Saudi Arabia to sign century agreement with Israel? Maybe U.S. reverses disadvantage in Middle East by selling out Israel

The pattern of major powers has seen waves again in recent days. The scales of the China-U.S. game have fluctuated again.

According to the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago, U.S. officials claimed that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have reached a consensus for Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations in exchange for Israel making concessions on the Palestinian issue, and the U.S. will provide security guarantees to Saudi Arabia and assistance for its civil nuclear program.

According to U.S. officials, the terms for Saudi-Israeli normalization have been largely negotiated, and more details can be finalized over the next 9 to 12 months. The official also boasted proudly that this will be the most important Middle East peace agreement in a generation.

This comes after Saudi Arabia and Iran reached an agreement in March this year to restore diplomatic ties between the two countries, leading the Arab world towards reconciliation. This marks another major step towards reconciliation in the Greater Middle East, which is of great significance.

However, it also contains the sharp edges of the game between major powers. If Israel and Saudi Arabia really sign an agreement and normalize relations, it would be a big event for Middle East peace. Of course, this is also a timely move by the U.S. after China's actions in the Middle East region, intended to regain dominance over the Middle East.

In addition, the U.S. also wants to prevent Saudi Arabia from getting too close to China, and more importantly, to steady Saudi Arabia and steady the petrodollar.

1. Saudi Arabia's conditions

First, let's look at the content of the U.S.-Saudi negotiations. What are Saudi Arabia's requirements for the U.S. and Israel?

The first, Saudi Arabia requires Israel to promote the establishment of a "Palestinian state."

In 2020, former U.S. President Trump, at the end of his term, strongly urged countries including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan to normalize relations with Israel. Trump's efforts at that time became a major foreign policy achievement during his four-year term.

When Saudi Arabia negotiated with the U.S., it made clear that allowing the establishment of Palestine is a precondition for Saudi-Israeli normalization.

In this regard, Saudi Arabia requires freezing Israeli settlements, that is, no settlements in the occupied territories. The details are not very clear yet. And Israel needs to promise to never occupy the West Bank of the Jordan River.

The second, Saudi Arabia requires the U.S. to expand arms exports, such as selling F-35 stealth fighters to Saudi Arabia. And the U.S. needs to lend a hand to ensure Saudi Arabia's security when Saudi Arabia is attacked by other countries.

The third, Saudi Arabia requires the U.S. to assist in developing civil nuclear technology.

2. U.S. requirements for Saudi Arabia

The U.S. requirements for Saudi Arabia are:

First, Saudi Arabia needs to recognize Israel and recognize Israel's current occupied territories.

Second, do not allow China to establish military bases in Saudi Arabia.

For many years, Saudi Arabia and China have had arms sales relationships, and relations between the two countries have been good. In 1987, Saudi Arabia purchased 35 Dongfeng-3 medium-range ballistic missiles from China for 100 million U.S. dollars each. This was a big deal for China at that time. And rumor heard that China also gifted one missile.

In October 2022, according to Saudi media reports, Saudi Arabia again purchased Dongfeng-21 ballistic missiles from China. As everyone knows, the Dongfeng-21D is a medium-range anti-ship ballistic missile.

With China's Dongfeng-21 series of ballistic missiles, Saudi Arabia's defense capabilities are greatly enhanced. In addition to ballistic missiles, Saudi Arabia has also purchased various types of drones from China, including the Rainbow, Wing Loong, and Pterodactyl drones.

After years of long-term arms sales relationships, ties between China and Saudi Arabia run deep. Therefore, the U.S. is particularly worried that in the next step, China will establish military bases in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. is judging others by its own standards here. The U.S. has hundreds of military bases overseas. The U.S. approach has always been to sell arms, especially military hardware platforms, and then establish military bases. If the U.S. takes a fancy to a country, it will sign a security defense treaty with that country.

Third, restrict Saudi Arabia's use of Huawei technology.

In addition to Huawei's communications equipment technology in recent years, Saudi Arabia has also deepened cooperation with Huawei in areas such as artificial intelligence and big data.

It seems that the U.S. is vigilantly containing Huawei, and still hasn't forgotten about Huawei until now.

Fourth, Saudi Arabia cannot use the RMB to settle oil trade.

The petrodollar is the root of U.S. financial hegemony. The U.S. cannot allow Saudi Arabia to settle oil trades between them in RMB.

Judging from these four points, including diplomatic recognition of Israel and its territories, military bases, technology, and the petrodollar, the U.S. wants to regain comprehensive influence over Saudi Arabia, and thus over the entire Middle East region.

So what can Israel obtain? Since the U.S. negotiated with Saudi Arabia first before talking to Israel, the most difficult part is still to come in negotiating with Israel.

However, is it really believed that Israel will agree to the terms put forward by Saudi Arabia?

That's not so easy. Today the U.S. is talking with Saudi Arabia, so of course Saudi Arabia will propose terms favorable to itself. It can't be said to be unreasonable, but they are definitely not easy to reach terms.

As for Israel, will it readily agree?

Today's Israel has the strongest military in the Middle East region, touted as the military hegemon of the Middle East. How could it possibly make major concessions on some security issues?

First, Israel believes that these settlements are the "Promised Land" given by God. How could they easily withdraw? This is why Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has gained a lot of support from right-wing forces. They are Israel's fundamentalist doctrine and cannot easily make concessions just because the U.S. says something or under U.S. pressure.

Second, talking about this, we have to talk about the grievances between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel and Palestine have grievances spanning over 2000 years!

According to the Bible and Western historical records, the Philistines originally lived between Egypt and the Syrian desert. The ancient Greeks referred to where they lived as Palestine. But when the Jews crossed the Red Sea to enter the Promised Land of "Canaan", they inevitably had to face the Philistines, and there were many wars between them. Everyone has heard of the Israeli King David. When David was still just a shepherd boy, the Philistines invaded, and since the Philistines were very tall and one of them was the giant Goliath, no one in Israel could match them. At this time, the young David volunteered to go to battle alone against the giant Goliath. David took five smooth stones from the creek where he herded sheep, held his slingshot, slung the rocks, and killed the giant Goliath.

Of course, the eventual result was that the territory of the Philistines became smaller and smaller. However, Israel was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and later there was also rule by the Roman Empire. During Roman rule, Judea was changed to the Roman province of Judea, still using the Jewish name. However, due to multiple Jewish rebellions against Roman rule, the crushing of another Jewish uprising in Judea in 135 AD was the last straw. The failure of this uprising was disastrous for the Jews. The Romans expelled all Jews from the province of Judea, changed Judea to the "Syria-Palestine province", and also changed the name of the place to "Palestine". Since then, the Jews began their nearly 2000-year diaspora all over the world.

In 1948, the Jews re-established their nation in their ancestral land, calling it Israel. After the founding of Israel, history from 2000 years ago replayed itself. As Israel's national power grew stronger day by day, it won all five Middle East wars, each time stronger than the last. As Israel expanded its territory, the living space of the Palestinians was squeezed until it evolved into today's situation.

In 2021, when Israel shelled Gaza (Gaza Strip), Hamas immediately retaliated against Israel. However, Hamas' military power is limited and difficult to contend with Israel's. How could these settlements possibly be easily withdrawn from the West Bank?

This first condition cannot be passed. If it could, then why did Israel and the Arab countries need to fight five major wars in the 20th century? So there's no need to scare oneself and deflate one's own people.

Second, if the U.S. agrees to sell F-35 stealth fighters to Saudi Arabia, it would greatly impact Israel's national security. In the Middle East, only Israel has F-35 fighters. Israel often takes advantage of the F-35's stealth capabilities to attack Syria or Iran. Israel will definitely strongly oppose the U.S. selling F-35s to Saudi Arabia.

In addition, Israel is also the only country in the Middle East that openly possesses nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia requires U.S. assistance in establishing civil nuclear facilities. Wouldn't that be like Iran, forming civil nuclear technology that can be converted for use in nuclear weapons?

Third, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is also unlikely to readily agree to U.S. demands. Even if Netanyahu agrees, the right-wing forces in Israel's ruling coalition will not agree, especially because they believe this is the (Israel's) Promised Land given by God.

Fourth, Jews have formidable influence in the U.S. Although in order to compete with China for hegemony and contain China, the U.S. can sacrifice a bit and sacrifice some allies' interests, demanding concessions from allies, the influence of Jews in the U.S. is too great, from politics to business, television, movies, entertainment, Jews have a presence everywhere. Israel cannot possibly make major concessions. Everyone should remember one thing, grievances and hatred over thousands of years can only run deeper than a mythical romance of a thousand years.

4. U.S. arrogance and neglect

Fifth, my view is that it would be very difficult for the U.S. to sign an agreement with Saudi Arabia and Israel, not as easy as simply getting it done. From this we can also see that when facing China, the pressure on the U.S. is truly too great. But the U.S. has no one to blame for today's situation. In recent years, while China-Saudi ties have been close, it was of course due to China's efforts, but on the other hand, it is also the result of U.S. arrogance and neglect.

Sixth, on one hand, after the U.S. developed shale oil extraction technology more than 10 years ago, the U.S. has gradually become energy independent. The U.S. side felt that it no longer needs to care about the oil producing countries in the Middle East or pay attention to OPEC countries. To the point where the U.S. has neglected Saudi interests and slighted Saudi Arabia on many international occasions and in geopolitics.

For example, in the 2018 Khashoggi case, the U.S. loudly accused Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Moreover, Biden has also severely criticized Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before. Also because of this, after Biden took office, the U.S. announced that it would stop supporting Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen. Certainly, the U.S. side has its reasons and Biden has his insistence, but Saudi Arabia feels that this is another insult by the U.S.

Now anxious, since May this year, the U.S. has successively sent National Security Advisor Sullivan and Secretary of State Blinken to visit Saudi Arabia to discuss cooperation. Under such circumstances, Saudi Arabia will of course ask the U.S. for a lot. Since the U.S. is anxious, if Saudi Arabia does not ask, it would be asking for nothing, so of course it will ask for the sky. There's no hurry. Let's wait patiently and watch the Biden administration negotiate with Saudi Arabia and Israel coldly.

5. Conclusion

Of course, China also has ways to break the U.S.' scheme. What Saudi Arabia worries about is national security, right? China can further move in this direction and guarantee Saudi Arabia's national security in various ways, including:

First, continue arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and even open up sales of more advanced Chinese military weapons to Saudi Arabia. Wasn't there a rumor recently that Saudi Arabia wanted to purchase China's Type 052D destroyer? China can open up sales of advanced weapons including advanced destroyers, the FC-31 stealth fighter jet, advanced anti-ship ballistic missiles and more. The U.S. has it, China has it too. China also has weapons that the U.S. doesn't have.

Second, China continues to push forward the great reconciliation of Arab countries, promoting reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two major sectarian leaders. Reconciliation of the two major Islamic sects reduces the threat to Israel.

Third, leverage China's industrial capabilities to assist Saudi Arabia in economic transformation and help Saudi Arabia join the SCO and BRICS.

In addition, help Saudi Arabia participate deeply in the Belt and Road Initiative. This is something China can provide Saudi Arabia, but the U.S. cannot.

Lastly, judging from the U.S. feeling tense about the situation in the Middle East, China has become a de facto second superpower, a second option globally. This is unquestionable now. Today's rumors about Saudi Arabia represent a diplomatic battle between the two great powers China and the U.S., very exciting. Also, there is no need to be overly nervous or worried. The diplomatic tussle between China and the U.S. has just begun on the stage, and the good show is still to come.