Ex-Mossad chief: Saudi-Iran deal won’t block Israel normalization
The Saudis’ deal with Iran will not block potential Israeli normalization with Riyadh, former Mossad director Yossi Cohen said Sunday.
Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia “is needed and is possible,” he said at an Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conference related to the issue.
The most recent former Mossad chief gave the audience an unusual personal insight into how Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) thinks.
Although Cohen, in making his prediction, said he could not confirm he has met with MBS (even though the Israeli censor as of 2022 finally allowed Israeli media to publish that such meetings have occurred), he gave an unequivocal analysis of what MBS wants.
MBS lost patience with the US, not insulting Israel
MBS was not insulting Israel with his deal with the Islamic Republic and China, but rather, he was telegraphing to the US that he had lost patience with its harsh treatment of him, and that the Saudis “had alternatives” besides America, Cohen said.
CHINA’S TOP diplomat, Wang Yi, flanked by senior security officials of Iran and Saudi Arabia, announces that the two countries have agreed to restore diplomatic relations, in Beijing, earlier this month. (credit: CHINA DAILY VIA REUTERS)
This came after US President Joe Biden had called MBS a “pariah,” had tried (and failed) to isolate MBS from making policy and had threatened to end the special relations with Riyadh after MBS in October 2022 did not act as Biden wanted relating to oil prices.
Rather than essentially freaking out about MBS’s deal with Iran and jumping to wrong conclusions about the motivations for the deal, Cohen said it was critical to “put yourselves in the shoes of the Saudis” and not that he thought an Israeli-Saudi normalization arrangement was immediate.
“They [Saudi-Arabia] need to always check the temperature about whether the Muslim world will forgive them.”Yossi Cohen
The Saudis would move forward with Israel slowly and carefully, since as the keepers of Islam’s holiest sites, “they need to always check the temperature about whether the Muslim world will forgive them” for jumping forward with Israel, he said.
