Chinese-brokered deal suggests the US is giving ground in the region just when the Netanyahu government needs it most
\n Washington
\nThe Saudi-Iran detente sets back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s efforts to isolate Tehran, but time will tell whether it also hinders his outreach to Riyadh or planning for any eventual military strike against Iranian nuclear sites.
\nThe more pressing worry for Israel, some experts argue, is that Friday\u2019s Chinese-brokered deal between the top Muslim powers suggests the United States is giving ground in the region just when the Netanyahu government needs it most.
\nAn Israeli official who requested anonymity described the detente as an unsurprising and preliminary process that should not hinder any parallel progress towards normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. After all, Israel has drawn close to the United Arab Emirates despite Abu Dhabi also engaging Tehran.
\nMeanwhile, Israel is keeping up a campaign of veiled threats to attack Iran alone if it deems nuclear diplomacy a dead end. But all scenarios still hinge on Washington \u2014 a sponsor and sweetener of Israeli-Arab peace accords and guardian ally which, if it red-lights military action, Israel will be loath to cross.
\n\u201cThis is a brilliant stroke by China and Iran to undercut Saudi-American and Saudi-Israeli normalisation. It helps bring Tehran in from the cold and undermines American and Israeli efforts to build a regional coalition to confront Iran as it is on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons,\u201d said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies in Washington.
\nThere are unrelated strains on the Israeli-US alliance, however. The Democratic administration of President Joe Biden, which has yet to invite Netanyahu to the White House, has voiced unusually strong concern at his religious-nationalist coalition.
\nNetanyahu is also beset by unprecedented mass demonstrations in Israel against his judicial overhaul push. The protests have included pledges by some air force reservists not to turn up for training, a signal that combat readiness and morale have been shaken.
\nAmos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief under Netanyahu, said the Saudi-Iran detente should be a wake-up call.
\n\u201cThe government\u2019s focus on the judicial overhaul, which is tearing the nation apart and weakening Israel in all dimensions, reflects a deep disconnect between Netanyahu and international geopolitical trends,\u201d Yadlin said on Twitter.
\nAccusing Netanyahu of \u201cgenerating extraordinary damage to our national security,\u201d Yadlin said he should scrap the reforms \u2014 which critics call an attempt to subordinate the courts to the government \u2014 and close ranks with Biden on how to forge Israeli-Saudi ties and jointly tackle Iran\u2019s nuclear programme.
\nThat suggested that Yadlin \u2014 who was among pilots who bombed Iraq\u2019s nuclear reactor in 1981 and served as a top general during Israel\u2019s 2007 attack on a suspected reactor in Syria \u2014 may not place much store in Israel\u2019s ability to go solo against Iran, whose nuclear sites are distant, dispersed and defended.
\nSimilarly, Ehud Barak, a former Netanyahu defence minister turned political critic, described Iran as \u201cmarching confidently towards becoming a de facto nuclear threshold state\u201d. \u201cUS-Israeli coordination appears to be strong in the defence sphere but weak and in need of change in the offence sphere,\u201d he wrote in the best-selling Yedioth Ahronoth daily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chinese-brokered deal suggests the US is giving ground in the region just when the Netanyahu government needs it most Washington The Saudi-Iran detente sets back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s efforts to isolate Tehran, but time will tell whether it also hinders his outreach to Riyadh or planning for any eventual military strike against Iranian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-319323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n