Saudi Arabia reportedly seeking to buy Israeli defence systems and working with Israel to prevent Iran’s expansion in the Middle East.
Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung alleged on Monday a “secret alliance” between Saudi Arabia and Israel, intended “to restrain Iran’s expansion in the region, despite the absence of any official relations between the two countries.”
According to the report, the two countries are cooperating significantly in the areas of military issues and security on strategic issues, despite the fact that they have no open diplomatic ties.
“For the time being, Riyadh rejects any official normalization of relationships with Israel as long as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not resolved and normalization has not been publicly declared by Arab countries and thus there will be no exchange of ambassadors,” said Pierre Heumann, the newspaper’s correspondent in Israel in his report.
“There is an intensive secret cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel in order to achieve the main goal of curbing Iran’s expansion project and undermining its regional ambitions,” said the reporter. He added that “there exists indeed military cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Tel Aviv.”
According to Middle East experts, the unifying security factor that has animated Israel and Saudi Arabia to intensify military cooperation is the Iranian regime’s “jingoism in the Middle East”.
“Both want to hold back the regional ambitions of Iran,” wrote Heumann.
Another report said that the shared interest in preventing Iran from establishing itself throughout the Middle East with a land corridor to the Mediterranean Sea has caused the Saudis to debate purchasing Israeli-made military equipment and defence systems.
The prominent Basel-based daily also claimed that Riyadh requested Israel examine the possibility of acquiring, including through a third party, anti-tank defence systems and the Iron Dome anti-missile system.
Unidentified sources from Riyadh were quoted as saying “the Kingdom is currently considering the possibility to purchase Israeli weapons and it has shown an interest in purchasing defence systems for the tanks and the iron dome, which Israel claims has proven to be effective in countering rocket attacks from Gaza Strip.”
Recently, there were several reports of Israeli and Saudi officials meeting, though neither side disclosed the topics discusses. The Swiss report claims that in October, intelligence officials from both countries met in order to tighten cooperation, and discussed holding an additional meeting with intelligence leaders of both countries.
In November, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot gave an interview to the Saudi Arabian news site Elaph, stating that “the real and greatest threat in the region is Iran, which has three important issues that need to be acted upon.
The first is its nuclear programme, which has been temporarily frozen, but there is no doubt about Iran’s intentions to achieve nuclear capabilities.
Second, Iran’s imposing its influence on various regions and third, its supplying arms [to proxies] to carry out missions, such as to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Islamic Jihad.
He also said Israel is prepared to share intelligence with the Gulf kingdom in their joint efforts to curb Iranian influence in the region.