The emergence last week of a Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani axis with a handshake in Riyadh between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set the U.S. and Israel scrambling to deal with the implications. And things don’t look too promising for Israel on the issue of Palestinian statehood.
For five years, both had believed that the road to a new Middle East ran through the Abraham Accords. It was a vision of a region integrated by fear of Iran, reliance on U.S. and Israeli security commitments, and the desire to get in on Israeli technology and other expertise. And the Palestinian issue was largely reduced to a nuisance. This was tailor-made for Israel, to which Palestinian statehood is anathema, and the U.S., which saw a demilitarized Gaza as key to its plans for the future of the Middle East.
But then came October 7, the Gaza war, the devastation of Iran and its proxy network, and Israel’s virtually unfettered dominance over Syria. With Iran no longer an urgent threat and identifying with the U.S. and Israel much more problematical than before, the Saudis sought another infrastructure for the Middle East of the future. An infrastructure that jettisoned Israel and the U.S. – at least for now – in favor of Turkish military and the Saudis’ vast wealth. The irony dripping in all of this is exquisite.
To be sure, it is hard to believe that at all events the Saudis were ever going to be fully comfortable with the spectacular surge of the Israeli image worldwide and its geopolitical momentum. And perhaps, as well, they were destined to become deeply resentful of President Trump’s incessant invocation of “America First.”
But by any measure, the realignment is a hedge against U.S. hegemony, particularly a rebuke of the Gaza board of peace, where President Trump was plainly planning on calling all the shots. Yet at the very least, for now, with the diminished Iranian threat, Turkey provides the Saudis with realistic alternatives to reliance on the U.S. and Israel. And now they are building their own shield – one that conspicuously excludes Israel.
For Israel though, there is a special problem. By aligning with Turkey – a nation that has arguably become the primary champion of the Palestinian cause on the global scene – the Saudis are signaling that the “Palestinian veto” is back.
We trust that President Trump continues to deem a strong Israel as the key to America’s role in the Middle East as demonstrated by the critical collaboration last June in the attack on Iran. It would be shortsighted to try to entice Saudi Arabia back into the fold by dangling the prospect of pressuring Israel into supporting a Palestinian state. Surely the President has amply demonstrated great creativity in choosing the least onerous solutions to problems.