a joint press conference with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Trump put it even more clearly: “There is a growing understanding among your Arab leaders that they have a common point of convergence of interests with you - the threat posed by Iran. What is happening with Iran is attracting many in the Middle East to the side of Israel,” the American president said.

As a member of the Arab League, Saudi Arabia formally supports the Palestinians' right to self-determination and advocates Israel's return to its 1967 borders. There are not even official diplomatic ties between the two states. However, in practice, against the backdrop of the growing political and military potential of Shiite Iran, which opposes both the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia and Israel, relations between Riyadh and Tel Aviv in last years have improved.

“In his worldview, Trump is very close to the position of Israel, that is, he considers Iran a terrorist state that supports terrorist organizations,” Irina Fedotova, candidate of historical sciences, expert at the Center for the Middle East at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, commented on the views of the American leader in an interview with RT. “That’s why President Trump is open about confronting the Iranian threat.”

• Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
• Reuters

Oil and steel

To create an anti-Iranian alliance, it was necessary to make Saudi Arabia and a number of other states partners comparable to Israel. Since the kingdom and the most combat-ready Gulf countries - the UAE and Qatar - suffered serious losses during the Yemen campaign, it was necessary to strengthen them militarily. At the same time, the Trump administration did not fail to take advantage of the difficult situation of its allies, demanding from them contracts and investments beneficial to the United States.

Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia was marked by the conclusion of large-scale contracts totaling more than $380 billion. This is the largest package of deals in the entire history of relations between the two countries. The largest is an agreement on the supply of arms to Saudi Arabia in the amount of $110 billion. The document involves the sale to Saudi Arabia of American developments in the field of cybersecurity, tanks, artillery, warships, helicopters, air defense systems and the American THAAD missile defense system. According to The New York Times, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was an active supporter of the defense agreement.

• Reuters

In addition, American defense giant Lockheed Martin signed an additional $6 billion agreement with the Saudi government to assemble 150 Black Hawk helicopters. Representatives of the American oil and gas industry have concluded several deals with their Saudi counterparts worth $22 billion. As Bloomberg reports, Saudi Aramco has signed 16 agreements totaling $50 billion with 11 American companies. Only the value of the deal with General Electric Co. is $15 billion.

Finally, Saudi Arabia's public investment fund and the American private fund Blackstone Group LP agreed to create a joint investment fund with a capital of $40 billion. Half of this amount will be contributed by the Saudis, but most of the funds will be invested in US infrastructure. According to CNBC, Blackstone President Hamilton James said the initiative "will create good-paying jobs in the United States and the foundation for stable, long-term economic growth."

“It was a great day. A huge investment in the United States... Hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs!” — the American leader commented on the economic results of his trip.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said Trump's visit marks the "beginning of a turning point" in relations with the Arab world.

Weapons issue

In addition to Saudi leaders in Riyadh, Trump met with some heads of state attending a meeting of the Cooperation Council. Persian Gulf, and participants in the Arab-Islamic-American Summit. In particular, he held negotiations with the President of Egypt, the King of Bahrain, the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait and the head of the delegation of the United Nations United Arab Emirates crown prince Abu Dhabi. And if in a conversation with the President of Egypt, Field Marshal al-Sisi, the conversation was about the fight against terrorism and Trump’s future visit to Egypt, then in conversations with the leaders of the Middle Eastern monarchies, Trump did not hide his commercial interest.

According to the US President, the main topic of negotiations with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, was to be “the acquisition of a large amount of excellent military equipment, because no one does it better than the United States.” During a meeting with the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, the American leader thanked his counterpart for purchasing “an amazing amount of American weapons.”

“Thanks to the signed contracts, the countries of the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf receive additional assistance with regard to ensuring their security and the level of armament of their armies, and fully cover their needs,” commented RT on Trump’s successes in the field of arms sales, a professor at the Department of Modern East of the Russian State University Humanitarian University Grigory Kosach.

Israel need not worry

The multibillion-dollar package of agreements with Saudi Arabia, and primarily its military-technical component, has caused concern among the ruling circles of Israel. Thus, the country’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, representing the right-wing Likud party, said: “Saudi Arabia is not a country with which we have diplomatic relations, it is still hostile to us, and no one knows what will happen in the future ! Ayoub Kara, a minister without portfolio in the Netanyahu government, and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz also expressed their concern.

Israeli politicians are primarily concerned about maintaining military leadership in the region and superiority over any Arab power or coalition of countries.

However, the fact that the US-Saudi agreement was promoted by one of Israel’s most active lobbyists, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, gives reason to believe that the interests of the Jewish state will not be harmed. Former National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of Israel, Jacob Amidror, in an interview with The Times of Israel, noted: “The US administration is very sensitive to maintaining Israel’s military superiority. This has been true for previous administrations and it is true for this administration.” Indirectly, these words are confirmed by the decision of the US leadership to maintain free annual grants for the purchase of weapons for Israel, which for most other former recipients of American military assistance will be replaced by military loans.

• Reuters

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly advocated rapprochement with Saudi Arabia. “We are talking about the possibility of further rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, on the one hand, and Israel, on the other,” believes Grigory Kosach. The Islamic defense alliance created in Riyadh on the final day of Trump’s visit not only does not threaten the interests of Israel, but also assumes the participation of the American and Israeli sides in it, says Irina Fedotova. In the original plans, “both the United States and Israel were not supposed to be members of this alliance, but were supposed to take part in it, share their intelligence and information,” she notes.

Together against Iran

Even before his visit to Israel, Donald Trump identified the main enemy, “through whose fault” the United States is pumping weapons into the Middle East: Iran. The traditional foreign policy adversary of Saudi Arabia and Israel was not invited to the pompous May 21 Arab-Islamic-American summit led by Trump and King Salman, but was mentioned frequently. The leaders of the United States and Saudi Arabia have branded Iran as the main sponsor of global terrorism and called for the isolation of the Islamic republic.

• Reuters

“From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran is funding, arming and training terrorists, militias and other extremist groups who are wreaking destruction and chaos in the region,” President Trump said in part.

The fact that at the meeting, which was supposed to be aimed at combating terrorism, they talked mainly about countering Iran, and the Yemeni Houthis and the Lebanese Hezbollah were mentioned as terrorist organizations along with Al-Qaeda * and the Islamic State, gives there are reasons to believe that by the fight against terrorism, the United States and Saudi Arabia mean, first of all, countering pro-Iranian forces in the region.

This fits well with the Israeli understanding of priority threats in the Middle East. Back in 2016, then-Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon succinctly formulated it this way: “If I had to choose between ISIS and Iran, I would choose ISIS.”

Otherwise, the placement of the International Center for Combating Extremism and Terrorism in Saudi Arabia seems simply phantasmagorical. After all, even the average American knows that funding for radical Islamist organizations comes mainly from the ideologically close Wahhabi monarchies of the Gulf.

As a result of the forum of Arab and Islamic countries in Riyadh, a declaration was adopted on the creation of a strategic alliance of countries in the region by 2018 and the allocation of 34 thousand military personnel to fight terrorism in Iraq and Syria.

More chaos

Iran, naturally, could not help but react to the initiatives of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel directed against it.

On May 22, the day Trump arrived in Israel, former Iranian President Mohammad Khattami confirmed that the country would continue to develop the construction program ballistic missiles. “The Iranian nation has decided to be powerful,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters. — Our missiles are needed for peace and defense.<…>"American officials need to know that when we need to technically test a missile, we will do so and not wait for their permission." The commander of the Second Naval Zone of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Ali Razmzhou, stressed on the same day that Iran has superior intelligence in the Persian Gulf region, Farsnews reports.

The aggressive actions of the United States, the supply of weapons to Iran's opponents and the creation of the Saudi-Israeli alliance are pushing up the already ongoing arms race in the region.

As Irina Fedotova, an expert at the Center for the Middle East at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, notes, “the opportunities that the United States provides to Saudi Arabia are incommensurate with Iran’s military potential.” RT's interlocutor does not believe that the Islamic Republic can withdraw from the agreement on nuclear program, to compensate for the lag behind Israel and the Gulf countries, but is confident that “Iran will make efforts to further increase its defense potential.”

“If Iran arms itself, it will arm itself from other sources (without the help of the Persian Gulf countries. - RT), and then the problem can move on to more high level international tension,” believes Grigory Kosach, referring to Russia. The fact that if American pressure on Iran tightens, this country will move towards a closer alliance with Russia and China seems very likely to Irina Fedotova.

At the same time, an expert at the Center for the Middle East at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences believes that the United States will not revise agreements with Islamic republic on its nuclear program. The main confrontation will be moved to the periphery, to the already ongoing conflict zones, where Iran is involved on the one hand, and the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia on the other. The most obvious “victim” is Syria.

“The strengthening of contradictions there will interfere with the achievement of any agreements and a peaceful resolution of the situation in Syria,” Fedotova claims.

But this is precisely Tel Aviv’s secret goal, another expert, President of the Society for Friendship and Business Cooperation with Arab Countries Vyacheslav Matuzov, is sure. “Israel has its own point of view on the events in Syria; neither Assad’s victory over terrorists nor the terrorists’ victory over Assad is acceptable to them. They benefit from the complete defeat of both, and the formation of many puppet states on Syrian territory that pose no threat to Israel itself,” Matuzov asserts in an interview with RT.

* "Al-Qaeda", " Islamic State"(ISIS, IS) are terrorist groups banned on the territory of Russia.

There are several noteworthy observations that come from the above. First of all, Al-Oatani's assumption that Arabs are using conspiracy theories to portray themselves as victims and avoid responsibility highlights a lot. This attitude manifests itself from time to time in Israel's relations with the Arabs in general and with the Palestinian Authority in particular. There is a complete lack of self-criticism on the part of the PA and a complete failure to automatically blame Israel for everything. Unfortunately, the international community accepts such rhetoric and refuses to acknowledge the need for accountability on the part of the PA. On the contrary, the international community is putting pressure on Israel and demanding concessions. These concessions are often related to security, and if Israel makes them, it will lead to an increase in terror, followed by Israeli military action to stop it. This vicious circle of evil can be broken when the PA stops confrontation and accepts some responsibility.

Hijazi's claim that there are Jews standing up for the Arabs, but no Arabs standing up for the Jews, is another truth that the West and even so-called human rights groups have lost. Anyone knows that there are many Jewish organizations that stand for the Palestinian Arabs, and most of them are founded by foreign governments. But even if there are Arab organizations that even speak out in favor of Israel, they are very well hidden. Anyone can understand very well that speaking out for Israel in Arab countries means taking a huge risk. Moreover, for children who grew up on the anti-Semitic propaganda mentioned above, it will take time for any change to occur. However, the fact of the matter is this: instead of praising Israeli democracy, which makes it possible to create pro-Arab organizations, Israel is increasingly criticized, blamed, denigrated, isolated and boycotted. Such purely ideological and politically motivated behavior is divorced from real facts. And it should be viewed that way.

Let the statements of Hijazi and Oatani be heard in parliamentary halls, university classrooms and the media in Europe! And may human rights organizations abandon their immoral anti-Israel ideology and begin to honor truth and justice in reality, not in words! Very often these organizations cooperate and protect people who despise human rights, attacking those who honor them.

Saudi Arabia has many reasons for its rapprochement with Israel, and first of all it is Iran. The Saudi king sees the Iranian atomic bomb as a serious threat to his interests and perhaps even to the kingdom itself. Israel is the only people in the world that stands firmly against Iran. In addition, Israel is very strong militarily. There are definitely common interests in this.

However, although the ruling Saudi regime is far from religious, it champions extreme varieties of Islam and spreads them around the world, using its oil money to build mosques and found universities. Wahhabi Islam is extremely aggressive towards Jews and Israel. Thus, if King Salman is seeking to normalize relations with Israel, as MEMRI suggests, then he is trying to sit on two chairs at once. This doesn't work long term. It is much more likely that instead of normalizing relations, the king seeks limited cooperation with Israel in the face of their common enemy. Israel, aware of the Saudis' hypocrisy, would likely still accept such cooperation in an attempt to stop Iran. The Israeli hope is that such cooperation can lead to lasting change.

In addition, the purge of the Saudi Arabian government continues. According to Middle East Eye, regarding dignitaries Saudi Arabia uses physical force and torture as part of an anti-corruption campaign launched by the current Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman.

The Crown Prince is overseeing a campaign to arrest hundreds of people, including senior royals, ministers and oligarchs; It is reported that during arrests or further interrogations, some of them were subjected to torture so severe that they required hospitalization. Among those detained as part of the purge campaign is reportedly Prince Bandar bin Sultan himself, a prominent Saudi arms dealer who served as ambassador to the United States many years ago.
If this information is confirmed, then the case of Bandar bin Sultan will become the loudest in the entire purge and, given Bandar’s close ties with several US presidential administrations, even more scandalous than the arrest of a high-ranking billionaire, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

These events take place against the backdrop of rumors that King Salman intends to pass the throne to his son. The rumors culminated when Al-Arabia published a tweet, which was soon deleted, revealing details of Mohammed bin Salman's supposedly imminent coronation. These rumors have not been confirmed. However, Prince Mohammed already plays a key role in decision-making at almost all levels of government.
In addition, the crown prince accused Tehran of supplying missiles to the Houthi forces for the subsequent use of these missiles against the KSA, which, according to him, is “direct military aggression.”

The United States joined the accusations and stated that “these missiles had Iranian markings.”
On November 18, at the request of Saudi Arabia, the Arab League will hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss violations committed by Iran in the region, in addition, according to rumors, Saudi Arabia has put fighter squadrons on alert.
In response to the Saudi-led coalition's naval blockade of Yemen, Houthi forces have threatened to attack oil tankers And warships Saudi Arabia and the coalition.

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is still in Saudi Arabia and it is reported that all his moves are controlled by the Saudis.

A pipeline explosion occurred between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, with the latter blaming Iran for the explosion. Israel finds no place for itself against the backdrop of the growing influence of Iran and Hezbollah in the region and Syria. Israeli media reported that the United States and Russia have entered into an agreement under which Iranian-backed forces will withdraw from the area near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. However, most likely, the media is wishful thinking. It is reported that Iran is building a permanent military base in Syria.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Tel Aviv “will not allow the Shiite axis to turn Syria into its outpost” and threatened bombing. The country's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Tel Aviv has informed Moscow and Washington that Israeli forces will continue to take measures against Syria in accordance with the interests of their country and regardless of any ceasefire agreements concluded in Syria.
The head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, accused Saudi Arabia of supporting Israel’s intention to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the secretary of the Iranian Council of Political Expediency, Mohsen Rezaei, said that the United States, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are planning a war against Lebanon.

Due to the lack of a clear strategy for the Middle East, Washington, in relations with its allies, is forced to play the role of “second fiddle.” The Trump administration's harsh statements regarding nuclear

V.N. Dalvin. The Relations of Israel and Saudi Arabia in the context of the Near-Eastern conflict and religious factor (to history of question)

V.N. Dalvin. Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the context of the Middle East conflict and the religious factor (to the history of the issue)

V.N. Dalvin – Researcher, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences

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V.N. Dalvin – is a research scientist, candidate of historical sciences in The Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS

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Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia developed in light of their special status as centers of three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity (Israel) and Islam (Saudi Arabia). Saudi Arabia advocates the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The problem of Palestine is the core issue of foreign and domestic policy countries. The article discusses issues of diplomatic, military and material assistance from Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian people. IN Lately a certain “alliance” of Israel and Saudi Arabia against Iran has emerged in connection with its nuclear program. Studying the history of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia is of particular importance in light of the aggravated situation in the Middle East.

The relations of Israel and Saudi Arabia are shaped in the light of their special status as centers of three monotheistic religions - judaism, christianity (Israel) and islam (Saudi Arabia). Saudi Arabia stood up for the creation of the independent Palestinian state. Palestine's problem is the core question of foreign and internal policy of the country. The questions of diplomatic, military and material assistance of Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian people are examined in the art-ticle. The certain "union" between Israel and Saudi Arabia was lately set against Iran in connection with its nuclear program. The history research of connections between Israel and Saudi Arabia has special meaning in the light of escalated situation on Near east.

Keywords:
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Middle East conflict, East Jerusalem, Palestinian-Israeli relations.

Israel, Saudi Arabia, Near-Eastern conflict, Eastern Jerusalem, Palestinian-Israel relations.

There are two trends in the history of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The first is that Israel did not enter into open and “explicit” confrontation with this country, and Saudi Arabia did the same, with the exception of those forced situations when it was necessary to provide assistance and support to the Palestinian people to defend their rights to the territories occupied by Israel.
The second important fact is that this rich Arab country was one of the main sponsors of the Palestinian resistance movement. The Kuwait crisis of 1991 confirmed this. Therefore, Saudi Arabia’s position on the Middle East settlement is of paramount importance for Israel.
The process of distribution of spheres of influence between the USSR and the USA had a significant impact on the situation in the Persian Gulf. If Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are partner countries of the United States, then Iraq and Yemen have traditionally sought rapprochement with the USSR. This determined the approaches of these countries to the Middle East settlement.
Despite the fact that in domestic and foreign literature the prevailing opinion is that the Kuwait crisis weakened the position of the PYD, which supported Iraq, there is nevertheless another reality: the rich monarchical regimes of the Persian Gulf believe that the unresolved Middle East conflict directly affects them interests, and therefore the problem requires an immediate solution.
* * *
Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are complex and contradictory.
Being the custodian country of the Holy Places of Islam, possessing the largest oil reserves and powerful financial potential in the capitalist world, Saudi Arabia shows relative independence from the West and defends the interests of very influential circles in the Arab East.
But it would be simplistic not to see certain contradictions between the interests of the United States and Saudi Arabia on a number of political issues, primarily related to the Arab-Israeli conflict (the Palestinian question, the problem of Jerusalem).
After October 1973, having significantly strengthened its position in the international arena and in the region, Saudi Arabia was forced to take more into account those common Muslim and inter-Arab positions that were determined by its claims to the role of the recognized leader of the “Muslim world” and “moderate” Arab regime. The Saudi ruling circles are aware that a component of Saudi Arabia's pan-Islamic policy on the issue of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict would contribute to its possible consolidation of its leading positions in the Arab and Muslim world, and consequently to the strengthening of the ruling elite in the country.
Thus, religious-nationalist motives forced the Saudis to take into account the interests of Arab governments and brought them into conflict with the United States, a supporter of a pro-Israeli solution to the conflict.
During the reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Saudis could not claim a leading role in the Arab world. But after his death, they actively became involved in the struggle for leadership in this region. Their claims were based on the country's oil and petrodollar wealth. The Saudi leadership's chances increased when Sadat's Egypt found itself isolated after signing a peace treaty with Israel. The balance of power became even more favorable for Saudi Arabia when Iraq became bogged down in a war with Iran.
The main means of the Saudi leadership's struggle for leadership in the Arab world are petrodollars. They are the ones who are paving the way for Saudi Arabia to establish cooperation with all Arab countries. By financing the participants in the confrontation with Israel, Saudi Arabia managed to establish relations even with the leader of the National Front of Resilience and Resistance - Syria.
Of course, it was not easy for Saudi Arabia to compete with such states as Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Iraq in terms of the level of economic, scientific and technical development.
* * *
Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia have developed in light of their special status as the center of three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity (Israel) and Islam (Saudi Arabia).
Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 as an absolute Islamic monarchy, which is home to the two holy cities of Islam - Mecca and Medina. Israel was created in 1948. It is a parliamentary democratic state with its capital in Jerusalem, the third holy city for Islam (until 1967, Jordan ruled the eastern part of the city). Like many Arab states, the leadership of Saudi Arabia was concerned about the Zionist colonization of Palestine. On March 5, 1945, a historical event took place. Aboard the Quincy in the Suez Canal, President Franklin Roosevelt met with King Abdul Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Not long before, Roosevelt received a report from oil experts who stated that the United States was on the verge of an energy crisis, as the reserves of its oil wells were dwindling. Saudi Arabia's strategic importance increased as it had the largest oil reserves in the world.
At the summit, for the first time, US interests in the Middle East and oil resources were discussed. During the meeting, the “Zionist issue” was also raised. Ibn Saud criticized Zionism, and President Roosevelt said: “Within five minutes of conversation with Saud, I learned what the essence of the Jewish problem is.”
Since the creation of the State of Israel, Saudi Arabia has not recognized it. Both states are considered "enemy". Nevertheless, every year thousands of Muslims from Israel visit Mecca to fulfill the commandment of Hajj. During the War of Independence in 1948–1949. between Israel and the Arab states, Saudi Arabia sent a battalion to Israel, which fought alongside the Egyptian army. She also threatened to cut off oil supplies to the West.
In 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Saudi Arabian authorities provided assistance to Arab states fighting with Israel. During the war, the IDF occupied several islands in the Saudi Arabian zone of interest in the Red Sea.
The meetings of the Defense Council of the League of Arab States in November 1971, November 1972, January 1973 were important in uniting the military-political and economic efforts of Arab countries in the fight against Israeli occupation. In the Middle East in October 1973, the League contributed to the development of joint actions by Arab countries in order to put pressure on Israel and the states supporting it (limiting the production and supply of Arab oil to the international market, etc.).
Saudi Arabia took part in oil sanctions against the United States and other developed capitalist states that supported Israel. These sanctions turned out to be very effective, since Saudi oil was important for the United States, not to mention the countries of Western Europe and Japan.
During the October 1973 war, Saudi Arabia sent an airborne battalion and armored vehicles to Syria against the Israeli army in the Golan Heights, and two brigades of infantry, tanks and helicopters to Jordan. After the October war, the Saudi leadership began to pay significant attention to the problem of the Middle East settlement, emphasizing the issue related to East Jerusalem.
The League of Arab States, of which Saudi Arabia is a member, advocates the unification of the actions of Arab countries and supports the demands of its members for the elimination of foreign bases on their territory. She condemned the ongoing Israeli occupation since June 1967. The League put forward a number of proposals regarding the development of a unified political and economic strategy for Arab countries to eliminate the consequences of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. At the conference of heads of Arab states in Khartoum (August, 1967), decisions were made on ways to fight for the liberation of lands occupied by Israel and on providing assistance to the Palestinians, including financial assistance.
Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Arab Palestinian people and supported the demand for the creation of an independent Arab Palestinian state led by this organization.
Rejection of the ideological policy of the USSR led the Saudi leadership to the need to support American methods of settlement. The Saudis, like the Americans, feared and opposed the active participation of the USSR in the settlement process.
The anti-communism of the Saudis, their support for the Egyptian president, and the relatively moderate position of Riyadh on the issue of oil prices made Saudi Arabia “useful” for the “new” US Middle East policy.
In fact, King Faisal was one of those who supported the secret Arab-Israeli negotiations on the disengagement of troops in the Sinai and Golan Heights.
The United States, in implementing “gradual diplomacy”, sought to separate two issues: oil and the problem of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, and to eliminate this “link”, inconvenient for the American administration, which was established in October 1973 and which interfered with the unimpeded implementation of American Kan's tactical line in the Middle East.
In an effort to expand its influence in the Arab world, continuing a policy aimed at “eroding” radical Arab regimes, the Saudi leadership, with the encouragement of the United States, sought to include the Syrian Arab Republic in the Cairo-Riyadh alliance. By intensifying its mediation in the Middle East settlement between Sadat and Kissinger, as well as trying to play a similar role in Syrian-American contacts, Saudi diplomacy wanted not only to “bring up” the position of the Syrians to the Egyptian approach to the issue of disengagement of troops, but also to let the Americans down to the understanding that without appropriate measures on the Golan Front they will not be able to further implement their tactical line in the settlement.
The Saudi leadership supported not only the first Sinai agreement of 1974, which mainly addressed issues of Egyptian sovereignty and the liberation of Sinai, but also, contrary to the positions of many Arab states and the PLO, agreed with the second (1975), which was essentially the beginning of separate negotiations between Egypt and Israel.
The Saudi position regarding the Second Sinai Agreement was determined primarily by the desire to prevent further deepening of the split in the Arab world and increasing isolation of Cairo. In the years under review, the Saudis simultaneously tried (albeit to an insufficient extent) to balance the US approach to resolving the Middle East problem, to neutralize its one-sided pro-Israeli orientation, in particular by establishing a direct relationship between the kingdom’s oil policy and the promotion of settlement issues. In addition, if Sadat, during his contacts with the American Secretary of State, did not seriously try to raise the Palestinian issue, believing that this would be the main obstacle to the speedy achievement of partial agreements with Israel, the Saudis, for their part, insisted on the need for an immediate resolution of this issue, given that it is directly related to the problem of Jerusalem, and that the unresolved Palestinian issue will inevitably radicalize the political situation in the region.
Thus, the Saudi leadership sought to play the role of “guardian” of Islamic values, to prevent, if possible, the radicalization of the PYD and the entire Arab national liberation movement.
The October War of 1973 greatly undermined Israel's position in the Middle East and affected the politics of Saudi Arabia. Thus, in November 1973, in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Anwar, Feisal stated: “Under no circumstances will we agree to give up Arab Jerusalem - the city of sacred monuments of the Muslim religion, where Jews do not have a single sacred pavilion.” -mintnik". At the end of December 1973, Faisal again repeated that the Arabs would never give up the Old City, to which “the Jews have no right.”
As is clear from these statements, saudi king denied any rights of Jews even to a spiritual connection with Jerusalem. He has repeatedly stated that he wants to pray at the Mosque of Omar before his death, but only after Israel is expelled from the Old City. On the issue of liberating the Old City, Faisal showed particular persistence. In August 1969, he called on the Arabs to “jihad” for the liberation of Muslim shrines from infidels. The reason for this was the arson of Al-Aqsa, for which, according to the Saudis, Israel, which occupied Jerusalem, was responsible.
On March 24, 1975, King Faisal supported a plan for a comprehensive solution to the problem of the Middle East settlement within the framework of the Geneva Peace Conference.
At the same time, there is no doubt that Faisal and his inner circle were interested in “correcting” Egypt’s internal and external political course. At the same time, they did not at all set as their goal its further rapprochement with Israel.
Nevertheless, the Saudi ruling circles helped clear the way for the signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in the future
Thus, it was Faisal who laid the foundations for a relatively independent Saudi policy on the issue of Middle East settlement. The new king Khaled chose a different course regarding the problem of the Middle East settlement: if Faisal advocated the resumption of the Geneva Peace Conference (convened on December 21, 1973), Khaled soon refused to follow the policies of his predecessor.
In early April 1975, Crown Prince Fahd, in an interview with the Beirut newspaper Al-Anwar, noted that, as Saudi Arabia had repeatedly stated to US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Arab states could not agree to separate and partial agreements with Israel.
On May 10, 1975, King Khaled spoke in the same spirit in an interview with Sunday Times correspondent D. Holden. He stated that the resumption of the Geneva Peace Conference was the last hope for achieving peace and that the PLO should take part in the conference as the sole legitimate representative of the Arab people of Palestine.
However, only two weeks have passed, and there are already changes in the position of the new Saudi leadership. On May 25, 1975, in an interview with the International Herald Tribune's J. Hoagland, Haled said he welcomed Arab agreement to resume Kissinger's "step-by-step" diplomacy as an alternative to the Geneva Peace Conference.
Thus, Saudi Arabia oscillated between its conservative principles, its closeness to the policies of the United States, with which it shared economic interests, and at the same time the principles of Arab solidarity.
In subsequent years, the Saudi leadership firmly adhered to the decision of the Rabat Conference of Arab countries to recognize the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Arab Palestinian people.
In May 1977, Menachem Begin, the leader of the right-wing Likud bloc that won the parliamentary elections in Israel, invited the presidents of Egypt and Syria and the Jordanian king to meet in one of the Middle Eastern capitals or in a neutral city, for example in Geneva, for direct negotiations without any preconditions. During a visit to Washington, M. Begin, who became Prime Minister, told President Carter that Israel intended to “maintain” and not “annex” the West Bank, since “you cannot annex your own territory.”
At the end of May 1977, Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia arrived in the United States, accompanied by Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Yamani. The Saudi delegation approved of Carter's policy in the Middle East regarding the liberation of the territories occupied by Israel - "partially or completely" - and the creation of a Palestinian homeland. Thus, under US pressure, the Saudi leadership took an ambivalent position, allowing the “partial liberation” of Arab territories and replacing the call for the struggle for the creation of an independent Arab Palestinian state with a vague term - “Palestinian homeland”, adopted by the American administration.
At the same time, Kissinger and Sadat hoped that Saudi Arabia would try to persuade other Arab countries in favor of the Egyptian-Israeli agreement.
On November 19, 1977, negotiations between Sadat and the Israeli leadership began in Jerusalem.
The Saudis, like the governments of the vast majority of other Arab countries, condemned the Egyptian president's trip to Jerusalem. For the ruling dynasty in the Saudi kingdom, such a position was quite natural, since it is the defense of the rights of Muslims to the sacred monuments of Islam in Jerusalem that is the cornerstone of Saudi policy on the issue of Middle East settlement.
The Egyptian-Israeli negotiations have noticeably deepened the differences between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
In early January 1978, Fahd announced that Saudi Arabia was ready to recognize Israel on the following conditions: the withdrawal of Israeli troops from all territories it occupied; returning the Arab people of Palestine their lands and giving them the opportunity to create their own independent state. With the signing of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1979, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries severed relations with him, accusing Egypt of treason. Relations resumed only in 1987.
Saudi leaders continued to assert that they supported a comprehensive settlement, while emphasizing the Palestinian aspect of the problem.
In fact, the apparently contradictory nature of Saudi statements reflected the ambivalence of its position on the settlement. On the one hand, this is a clear desire to once again rely on the United States in further searches for ways of settlement, and on the other hand, to pay tribute to pan-Arab, pan-Islamic efforts in achieving a fair, from the point of view of pan-Arab consensus, solution to the Middle East problem.
However, Sadat’s demonstrative refusal to accept the mediation mission that arrived in Cairo prompted the Saudis to vote for the resolutions of the Baghdad meeting on the application of political and economic sanctions against Egypt in the event of signing a separate Egyptian-Israeli treaty.
After the Baghdad meeting, the anti-Sadat campaign intensified in the Saudi press, during which it was emphasized that the Egyptian-Israeli deal was carried out in a form that “offended the religious feelings of the Arabs.”
The formula for “Palestinian autonomy” proposed at Camp David was especially harshly criticized. The Saudis did not rule out the possibility of returning to the idea of ​​Geneva and normalizing relations with Soviet Union, reconsidering American Middle East priorities. This indicated not only some evolutionary changes in tactical order in Saudi policy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also that in the ruling group the struggle between supporters and opponents of an exclusive orientation towards the United States was steadily growing, including on issues Middle East settlement.
Riyadh was forced to officially sever political and economic ties with Egypt in accordance with the decisions of the Baghdad meeting (March, 1979) and escalate bilateral relations with the United States.
It should be noted that the Saudi leaders, unlike other radical Arab leaders, did not advocate the removal of Sadat from power, but to force Egypt to abandon the Camp David accords and return to the principles of settlement recognized by the pan-Arab consensus, primarily in relation to the Palestinian problem.
After reaching agreements at Camp David at the end of October 1978 in Baghdad, at a session of the Arab League Council, which was held without the participation of Egypt, it was decided to declare a boycott if a peace treaty with Israel was signed. When the agreement was signed, the overwhelming majority of the Arab League member states broke off diplomatic relations with Egypt and declared a boycott. The exceptions were Sudan, Somalia and Oman. Egypt's membership in the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference was also suspended. This boycott continued for ten years. In Egypt, the agreement was negatively perceived by Islamic fundamentalists and primarily by the Muslim Brotherhood organization. After its defeat by G. A. Nasser, it was able to revive its influence, which was greatly facilitated by A. Sadat himself, who was its member in his youth. While fighting against supporters of “Arab socialism,” he decided to use Islam and allowed the leaders of the organization to return from emigration, who, receiving a large financial assistance from Saudi Arabia, launched a broad propaganda campaign for “Islamic statehood.” Its leitmotif was the slogan: “Islam is the solution.”
Being irreconcilable opponents of Israel, Islamic fundamentalists (Islamists) perceived the peace treaty as a capitulation to the “Zionist bandits,” and militant groups began terrorizing the leading figures of the regime. Several major officials were killed, and on October 6, 1981, President A. Sadat was shot at a parade marking the anniversary of the 1973 war. His death did not lead to serious changes in the internal and foreign policy Egypt. Mubarak maintained his previous political course with some amendments.
The overthrow of the Shah's regime in Iran in 1979 intensified anti-American and anti-monarchist processes in the Near and Middle East, which threatened the stability of the Saudi regime and was one of the important factors contributing to the shift in Riyadh's foreign policy priorities.
During the reign of the Likud bloc, the Israeli government set a course for further annexation of the occupied territories, which complicated the relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
In 1981, Saudi Arabia came up with an initiative to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, called the Fahd Plan, in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was called the main problem in normalizing relations with Israel. Among other things, it was understood that in exchange for Israel's readiness to retreat to the 1967 borders and the creation of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, the Arab states would be ready to recognize Israel. However, this plan was rejected by Israel.
In response to Saudi Arabia's position on the Middle East conflict, the United States began to cautiously cooperate with it in the field of arms. Israel and the United States also reached mutual understanding on this issue. Thus, in 1978, when the aircraft, mainly F-15s, were sold to Saudi Arabia, the Carter administration promised Israel that they would not be equipped with additional fuel tanks and would not use air-to-air missiles. Additionally, it was decided that the F-15s would only be stationed at outlying Saudi Air Force bases.
For decades, Israel and the United States have had extensive discussions about selling military equipment to Arab countries. Sometimes the issue led to bitter infighting, as when the Reagan administration intended to sell AWACS aircraft to the Saudis in 1981. During this period, the United States especially tried to convince the public of its commitment to maintaining Israel's “qualitative military superiority,” a policy that has been pursued by all US administrations.
At the same time, the position of the Saudi Kingdom on the problem of the Middle East settlement worried the Israeli government. On March 11, 1981, M. Begin declared that “Saudi Arabia is Israel’s most serious enemy.” He even threatened the possibility of a “pre-emptive strike” on Saudi Arabia before Israel launched military action against any other Arab country. The fears of the Israeli leadership, apparently, were explained primarily by the fact that, relying on their petrodollar wealth, the Saudis could exert significant influence on Arab countries that were in a state of confrontation with Israel.
It should be noted that the Saudi ruling circles in their desire to take leading positions in the Muslim world were greatly facilitated by the fact that the main Muslim shrines are located on the territory of the country. That is why Jerusalem, or rather its eastern part (the Old City, or East Jerusalem), plays such an important role in their politics, where the monuments of Islam are located, including two mosques revered by Muslims around the world - Al-Aqsa and the Omar Mosque, not inferior in importance to the shrines of Mecca and Medina. According to legend, it was from Jerusalem that the Prophet Muhammad made a “journey to the seventh heaven, where he met with God, after which
returned safely to Earth."
The Saudi dynasty is trying to “get” the third Muslim shrine - East Jerusalem. Therefore, the Saudi leadership has always prioritized the struggle for a Middle East settlement and the liberation of East Jerusalem, often taking tough positions on this issue.
On August 7, 1981, Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia, later to become king (1923–2005), put forward a peace plan that included Arab recognition of the State of Israel. One of the points of the plan was the demand for Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, followed by their transfer to UN trusteeship for a transition period limited to a few months. After the transition period, an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem should be created in this territory. The seventh point of Fahd’s plan read: “All countries in the region will coexist in peace and good neighborliness.”
The XVI Session of the Palestinian National Council formally approved this plan, emphasizing, however, that “political negotiations should not interrupt military operations.” Y. Arafat positively assessed the peace initiative of Saudi Arabia, calling it a “minimum plan.” Even the most moderate of the Palestinian nationalist organizations at that time was not yet ready to renounce violence and terror.
At the end of June 1980, Israel decided to permanently annex East Jerusalem. On July 30, 1980, the Knesset legally approved the united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The UN Security Council, which met at the request of Muslim states, condemned this decision of the Israeli authorities.
This Israeli step prompted the Saudi leadership to again raise the issue of “jihad” for the liberation of East Jerusalem. On August 13, 1980, the day the fasting month of Ramadan ended, Fahd called on the Arabs to “jihad.”
The Arab world's reaction to the call for “jihad” was not clear-cut. Thus, King Hussein and the leadership of other Arab states that supported the idea of ​​jihad believed that the liberation of Jerusalem should be achieved through negotiations, not military action.
In January 1981, the call for “jihad” was made again - this time at a conference Muslim countries, held on the territory of the Saudi Kingdom. He was declared King Khaled and addressed to all participants in the conference. Thus, “thanks to Khaled,” the call for “jihad” took on greater significance.
Domestic researcher L.V. Valkova writes in this regard: “Why, in 1981, was the call for “jihad” addressed not only to Arabs, but to all Muslims? In our opinion, this is explained primarily by the fact that after Egypt left the anti-Israeli front, the strength of the Arab side was significantly undermined. Moreover, in the conditions of the Iraq-Iran war, Iraq actually withdrew from active participation in solving the problem of the Middle East settlement. In this situation, it was necessary to expand the front of the struggle against Israel, involving not only Arabs, but also other Muslim peoples and Muslim minorities. Moreover, in contrast to the situation in the late 1960s. By the early 1980s, Saudi Arabia had gained significant weight in the Muslim solidarity movement, which allowed it to appeal not only to Arabs, but to all Muslims.”
So, the struggle for the liberation of East Jerusalem was the main aspect of the foreign policy activities of the Saudi leadership, as well as the Palestinian issue related to the Middle East settlement. The American Enterprise Institute report stated, in part: “Saudi Arabia advocates self-determination for the Arab Palestinian people for two reasons. Firstly, because the Palestinian problem is an Arab problem, and the inhabitants of Arabia have always been Arabs. Secondly, the vast majority of Arab Palestinians are Muslims, and therefore this is a Muslim problem."
In the early 1990s, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, there was a clear trend of change in Saudi Arabia's foreign policy. If earlier Riyadh preferred caution and consensus, then after the Persian crisis the course became more decisive. Saudi Arabia has entered into an open alliance with the West. Policy in the Arab region, previously based on the concepts of Arab solidarity, now irritated by the contradictory actions of Jordan and Yemen regarding Iraq, has given way to harsh sanctions against them.
As a result, Iraq found itself in a difficult situation. Isolation with sea and air blockades should have forced Saddam Hussein to either retreat or fight a costly war. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud al-Faisal, also spoke about this situation when, on September 18, 1990, he signed an agreement in Moscow on the restoration of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union after a break that lasted 51 years.
The royal family of Saudi Arabia is the guardian of Wahhabism, one of the fundamentalist movements of Sunni Islam. Family members, from King Fahd to youngest son the late King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, is a vivid embodiment of the Wahhabi creed. They represented almost all the tribes of the so-called “Islamic unification”. Unfortunately, the interests of some of these tribes were not taken into account by the United States and its allies. Meanwhile, taking them into account was important for the global economy. Whatever happened in the Arabian Peninsula, it was these elements, not the United States, that should indirectly set the price of oil.
At the end of the twentieth century. Wahhabism meant much more than a sect or religious movement. It symbolized the tribal balance on which the Saudi order was based. This balance was extremely fragile.
The Gulf crisis has contributed to the restoration of widespread supplies American weapons to Saudi Arabia, the volume of which declined sharply in the 1990s. due to Israel's objections. In 1991, Bush agreed to sign contracts for the supply of arms to Saudi Arabia for $24.5 billion, with the first, tax-free portion of $7.5 billion. Some types of weapons were to be delivered from the United States, others were abandoned by American troops after they were removed from the region.
The country's post-war foreign policy can be described as short-sighted and selfish. Like the Bush administration, Fahd hoped that Saddam Hussein would become a victim of the Gulf War; the king also feared that Shiite-dominated Iraq, perhaps in an alliance with Iran, would be worse for him than coexistence with a weakened Saddam Hussein. Washington's hopes for Saudi leadership in the intensified search for Arab-Israeli peace disappeared when Riyadh refused to directly participate in negotiations with Israel. Only under US pressure did the Saudis agree to discuss fundamental issues such as arms control and water rights with Israel if a peace conference was convened.
Fahd did not forgive Hussein and the Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee, Ya. Arafat, for their support of Saddam, thereby further impeding US attempts to develop a unified position among moderate Arabs.
Despite the complications in relations with the PLO, Saudi Arabia continued to provide assistance and support to the Arab people of Palestine in providing them with fair and inalienable rights, including self-determination. Saudi Arabia believed that the Palestinian issue remained the main problem of the Arabs. The Saudis demanded that the Israeli authorities stop deportations of Palestinians from their ancestral lands and warned against political and military clashes in the region. Security and stability in the Middle East could only be ensured through a solution to the Palestine problem that would satisfy the Palestinian Arabs and would not upset the balance of power in the region.
During meetings with heads of Arab states, Saudi Arabia confirmed the need to implement relevant UN decisions and establish international legitimacy to achieve peace in the Middle East.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia emphasized that the problem of Palestine is a core issue in the country's foreign and domestic policy. The Kingdom considered it its duty to provide political, diplomatic, military and material assistance to the struggling Palestinian people. This position was fully justified, considered unchanged and not subject to the influence of market factors.
Moreover, Prince Saud al-Faisal on April 24, 1991 put forward three principles that Saudi Arabia adhered to in its Middle East policy:
1. It’s time to act in the interests of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and a fair and universal solution to the Palestinian problem.
2. Support for US efforts to convene a peace conference as soon as possible to achieve this goal and a general settlement based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and world law.
3. In light of the developments in the region from 1967 to the present, the current situation is extremely complex. In this regard, the will to peace must prevail in the actions of all parties.
A “historic responsibility” requires all forces in the region to support the peace efforts of the United States and other countries.
As in previous years, there are two trends in Saudi Arabia’s approaches: on the one hand, support for the US line on the Middle East conflict, on the other - although Saudi Arabia avoided directly supporting the PLO, it nevertheless took a close position to the Palestinian and other Arab countries in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. This duality was also due to the fact that Saudi Arabia was not directly involved in this conflict, and this allowed it to take a balanced position and maintain a certain independence in foreign policy from the United States and other Western countries. The conservative nature of the regime in Saudi Arabia also determined the “moderate approaches” of the country’s leaders to such an acute problem.
The end of the Cold War improved relations between the USSR and Israel. The crisis in the Persian Gulf ended with the defeat of Saddam Hussein. All this, as mentioned earlier, created favorable conditions for resolving the Middle East conflict. The very fact of the world community's condemnation of the occupation of Kuwait and the liberation of the territories captured by Iraq through US efforts created a precedent for the resolution of other complex international problems.
After the completion of Operation Desert Storm, a qualitative shift occurred in political thinking not only on the Arabian Peninsula, but also in the Arab East and in the world as a whole. The stereotype of democracy began to be “attached” to this or that regime, determining the degree of individual freedom and respect for human rights. Countries that were, to one degree or another, guilty of terrorism, despotism, and persecution of dissent were subjected to severe criticism. In the Arab world, these included Iraq and Libya, partly Syria and Sudan.
Saudi Arabia was also affected, in which two mutually exclusive processes began to take place latently: on the one hand, demands for liberalization of the regime by the intelligentsia, part of the student body and entrepreneurs, and on the other, strict adherence to the norms of Sharia and Wahhabi morality emanating from from fundamentalist clergy and theology students. If the former did not pose any particular danger to the ruling circles of the country, demanding only greater freedom in privacy, liberation from the tutelage of the “morality police”, the right of women to drive cars, the latter questioned the very foundations of the domestic and foreign policy of the ruling family. “Ultra-Wahhabis” were hostile to the very fact of the appearance of allied troops in Saudi Arabia, seeing in this the influence of the West - the “Great Satan”. They, undoubtedly, were under the strong influence of the ideas of Khomeinism, albeit in the Sunni interpretation, and Algerian supporters of integration processes.
Saudi fundamentalists spoke out against the “encroachments of infidels” on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, sacred to Muslims. A group of 20 religious figures also resorted to a more active form of protest against the Saudi leadership’s “departure” from the norms and provisions of Islam and Sharia. A petition signed by them addressed to the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Aziz Abdullah Baz, strongly condemned Riyadh's participation in the Middle East peace process.
On May 7, 1991, Riyadh's ambassador to Washington, Bandar, promised the White House and Congress during the Gulf crisis that Saudi Arabia would make every effort to establish peace in the Middle East after the crisis was over.
King Fahd said, speaking to members of the government, that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), represented by its Secretary General A. Bishara, will take part in the Middle East peace conference as an observer if it receives an invitation. He emphasized the interest of the Arab Gulf countries in discussing issues affecting the region, especially such as the destruction of all types of weapons of mass destruction, arms control, and security environment and water resources.
Saudi Arabia announced that the GCC will participate in the first meeting and in regional negotiations. This was a major success for the United States on its way to Madrid.
Having recognized the need for American protection during the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia was ready to use its financial and political capabilities for the sake of American interests in the Arab world.
The Saudi government supported the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, which took place at the initiative of the Americans, sending Prince Bandar bin Sultan to Washington to open negotiations in Madrid in October 1991. The negotiations were harshly condemned by religious extremists.
Saudi Arabia also participated in international negotiations with Israel in Moscow (1991), and the invitation to a meeting in the SA of leaders of American Jewish organizations was a real event, considered unthinkable in this Islamic country.
All these facts testified to the increasing political activity of Saudi Arabia since the end of the Gulf War.
Saudi Arabian businessmen have also expressed interest in promoting the Middle East peace process and establishing economic cooperation between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Saudi Arabia has committed to renovating Islamic temples in Jerusalem without pursuing any “political objectives” and “strongly rejecting” attempts to misinterpret its actions.
In response to a campaign launched in the Jordanian press about Jordan's priority in preserving the Holy Sites of Islam in Jerusalem, the Saudis argued that the Kingdom, by allocating funds for the repair of temples, was responding to calls international organizations, including UNESCO, and his actions received widespread support in the Islamic world.
According to Saudi Arabia, the results of the Israeli elections gave hope for achieving peace in the Middle East region.
As a result, Saudi Arabia joined Egypt's proposal to end the economic boycott of Israel if it refuses to build settlements in the occupied territories, since this is a violation of international law and UN resolutions. Arabia considered this issue to be the "major obstacle" to achieving peace in the Middle East.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia transferred more than 12.5 million rials to the account of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This amount was only part of the donations collected in the Kingdom by the People's Committee for Relief of the Palestinian Mujahideen. Riyadh took such a step for the first time since the beginning of 1992.
After the Gulf War, as is known, Saudi Arabia refused to provide any financial assistance to the Palestinian organization led by Yasser Arafat, due to the fact that the PLO leadership unconditionally supported the occupation of Kuwait by Iraqi troops in August 1990.
The traditional message, addressed in 1992 to believers who arrived in Mecca from all over the globe, contained questions of paramount importance. Coming from both King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, it showed the extent to which Saudi leaders realized the importance of events that could occur in the foreseeable future at the regional and international levels.
Reaffirming Saudi Arabia's decision to pursue a policy of peacemaking in relation to various problems and crises wherever they arise, the message indicated the Kingdom's responsible position regarding the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem. In this regard, the king and crown prince emphasized: “Can’t an Islamic nation live in peace and with a clear conscience if the Palestinian people are left homeless and suffering from the hardships of occupation?”
According to Saudi leaders, the only way out of this situation was to implement the Security Council resolutions. The Islamic world must not weaken its resistance. He must make every effort to strengthen coordination between the individual components in order to force Israel to respond positively to calls for peace.
Particular attention was paid to restoring Arab and Islamic solidarity: “The Islamic nation must help unite its ranks, eliminate factors of disunity and get rid of unnecessary ambitions and illusions.”
Saudi Arabia condemned Israel's ongoing military actions in the south of Lebanon and demanded that Tel Aviv immediately implement Security Council resolution (No. 425), providing for the withdrawal of troops from the territory of this Arab country.
For its part, in January 1993, Israel accused Saudi Arabia of financing the Islamic movement Hamas, which operated in the occupied territories.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sent a message to the American administration, which contained a demand to put pressure on Saudi Arabia so that Riyadh stops financial assistance to Hamas. Saudi Arabia categorically rejected these Israeli accusations.
In early 1993, Saudi Arabia welcomed the “full participation” of the United States in the negotiation process in the Middle East and Washington’s declared commitment to maintaining peace in the region.
Saudi Arabia expressed optimism about trilateral negotiations in the Middle East with the participation of Arab countries, Israel, and the United States. It was assumed that in conditions when the interests of the United States were not threatened by the “communist danger,” Washington no longer needed Israel, which played the role of an advanced bastion on the path of the “communist threat.”
Soon after the Gulf War, the Saudi Arabian economy received a new impetus, which brought high profits to American and European companies.
At the same time, it should be noted that after the war, fundamentalists sharply became more active, which was associated with the situation in other areas of the Middle East. Religious police "mutawi" patrolled shopping centers and supermarkets and detained persons dressed inappropriately. “I no longer feel safe in my home,” said a businessman in Jeddah.
Saudi authorities prevented in May 1993 an attempt by Iranian Muslim pilgrims to hold a mass demonstration in Mecca to protest against the "kuffars" - "infidels", which meant the United States and Israel.
* * *
Thus, Israel and Saudi Arabia play an important role in the Middle East. This is facilitated by the presence of the main Muslim shrines in the territories, given the significant economic potential and the largest oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. The United States is using it to “reformat” the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia supports fellow believers around the world. Riyadh takes an active part in all socio-political processes in the region and coordinates its position with American partners on current international issues, including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran.
Regarding the Palestinian problem, the Arab League, of which Saudi Arabia is a member, continues to work to this day. In 2006, this organization decided to allocate $50 million to support Hamas. During the Israeli-Lebanese war, the Arab League provided support for the restoration of Lebanon's infrastructure.
At the official level, Riyadh proclaims the policy of peace and consensus as its main principle. However, in Saudi Arabia there are forces that support Islamic extremism and terrorism, and advocate the destruction of the State of Israel, which is one of the reasons that all attempts by Israel and Saudi Arabia to solve the Palestinian problem have ended without success.

Election as the new Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, the 31-year-old son of the king Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, in the United States was called “the embodiment of Israel’s dream.” This figurative assessment was recently made by one of the leading American experts on the Middle East, former ambassador USA in Israel (2011−2017) and advisor to the previous occupant of the White House on Middle Eastern issues (2008−2011) Daniel Shapiro.

The Israeli dream of finding a consistent partner in the largest Arab monarchy is gradually becoming a reality. At the current historical turn, the interests of Middle Eastern democracy and the Arabian kingdom began to converge at one point. They are also drawn together by a sense of threat posed by a regional power for which the Israeli authorities and the al-Saud family have almost identical hostility.

The nomination of Prince Mohammed was the result desired by the Israelis, primarily with an eye to consolidating the situation of geopolitical confrontation with Iran. The ambitious heir to the throne, the future king, who was actually already performing the functions of a monarch, became simply a godsend for Israel and the US administration. In Washington, there is now a rare consensus between Democrats and Republicans that the emerging alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia should be fully supported. Assessments of diplomat Shapiro, appointed to the post of head of the American diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv during the administration Barack Obama, highlights this trend.

Meanwhile, among Washington diplomats and analysts there is a firm conviction that a strong Israeli-Saudi alliance, with the possible inclusion of several more Sunni countries in the region, cannot be built on hostility to Iran alone. The foundation of such an anti-Iranian alliance could be the historic agreement between Tel Aviv and Riyadh, which the US President Donald Trump in his usual manner, he likes to meaningfully refer to it as a “big deal.” The “pain syndrome” that persists between the Jewish state and the Arab world is due to the Palestinian problem. Its decision, albeit of an interim nature, is intended to become the very foundation for the emergence of the Israeli-Saudi Arabia alliance from the shadows.

What does Trump offer in this regard as he promotes his “grand deal”? In fact, nothing new, just a few adjustments to the so-called Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which is supposed to be adapted to Middle Eastern realities, taking into account changes over the past 15 years (1).

In Washington, the young heir to the Saudi throne is called an ardent supporter of lifting the taboo on relations between the Arab world and Israel precisely on the basis of the Arab Initiative of 2002. Its scope is expected to be somewhat expanded and at the same time made more flexible, brought into line with the current dynamics of processes in the region. The Arabs of the Persian Gulf actually have very limited tools to attract the attention of the Israelis to their initiative. This is still being talked about in a low voice, but Trump’s “big deal,” which the Saudi Kingdom is also leaning toward, could become both breakthrough and implementable if it includes one element that is important for Israel. This is his recognition of sovereignty over the Golan Heights, control over which the Israeli army established after the “six-day war” won 50 years ago. The Golan Heights should be returned to Syria under the Arab Initiative 2002. But Syria itself now does not exist as such. Syria Bashar al-Assad expelled from the League of Arab States back in 2011, not a single Gulf Arab monarchy will agree to normalize relations with it. Assad “ceded” the Arab Republic to the Iranians, why then should we protect the tiny territory of the Golan (about 1200 sq. km) under ephemeral Syrian sovereignty, this is roughly what they are now arguing in Riyadh and other Arab capitals.

The Golan, coupled with other Israeli wishes (in particular, the creation of a confederal State of Palestine with guarantees from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the transfer of the Jerusalem issue to the very last stage of resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) seem increasingly rational to the Saudis. The Israeli army on the Golan Heights is today one of the best solutions to the problem of destroying the continuous “Shiite axis” from the western borders of Iran to the Lebanese coast Mediterranean Sea(Iran - Iraq Syria - Lebanon).

The latest agreements on the creation of a de-escalation zone in southwestern Syria also fit this goal. Israel calls this a “buffer,” and has made great efforts to create such a “layer” of security zone on the approaches to its eastern borders in the Syrian provinces of Quneitra, Suwayda and Daraa. Approximately 24 hours before reports arrived on July 7 about an agreement reached by Russia and the United States with the participation of Jordan southern zone de-escalation in Western publications “presented” the idea of ​​a buffer between Israel and Syria (2).

Illustration: thetimes.co.uk

Obviously, “freezing” the situation in southern Syria meets the interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia to a greater extent than Iran, which is indirectly present in the Syrian southwest (through allied groups). Tehran may not be delighted with the Russian-American agreement, at least due to its “separate” nature, without involving the Iranians in the development of agreements.

The points of convergence between the positions of Israel and Saudi Arabia go beyond the Arab Initiative and the Palestinian issue as a whole. The geography of such mutual attraction between two powerful forces in the region is impressive. In Lebanon they have one common enemy - the Shiite movement Hezbollah, which enjoys the full support of Iran. With the support of the “Party of Allah,” the Iranians are projecting their own influence onto the entire line of contact between Israel and Lebanon and Syria. The Damascus-Beirut highway, under the joint control of Iranian “military advisers”, Hezbollah fighters and the Syrian army, has become an irritant for both the Israelis and the Saudis.

The latter actually have one stronghold left in Syria in the form of the Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) group, based in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Eastern Ghouta. Riyadh is holding on to it with all its might, and Tel Aviv is lending its shoulder in this regard. The Israeli army's strikes deep into Syrian territory, which have become more frequent since the beginning of summer and have taken on a denser fire pattern, are not least aimed at weakening the opponents of the Army of Islam, who have surrounded its Eastern Ghouta enclave from all sides. Israeli foreign and military intelligence established a covert channel for exchanging information with colleagues from the Saudi General Intelligence Service on issues related to the activities of Hezbollah and directly Iranian “advisers” in Syria.

In Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia have the same common goal and shared commitment to preventing the growth of Iranian influence. The leadership of the Iraqi Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi is under close scrutiny by the intelligence services of the two countries. Any activity of pro-Iranian groups in Iraq is monitored, and the resources of the US intelligence community are also involved.

To prevent the government of the Shiite majority in Baghdad from falling under the determining influence of Tehran, the “Middle Eastern triumvirate” represented by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia also uses the factor of Iraqi Kurdistan. When the Kurds in northern Iraq raise the issue of secession from the “metropolis”, each time it is directly dependent on the receipt by the intelligence services of the three indicated countries of information about the rapprochement between Baghdad and Tehran. The threat of a Kurdish referendum and remaining on the body of Iraq pain points the fight against terrorist Daesh (Islamic State, IS, ISIS) is a lever of pressure diligently used by the “triumvirators” on the central Iraqi government.

In Yemen, where the Saudi coalition is waging an extremely vague military campaign against local Shiite Houthi rebels, the Israelis are also ready to offer their services to a potential ally. Containing Iranians from entering the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula by sea has become one of the Kingdom's priorities. And in order to block Iranian naval forces from accessing the Yemeni rebels, the Saudis cannot do without coordination with Israel and the United States. Egypt’s concession to Saudi Arabia of two islands in the Red Sea, with the United States and Israel playing a behind-the-scenes role in this deal, fully fits the logic of blocking the activity of the Iranian Navy on the approaches to Yemen.

Here we should point out that the Saudis are working on one of the important points for legitimizing the future alliance with Israel. Lobbyists for rapprochement with the Jewish state in the Kingdom began to point to the de facto expansion of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt into the form of a “multilateral agreement.” For example, according to version former general Saudi Arabian Armed Forces, ex-adviser to the head of the Royal General Intelligence Service Anwar Eshki(now director of the Middle East Center for Strategic Studies based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), the Egyptian transfer of sovereignty over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir leads to de facto recognition by Riyadh of the 1978 Camp David Accords. In this way, an international legal foundation is created for the withdrawal of Israeli-Saudi relations, with the support of Egypt and the United States, from the regional “underground”.

If Saudi Arabia recognizes Camp David, it will be the first step towards officially recognizing the right of the Jewish state to exist. What is important to emphasize is that the Kingdom is taking such a step before any serious progress is made in the process of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Although the letter and spirit of the Arab Initiative are based precisely on the fact that until Israel returns to the borders of 1967, its recognition by the authors of the Initiative is impossible.

In July 2016, a delegation from Saudi Arabia, led by Anwar Eshki, visited Israel. This did not become a particular sensation, given the series of contacts between the two countries that had already taken place on various issues of the Middle East agenda. But emissaries from Saudi Arabia, albeit at the unofficial level of experts and businessmen, came to Israel for the first time in public to exchange views. The delegation included representatives of the academic and business circles of Saudi Arabia. During the visit, the delegation met in Jerusalem with general director Israeli Foreign Ministry Dori Goldom, Coordinator of IDF Operations in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Major General Yoav Mordechai, as well as with a group of opposition Knesset members. The stated purpose of the visit was to promote the Arab Peace Initiative in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Note that Dori Gold met with Anwar Eshki in the summer of 2015 in the United States, right around the time when the conclusion of an agreement between the world powers with Iran on its nuclear program reached the home stretch. This and much more suggests that the Palestinian issue is important for Tel Aviv and Riyadh to find points of rapprochement. But Iran is much more relevant for the two Middle Eastern capitals, which have their own special scores to settle with it.

In recent years, Israel has not made a single hostile move directly against Saudi Arabia. She reciprocated his feelings. This alone is enough to prepare the ground on which the seeds of the anti-Iranian sentiment of the two regional powers may soon sprout their “geopolitical shoots.”

However, the prospects for the formation of an Israeli-Saudi alliance are not as obvious as it might seem at a superficial glance. The same American expert on the Middle East, Daniel Shapiro, warns the current American administration about the dangers of inflated expectations from the new heir to the Saudi throne. The young prince is too impulsive and at the same time inexperienced. Added to this is the factor of his enormous ambitions to dictate Riyadh’s terms to the entire Arab world, which has already created a number of problems for the Americans in the crisis around Qatar that erupted in early summer. Shapiro and other proponents of a pragmatic Middle East course in Washington are suggesting that the Trump administration give Mohammed bin Salman a “strong warning” that his “steps will no longer jeopardize America’s interests.”

The Israel-Saudi Arabia alliance has already been in place since around the time six world powers struck the Iran nuclear deal in July 2015. The Israelis were unable to “reverse” the move of the then White House administration, but they quickly found a partner in the frontal containment of Iran. Over the past two years, especially taking into account the changes in the corridors of power in Washington, Israel has come closer to the cherished goal of creating, albeit largely situational, an alliance of interests with major Arab countries.

The division of labor within the framework of the anti-Iranian alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab states of the Middle East is visible quite clearly. The Arabians are interested in using the power potentials of Egypt and Israel on the track of confrontation with Iran. Egyptians have some of the strongest armed forces region, they have a relatively powerful surface fleet, which is called upon, in case of urgent need, to provide a barrier to Iranian warships in the Red Sea. The Israelis not only have a highly mobile army with devastating firepower, supplemented recently (in December 2016) by the adoption of the F-35 multirole fighters. The Israeli Navy's submarine fleet alone is capable of carrying out tasks to contain Iran that would be beyond the capabilities of all Arab countries in the region combined for decades to come. The Jewish state has at its disposal the best intelligence services in the Middle East, one of the most extensive information collection networks, including those based on human intelligence.

With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, Israel's position in the US administration and Congress has undergone significant strengthening. This is of great interest to the Arab monarchies, which has already produced concrete results in the form of the first foreign tour of the 45th American president, who visited only two countries in the region in May - Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Israel and the leading players in the Arab world have more and more common enemies and the field of previous disagreements of a fundamental nature is steadily narrowing. The general hostility to Iran, the Syrian regime, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi militia, the Yemeni Shiite rebels, and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood outweighs the remaining divergence of positions on the Palestinian issue. Both are open to intensive dialogue and coordination of actions, as a result of which a completely new alliance may appear on the reformatted map of the Middle East.

(1) The Arab Peace Initiative was proposed by the previous King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, in 2002. It provides for Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian territories and a return to the 1967 borders. According to the initiative, Israel recognizes a sovereign Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. In addition, the initiative stipulates a fair solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees. If all these conditions are met, the Arab states will consider the conflict with Israel settled and will establish relations with it within the framework of a comprehensive peace.

(2) Israel is “pushing” Russia and the United States to create a “buffer zone” in southern Syria, which would guarantee the security of the eastern borders of the Jewish state. The Israelis are seeking guarantees that militants from the Lebanese Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups will not be allowed to conduct military operations in the area. The British The Times reported this on July 6, citing its Middle Eastern sources. According to the publication, Israeli representatives were present “on the sidelines” of earlier meetings between the United States and Russia in Amman, Jordan, at which the issue of “the future of southern Syria” was discussed. The British newspaper became aware of the approximate outlines of the “buffer”. It will stretch more than 50 km east from the Golan Heights region on the Israeli-Syrian border to the city of Deraa (the administrative center of the Syrian province of the same name). The “buffer zone” will then reach the outskirts of the city of Suweida, which is under the control of government troops.