The unholy Saudi-Israel nexus

It is the best kept secret in West Asia. The two most important partners of the United States in that region, Saudi Arabia and Israel, are covert allies. Officially, they despise each other. They don’t have diplomatic relations.

Israeli citizens are banned from entering Saudi Arabia. But scratch beneath the surface and a different picture emerges. The two countries have long arrived at a modus vivendi. Contacts between Saudi and Israeli officials are increasingly common.

Saudi Arabia was an early backer of the Islamic State (ISIS) before the jihadists turned on the Saudi royals. Israel, so ruthless against Hezbollah (one of the Shia militias fighting ISIS in Syria), has been notably quiescent about the Islamic State. There were virtually no direct clashes between the strong Israeli army or air force and ISIS even as the jihadists rampaged across Syria and Iraq in 2014-16. ISIS too has been careful not to attack Israel or Israeli citizens.

Washington pumps US$4 billion in aid every year to Israel, a country with a population of 8 million (around the same as Chennai). That works out to $500 per Israeli, the highest per capita aid the US gives to any country. If, for example, every Indian received $500 in US aid, Washington’s annual aid bill to India would amount to $640 billion — nearly 25 per cent of India’s GDP.

Saudi Arabia gets US aid too but is rich enough to look after itself. The Saudis, however, as its ill-fated two-year invasion of Yemen has proved, are not very good fighters. They rely on US military protection and mercenaries drawn from other Arab countries. Riyadh has hired Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s former army chief, to lead a 39-country coalition to fight the Houthi-Shia rebels in Yemen. The Saudis and Israelis have meanwhile stuck to an unwritten arrangement not to step on each other’s toes even if it means giving the jihadists of ISIS free rein.

Washington backs this self-serving arrangement. It cares more about maintaining its geopolitical monopoly over West Asia, with the Saudis and Israelis acting as its two sentries across the region. The reason, of course, is a common enemy: Iran. It is the dominant Shia power. Once ISIS is driven out of Syria and Iraq, Iran’s influence will grow. Iraq too is Shia-majority. Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite, a Shia-affiliated sect.

Sunni Saudi Arabia regards an Iran-Iraq-Syria axis with great anxiety. Russia’s backing of the Shia triumvirate has further unnerved Riyadh. The US, since the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924, has backed the Sunni Arabs barring a brief flirtation with the Shah of Iran, who was Washington’s puppet. After he was deposed in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini, the enraged US manufactured in 1980 an eight-year war between its (then) other puppet Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Khomeini’s Iran. (Saddam turned rogue for the US only in 1990 when he invaded Kuwait, another US protectorate.)

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes his historic visit to Israel in July, he will bear all these facts in mind. Like the Americans, he has balanced India’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel while keeping the country’s historical ties with Shia Iran on an even keel. Saudi Arabia has suffered the most (along with Russia) from the oil price crash from $125 per barrel three years ago to $55 today. It has been forced to impose municipal taxes for the first time. Unemployment has risen. Budgets are being cut. The Yemen war is sucking cash. Meanwhile, its mortal enemy Iran is enjoying renewed backing from Russia. Its Shia militias are taking active part in the fight against ISIS despite American misgivings.

The biggest losers in this ruthless chess game being played out in the Middle East are the Palestinians. Their independent state is now a distant dream. The Saudis and its Arab allies have mothballed the problem. Israel couldn’t be happier. When its right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosts PM Modi, Palestine will be off the table. Terrorism from ISIS and the lethal Taliban resurgence in Af-Pak will dominate talks. Israel is now one of India’s key weapons suppliers. And as Netanyahu will doubtless remind Modi, it is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East. 

The writer is author of ‘The New Clash of Civilizations: How The Contest Between America, China, India and Islam Will Shape Our Century’.