What do you make of Saudi Arabia and Jordan helping to defend Israel?

The Saudis and the Jordanians have no love for the Iranians. A patient once explained to me why the Shia and the Sunnis do not get along but I didn’t really understand it.

I can only parrot Peter Zeihan (link). Basically, with America moving out, Israel may be entering into a symbiotic security relationship with Saudi Arabia against Iran. Jordan is probably following along as a result of geography.

No idea about how that affects Hamas.

“The enemy of my enemy is my… Oh shit! Is that Israel?”

Iran has a long and colorful past of supporting terrorism and for flexing muscle with its neighbors. And with Iran threatening Israel, that puts both Jordan and Saudi Arabia smack in the middle. If it develops into all out war between Israel and Iran, a lot of that is going to spill over into Jordan and SA. If they have to pick a side, they will stick with Israel as Israel has shown no aggression towards them at all. But they also know Israel will not take an attack from Iran sitting down.

King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace treaty in 1994. Unsurprisingly, conservative fundamentalist Israelis murdered Rabin a year later. But still the countries have maintained a peaceful relationship.

In my mind, it seems like about a decade ago that I began to read of a lot of quiet cooperation between the Israelis and Saudis. They both have antipathy towards Iran, an alliance with the USA, and an interest in keeping the region (relatively) calm.

It makes perfect sense. Shi’ite Islam is inimical to Sunni Islam – Iran is disliked by almost all other Arab countries.

Further, Saudi Arabia, for all its past reputation, wants to be technologically ready for the next century. They aren’t going to get that way by supporting Hamas or other retrograde insurgent countries. Further, Saudi Arabia knows that it has been played by the Palestinians for decades – Palestine playing the victim card – and to what benefit for Saudi Arabia? None.

Jordan is more of an issue. King Abdullah wants to make Jordan a modern and technologically productive country, but he is held back by the large number of Islamists there. So he can’t do what he wants.

Keep in mind that the major reason for the Hamas attack in October was that Saudi Arabia was going to announce a peace treaty with Israel within weeks…

The Hamas terrorist front (both in Israel and in the US) may be getting headlines this week, but in the long game, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries know their future is to be aligned with Israel.

Jordan, ultimately, simply did not want missiles/drones flying over it’s airspace.
Given that a portion of the hundreds of missiles and drones allegedly experienced malfunctions, they don’t want to make it a habit that other countries can fire over their heads.

I want to believe that Saudi Arabia, is trying to become a stabilizing force in the ME.
However. Some of these threats were launched from Houthi controlled regions in Yemen.
This was an enemy, of my enemy thing. Likely entirely strategic, and not to support Israel.

Military analysts say that America essentially organized the whole thing. Many countries answered America’s call, not Israel’s.
American forces, combined and coordinated the defense.

I would just say if Israel wants to be accepted in the Middle East and elsewhere it is going the wrong way about it.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been in a proxy war for forty years. The past decade has seen some states turning east and some west, as the world becomes more dangerous and sides are chosen. Saudi Arabia and Israel had a shared interest when they played their part in the breakdown of US-Iran relations, which resulted in Iran turning to China and Russia.

Saudi Arabia has long been the west’s favorite dictatorship, and has played nice enough with Israel that they are back on speaking terms. It’s not that much of a surprise that a conflict with Iran would bring them closer.