This article was published in the Jerusalem Post on 13 July 2022, just ahead of President Biden's visit to Israel
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Once top secret, a multi-national meeting of military leaders in March 2022 forms the basis for discussions that US President Joe Biden is planning for his imminent visit to the Middle East.
For three months a
clandestine get-together of US, Israeli and Arab military chiefs remained
secret. Then on June 26 the Wall Street Journal printed an exclusive,
revealing details of a meeting hosted by the US in Egypt’s Sharm-el-Sheik the
previous March which had apparently included military leaders from Israel,
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. They
had met in secret, according to the report, in order to explore ways of
coordinating a joint response to Iran’s growing missile and drone capabilities.
As the WSJ pointed out,
these talks marked the first time that such a range of ranking Israeli and Arab
officers had met under US military auspices to discuss how to defend
themselves and each other against a common threat.
A glance at the
participants suggests that something else is new on the regional scene – the
positive effect that the Abraham Accords is having in expanding the concept of
normalization across the moderate Arab world.
No longer does the idea of sitting round a table with Israelis seem inconceivable,
even though Qatar and Saudi Arabia have no formal diplomatic relations with
Israel. On the contrary, it is becoming
increasingly obvious to Arab leaders that linking up with Israel’s hi-tech
capabilities across a multitude of fields brings them huge benefits not
otherwise available.
For example, Arab
countries appear increasingly keen to access sophisticated Israeli air defense
technology, following a succession of recent drone strikes on oil facilities
and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, perpetrated by Iran or its
proxies. One such, carried out in September 2019, was claimed by the
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
It hit an Aramco compound in Saudi Arabia, shutting down about 5 percent
of global oil production and caused chaos in financial markets. A 3-drone
strike directed by Hezbollah against Israel’s Karish oil rig in the
Mediterranean on July 2 was shot down by the IDF.
During his visit Biden is
due to attend a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), to be augmented
by the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq.
It will no doubt include on the agenda the regional threat to security
posed by Iran and its proxies. Collaborative counter-measures arising from the
Sharm-el-Sheik meeting in March might be reviewed.
Media reports claim that
the participants in the March meeting discussed which country’s forces would
intercept drone, ballistic or cruise missile attacks. They agreed in principle
to coordinate rapid notification systems when aerial threats are detected, but
apparently agreed that for the present a US-style military data-sharing system
would not be set up, but that alerts would be sent via phones and computers.
Presidential visits
invariable generate intense media speculation, and the word is that during his time
in Israel and Saudi Arabia, Biden will announce further steps in the warming
relationship between the two nations. There is talk of Biden brokering a new
Saudi-Israeli agreement which is believed to include allowing Israeli
commercial flights over the kingdom, and Israeli approval of a plan to transfer
Egypt’s control of two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia
In 2017, against much
internal objection, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi ratified a treaty
to hand over Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia. The uninhabited islands figure
in the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, which promises safe passage to
Israeli civilian and military ships through the narrow waterways of the Straits
of Tiran. The transfer was never finalized, and requires Israel’s consent. That
now seems forthcoming.
Visits by US presidents
to Israel might almost be considered routine (six did so, some more than once),
but Biden’s decision to visit Saudi Arabia was long weighed in the balance. The
fact that it is going ahead is a mark of the importance that Washington
attaches to it. Liberal opinion in the
US declares itself outraged at the idea of Biden shaking hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman (MBS), in the light of the Khashoggi affair.
On the afternoon of October 2, 2018 journalist
Jamal Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of MBS entered the Saudi Arabia consulate
in Istanbul, never to emerge. Having listened to purported recordings of
conversations inside the consulate made by Turkish intelligence, a UN special
rapporteur concluded that the journalist had been "brutally slain"
inside the building by a 15-strong team of Saudi agents, and that his body was then
dismembered.
Khashoggi’s murder sparked worldwide outrage. US intelligence agencies concluded that the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, had approved the operation. MBS denied playing any role. A year after the killing, a Saudi court found five people guilty of directly participating in the killing and sentenced them to death. The sentences were later commuted to 20-year prison terms. Three others received lesser sentences for covering up the crime.
It is against this
background that Biden sets foot in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, hoping to
achieve a clear commitment by Saudi to increase oil production over time, thus
fostering a drop in prices. With renewal of the Iran nuclear deal now unlikely,
he will be seeking to expand cooperation between the Gulf states, other Arab
countries and, as far as possible, Israel, to counter the threat from Iran.
High on Biden’s list of objectives will be to advance regional normalization, but especially the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Media reports claim that Washington is working on "a roadmap to normalization" between the two countries, and that during his visit, Biden will discuss a "vision for integrated missile defense and naval defense” with his hosts. In other words, the secret meeting at Sharm-el-Sheik in March 2022 virtually set the agenda for this month’s presidential visit.
Published in the Jerusalem Post, 13 July 2022:https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-711908
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