The Israeli-Saudi Common Interest

Dr. Moshe Maoz, one of the most senior Israeli authorities on the Islamic world has this to say recently on common Saudi and Israeli interests:

The interfaith conference King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia convened in Madrid on July 17 is the first such conference held by this religiously strict kingdom. Jews were among the participants, including a rabbi from Israel. In 2002, when Abdullah was still crown prince, he made a significant move toward Israel that was adopted by the Arab League’s 22 members: recognizing Israel, including diplomatic relations, if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders and a Palestinian state is established with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Indeed, the Saudis’ realistic attitude toward Israel’s existence is not new. Back in May 1975, King Khaled told The Washington Post that his country was prepared to recognize Israel’s right to exist within the 1967 borders on condition that a Palestinian state was established between Israel and Jordan (Haaretz, May 26, 1975).

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This move was apparently influenced by Israel’s victory in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, after which Egypt and Syria accepted UN Security Council Resolution 338 (which also included Security Council Resolution 242 from November 1967 that was accepted at the time by Egypt and Jordan). Resolution 338 meant indirect recognition of Israel.

It is important to encourage these pragmatic Muslim trends, which represent a centrist stream in Islam. This is a way to combat new extremist Islamic streams represented by the Shi’ite Iranian regime and Hezbollah on the one hand, and Al-Qaida and other radical Sunni groups on the other. These seek to destroy Israel and strike at Jews; in their actions and writings they embody anti-Semitic Muslim tendencies drawn from old Christian anti-Semitism and from tendentious interpretations of the Koran and the Hadith.

These fanatic Islamic elements endanger not only Israel and Jews, but also pragmatic Arab and Muslim regimes like Saudi Arabia. Accordingly, Israel and Saudi Arabia (and other Arab and Muslim countries) have a common interest in neutralizing and limiting the extremist Islamic influence and its deadly attacks.

One of the main ways of doing so is Israeli-Saudi cooperation toward a fair and agreed-on solution to the Palestinian problem and the question of Jerusalem.

Moshe Maoz is serious about finding common realist interests for Israel and its neighbors, unlike the ideologues currently in the White House and in control of a so-called pro-Israel lobby. As I wrote recently, what appears to be pro-Israel is actually anti-Israel. He understands, like many Israelis whose voices are not heard globally, that Israel’s long-term survival depends on an utterly new and equal relationship with Palestinians in the context of comprehensive peace with the region’s Arab states.