As always, an escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has consequences for diplomatic relations in the Middle East. This is especially true now that these relationships are in full swing, due to a recent ‘normalization’ of the ties of various regional powers with Israel.
Two of those regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are moving toward a rapprochement with Israel and appear to be reacting more cautiously to Israeli reprisals against the Palestinians than they would have done in the past. In the meantime, Iran continues to support Hamas and Tehran sees the current escalation as an opportunity to put pressure on other countries’ rapprochement with Israel. How do these three countries relate to the war and to each other?
Saudi Arabia
“Every day we get closer to each other,” a smiling Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said last month about his relationship with Israel in an interview with the American channel Fox. Just like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which concluded the so-called ‘Abraham Accords’ with Israel in 2020, Saudi Arabia is also pushing for normalization of ties with Israel. A ‘mega-deal’, brokered by the United States, seemed close.
The question is whether the new outbreak of violence in and around the Gaza Strip will blow up this Saudi-Israeli rapprochement. An initial response from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs is somewhat ambiguous: although the kingdom emphasizes that the violence is a consequence of Israeli repression against the Palestinians, it does not advocate the Palestinian cause and calls for de-escalation on both sides. .
Bin-Salman has to find a balance. On the one hand, he benefits from continued rapprochement with Israel, because this is linked to deals with the United States. In exchange for ‘normalization’, the crown prince hopes for a relaxation of American arms supplies and even greater defense cooperation with Washington.
Recent negotiations even discussed setting up a Saudi nuclear program, with American cooperation. Although such a program would formally be intended for civilian purposes, Bin Salman has already indicated that he wants to be able to develop nuclear weapons if his regional rival Iran eventually does the same. Tehran therefore views the negotiations with great suspicion.
At the same time, Bin Salman must be careful not to appear too pro-Israeli. After all, his flirtation with a historical enemy is unpopular among the Saudi population: while in the United Arab Emirates three-quarters of the population supported the normalization of ties with Israel, in Saudi Arabia this is only 2 percent, according to a poll this year by the Arab Youth Survey. Especially now that many images will emerge of Israel’s counter-attack on Gaza in the near future, pro-Palestinian sentiments will increase among the Saudi population. Even an autocrat like Bin-Salman has to take that into account.
Also read this analysis: Rapprochement between the Arab world and Israel is causing damage
Iran and Hezbollah
The reaction from Tehran to Hamas’ surprise offensive is anyone’s guess. “Death to Israel!” shouted a group of parliamentarians on Iranian state television. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei went even further. “By the will of God, the occupying Zionist regime will be exterminated by the Palestinian people and the Resistance forces in the region,” an account affiliated with Khamenei tweeted above a video of fleeing Israelis.
Iran is Hamas’ closest ally. While Israeli security services appeared surprised by the Palestinian militants’ offensive, it is difficult to imagine that Tehran did not know in advance about and contributed to such a large-scale and carefully planned attack. A Hamas spokesperson told the BBC that the attack was indeed supported by Iran. The Lebanese fighting group Hezbollah, also an ally of Iran, also underlined on Saturday its “direct contact with the leaders of the Palestinian resistance.”
Some analysts therefore looked for Iranian motives behind Hamas’ offensive. They suggested that Tehran is pushing for war between Hamas and Israel to thwart the recent rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. After all, such a rapprochement is more difficult to achieve when the Saudi population is confronted with images of Israeli bombing of the Palestinians. That is in Iran’s interest, because Tehran wants to prevent two of its biggest regional enemies from becoming each other’s friends.
Indeed, Iran’s ally Hezbollah described Hamas’ offensive as “a message to those who seek normalization with Israel” – an obvious reference to Saudi Arabia. Yet disrupting the Israeli-Saudi rapprochement appears to be a side effect of the offensive rather than the real reason behind it. The escalation is primarily the result of a months-long spiral of violence between Israel and Hamas.
Now that this is turning into a full-blown war, the question is whether Iran will provide additional military support to Hamas. Tehran can do this mainly through Hezbollah, but the Lebanese fighting group says it is only ‘assessing’ the situation for the time being and has not yet indicated whether it will launch an attack. If it does, the Israeli Defense Minister warned this summer, Israel is prepared to send Lebanon “back to the Stone Age.”
Also read: Dramatic Hamas attack is Israel’s biggest military challenge since 1973
Turkey
There was a time when Turkish President Erdogan took every opportunity to position himself as the protector of the Palestinians. That’s how it went in May 2018, when he declared three days of national mourning and expelled the Israeli ambassador after Israel killed dozens of Palestinian protesters. Or in May 2021, when Erdogan called Israel a ‘terrorist state’ due to its storming of the Al-Aqsa mosque and anti-Israel protests broke out in Turkey.
But that time is over. After the outbreak of violence between Hamas and Israel last Saturday, Ankara remained relatively quiet. Only towards the end of the day did the Turkish Foreign Ministry publish a short statement calling for calm and condemning the loss of civilian lives. Erdogan himself, who gave a rally in Ankara on Saturday and could well have given a stirring speech, limited himself to a call for ‘reasonable action.’
It fits in with a recent pragmatic turn in Turkish foreign policy. While Ankara and Qatar were diametrically opposed to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates a few years ago, Turkey is now pushing for normalization of ties with all three regional powers. This is largely due to Turkey’s increasing dependence on foreign investors, now that the country is in a deep economic crisis.
In 2022, Turkey and Israel restored their diplomatic ties. Since then, the two have been working increasingly closely together. For example, Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu held their first personal meeting at the end of last month, during which, among other things, they discussed joint gas drilling in the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey and Israel are also both on Azerbaijan’s side in the recently flared conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
At the same time, Ankara maintains strong ties with Hamas. Erdogan received the Palestinian group in his presidential palace last July and strongly supported the Islamic militants in previous outbreaks of violence. “Hamas is not a terrorist group […] but a resistance movement that defends the Palestinian homeland,” the Turkish president tweeted in 2018.
This time there was no such explicit expression of support. Rather, it seems that Turkey wants to use its access to Hamas to position itself as a mediator. Just as in the war between Ukraine and Russia, Turkey is trying to position itself strategically in this way.