The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), is in Washington for a few days, and Donald Trump is pulling out all of the stops to impress and honor him. Fighters flew over the White House just before the formal contracts for the sale of F-35s and Abrams tanks were signed. Just prior to bin Salmam's arrival in Washington, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) brass provided the Israeli political echelon a report that 48 F-35s for Riyadh would be a direct threat to Israeli security. This claim did not move the White House, and Israel's attempt to couple Saudi Arabia's joining the Abraham Accords in exchange for the stealth planes also fell on deaf ears. Welcome to the new American Middle East.
I do not believe that Donald Trump is in any way abandoning Israel or changing his position with respect to the Jewish state. He has been a great friend of Jews and Israel for decades, and there is nothing to suggest that his feelings have changed. What I believe we are witnessing is a strategic realignment. In the past, Israel was the center of American Middle Eastern policy, while Saudi Arabia, since the days of Roosevelt, has been a friend and reliable (except in 1973) gas station for the United States. We have seen previously that Donald Trump has showered praise and signed a mutual defense pact with Qatar, a nation of 300,000 people whose money has corrupted U.S. universities and funded the anti-U.S. activities of Muslim Brotherhood branches in the U.S. What Donald Trump appears to be doing is to make Saudi Arabia the top dog in U.S. Middle Eastern concerns. Its oil, location, massive wealth, and potential for future U.S. business make it more appealing than Israel, whose economy is small, though its high tech is top-notch. Israel will not be kicked to the curb, but it will enter second-tier status with Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. The U.S. has relations with all three and provides different levels of military and economic aid to each. Israel is already feeling pressure to ignore the promised disarmament of Hamas and may well have a Palestinian state rammed down its throat after the recent U.S.-sponsored vote in the United Nations Security Council. During bin Salman's visit, which included a state dinner with Ronaldo, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and other stars, Saudi Arabia was upgraded to a "major non-NATO ally" of the United States. Is this realignment good foreign policy?
The U.S. can receive from the Saudis a trillion or more dollars in investment, bases from which to stage operations, teamwork on AI, and, apparently, civilian nuclear energy development. The challenge of working with bin Salman is that he could be gone tomorrow. As the name implies, he is the son of Salman, the actual king who is still alive. There are many others in the massively extended family who no doubt would like to be the boss man in Riyadh. Do you remember when bin Salman put many of the top people in the country into a 5-star hotel and made them buy into his leadership? Five hundred people were targeted, while 2,000 bank accounts holding $800 billion were frozen. It was the big purge that opened the door to bin Salman's leadership. The other big threat, obviously, is Islamic. Though Wahhabism is extreme, there are many in ISIS who would like to get rid of MBS and his Western friends. Remember the Khobar Tower bombing in which 19 Americans were killed and nearly 500 people were wounded? A coup from family or an overthrow from Islamists could make a big bet on Saudi Arabia come up snake eyes.
For Israel, the new relationship means fewer requests granted and more directives given. The Trump peace plan was supposed to have Hamas disarm. Hamas today is collecting weapons in friendly countries, and the IDF is having fits trying to down all of the drones entering Gaza from Egypt. Obviously, the Egyptians are of no help, but 130 big drones with rifles and ammo were knocked down in just the last week. The Trump administration seems to be okay with an armed Hamas and does not seem opposed to having troops from Israel-hating countries like Egypt and Turkey as part of some type of "stabilization force." Israel does not want these countries involved, as they will simply help Hamas prepare to destroy the Jewish state. The Trump administration seems less concerned today about what Israel thinks and wants, and that may be the pattern going forward. As the Democrats move to Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and part of the Republican Party may go Marjorie Taylor Greene or Tucker Carlson, the loving embrace of Ted Cruz and Israel-supporting Democrats in Congress may be a thing of the past. Bibi Netanyahu was invited to speak before Congress twice. In our lawsuit, Sokolow v. PLO, we twice received amici briefs in the name of the entire House of Representatives. As the Squad moves up to a Platoon, will such love of Jews and Israel be so present?
There is little Israel can do as the White House pivots from Jerusalem to Riyadh. The Saudis have a lot to offer the Americans, while Israel's contribution in intelligence, technology, and real-world battle data may simply not match a $1 trillion investment in the U.S. economy. I don't think that bin Salman is in any hurry to join the Abraham Accords. He always states that he looks forward to it, but ties the hold up supposedly to the need for a Palestinian state. The Saudis took in zippo Gazans and couldn't care less about the Palestinians. I met a Palestinian carpenter who said that when he lived in the country, the sheep were treated better than they were. Right now, MBS is not at war with Israel, and he has no interest in thousands of Israelis clogging up Riyadh's hotels. Whereas the U.A.E. practices a form of Islam that allows for relationships to grow between Israel and the Emirates, Wahhabism is no such thing. In five years, he'll still be pining to join the Abraham Accords, which might already have to become the Isaac Accords, as they will be old enough to be Abraham's son.
One other political advantage of the "Saudi First" approach to the Middle East and Gulf is that it could quiet the Groyper/Carlson wing of the Republican Party. If it appears that Israel is not the top country or concern for the administration, the claims that the president and other politicians are "Israel First" would become more muted. There could be an upside to making most of the press about bin Salman instead of Netanyahu. How hard is Donald Trump pushing this new direction? He claimed that the guy running Saudi Arabia knew nothing of the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi embassy in Turkey. Apparently, that's what they do to anyone who fills out their passport renewal form wrong. The president also glossed over Saudi Arabia's role in providing the 20 hijackers of 9/11. Just as I don't like to see U.S. officials sit with Palestinian Authority officials who tried to kill me, I would imagine that the families of the 3,000 murdered on that day are not thrilled to see the head of the country of Al-Qaeda being treated as a rock star.
The world was shocked in 1939 by the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement because it was assumed that Germany and the Soviet Union could never make a pact. Political needs make for strange bedfellows, and right now, MBS needs planes and Donald Trump needs investment in the U.S. Welcome to the new Middle East.
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