Straight News: The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are on the verge of reaching a "historic" agreement that would provide security guarantees for Saudi Arabia and open up possible avenues for Saudi Arabia and Israel to establish diplomatic relations, according to people familiar with the matter. What are your observations and thoughts on this agreement?
Special Commentator Liu Heping: I think that although this defense agreement may seem complicated, if we look at it carefully, we can still summarize it in two sentences: one is that the United States is prepared to use Saudi Arabia to provide advanced weapons and security guarantees as a bait to lure Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, and the other is that the United States is prepared to use the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as a bait to lure Israel to end its war with Hamas and accept the "two-state solution" to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
If we look at it a little further, I think that the essence of this so-called historic US-Saudi agreement, which has been evaluated by the outside world as "will reshape the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East", is actually a secular deal reached between the United States and Saudi Arabia at the cost of abandoning their own ideas and ideals.
We know that compared with the Republican Party, especially the Republican Party under Trump, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party have always been unkind to Saudi Arabia, especially the Saudi royal family. The reason behind this is that the Republican Party's foreign policy during the Trump administration was utilitarian-oriented, and it would not affect US-Saudi relations because of the so-called human rights issues in Saudi Arabia, while the foreign policy of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party paid more attention to values and ideological orientation, so it was very unpleasant to quarrel with the Saudi royal family on the so-called human rights issue, especially the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi has unprecedentedly worsened the relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudi crown prince.
In this case, the defense agreement signed between the United States and Saudi Arabia means that in order to be re-elected smoothly in the next US presidential election and to create a safe and stable external environment for Israel, the Biden administration is ready to abandon its ideological and value insistence and accept or even fully embrace Saudi secular kingship. Similarly, during the five Middle East wars, Saudi Arabia fought against Judaism Israel for its religious ideals, and fought against the Christian United States and the West.
But after five wars in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia believes that the threat to its secular kingship comes from Islamic radicalism within the Sunnis, or Islamic fundamentalism, and from Iran, a Shiite country with a theocratic system. In this context, the Saudi royal family has chosen to further align itself with the United States against the radical forces of Shiite Iran and Sunni who threaten its royal politics, which means that they have chosen a realistic path of compromise.
It is worth noting that since Saudi Arabia is the boss of both the Gulf Arab countries and the Sunni countries in the Middle East, if the US-Saudi defense agreement is finally signed and Saudi Arabia and Israel finally establish diplomatic relations, it will set an example among the Gulf Arab countries and the Sunni countries in the Middle East, and these countries will set off a wave of diplomatic relations with Israel. In this way, the religious conflict between Islam and Judaism, which has plagued the Middle East for a millennium or two, and the problem of relations between Israel and Sunni countries, which has plagued Israel for more than 70 years, will be solved.
Straight News: In your opinion, will the Netanyahu regime really accept the Biden administration's inducement to stop the war with Hamas and accept the "two-state solution" in exchange for Saudi Arabia and Israel establishing diplomatic relations?
Special Commentator Liu Heping: I think this is most likely a false proposition that does not exist. First of all, my judgment is that the Netanyahu regime will never stop attacking Rafah and eliminate Hamas in order to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, nor will it accept the "two-state solution" when the current conditions do not exist. I even think that the current Netanyahu regime would rather abandon the establishment of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia than insist on eliminating Hamas, because Israel believes that this is not only about Israel's national security, but also about Netanyahu's personal political life. At the same time, Israel also stubbornly believes that the existence of Hamas is precisely the biggest obstacle to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the implementation of the "two-state solution" in the future.
My second judgment is that the Biden administration will not use the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as a bait in exchange for Israel to stop attacking Rafah and eliminate Hamas. In other words, the Biden administration should not make Israel's cessation of attacks on Rafah and the elimination of Hamas a precondition for Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
There are two reasons behind this, one is that the Biden administration cannot control Israel's attack on Rafah and the elimination of Hamas, and at the same time, it does not want and will not prevent Israel from attacking Rafah and eliminating Hamas, because there is no fundamental difference between the United States and Israel on whether to attack Rafah and eliminate Hamas, the only difference is that the Biden administration hopes that Israel will avoid further civilian casualties as much as possible when attacking Rafah and avoid a humanitarian catastrophe as much as possible.
The second is that the United States will continue to promote the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, regardless of whether Israel attacks Rafah or not, or even whether it leads to a new humanitarian catastrophe in the process. This is because ensuring Israel's security and creating a peaceful and stable living environment for Israel has been the core of the US Middle East strategy since World War II, and this strategy will not change because of whether the United States is a Democratic Party or a Republican, whether Biden or Trump is in power, and whether Israel will listen to the United States or disobey the will of the United States.
In this context, I don't think the Biden administration will give the Netanyahu regime a choice between whether to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia or whether to stop eliminating Hamas. The defense agreement being negotiated between the United States and Saudi Arabia is most likely a preparation for the end of the war between Israel and Hamas. In other words, the United States first acquiesced in or even connived at Israel to eliminate Hamas, and after eliminating Hamas, it will promote the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and the "two-state solution" for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
In order to realize this plan, I even believe that even if the defense agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia is negotiated, it is possible that it will not be signed immediately, but will wait until Israel completes its mission to attack Rafah. In this way, Israel will be the biggest winner of the U.S.-Saudi defense agreement, that is, it can eliminate Hamas as it wishes, and establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia as it wishes. And this should be what the Biden administration really thinks in the heart.
There is a factual basis for my judgment, because the Biden administration originally planned for the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel to jointly sign this agreement, but in the end this plan made major adjustments and was only signed between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The signal behind this is clear: the United States does not want to bind Israel in a rigid agreement to prevent Israel from attacking Gaza and eliminating Hamas.
Author丨Liu Heping, special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Live Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan".
Editor丨Lai Chenlu, editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News