In an interview with Fox News, journalist Bret Baier asked Benjamin Netanyahu about the prospects of expanding the Abraham Accords with Syria and Saudi Arabia, and which country might be next.
Netanyahu replied: “Very good, I think. As you know, it is possible. People are open to peace agreements. I hope we can do it with the Saudis and with others.” He added, “Israel is a very strong military state, and people want to benefit from our knowledge. We are simply a tremendous technological power.”
However, the reality that Netanyahu knows is that Saudi Arabia has conditioned normalisation with the occupying state on “a clear and irreversible path to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories,” and that it has realised Netanyahu’s government has no intention of agreeing to or committing to this.
The United States had previously linked the conclusion of a defence agreement with Saudi Arabia, the construction of several nuclear plants there, and the sale of advanced weapons to it, to normalising relations with the occupying state. This condition was later bypassed when Saudi Arabia announced its intention to invest nearly one trillion dollars in American companies, infrastructure, and purchases over the next ten years, after which the agreements were signed.
Why, then, does Netanyahu claim that normalisation with Saudi Arabia remains possible despite knowing that this option has become a thing of the past?
The truth is that he is not waiting for Saudi Arabia to agree to normalisation of its own free will. Rather, he hopes, or more accurately seeks, to undermine its national security to bargain with it or force it into doing so.
The “peace through strength” spoken of by Donald Trump and Netanyahu is precisely this kind of peace. It is a piece of subjugation, which necessarily means that if you do not accept what is demanded of you, namely, relinquishing Palestinian and Arab lands to Israel and accepting it as a hegemonic power in the Middle East, then you will be destroyed with the overwhelming military force at its disposal.
There is no doubt that Saudi Arabia’s refusal to normalise relations with Israel makes it difficult for several Arab and Islamic states to join the Abraham Accords.
In the absence of this, the alliances sought by the United States in the region, with Israel clearly at their helm, cannot be realised.
Accordingly, what is now required is to exert pressure on Saudi Arabia to force it into normalisation with the occupying state, considering this, if achieved, one of the most significant outcomes of the Israeli war on the states of the region.
These pressures, it appears, take two dimensions. The first is an attempt to control the Bab al Mandeb Strait through direct presence on both of its shores. The second is positioning along the southern borders of the Kingdom and depriving it of its geographic depth extending through Hadramawt to the Arabian Sea on the Indian Ocean.
In this sense, the occupying state’s recognition of Somaliland as an independent state must be understood. Netanyahu pledged to develop relations with it in all fields. Israel is the first state in the world to recognise it since it declared separation from Somalia in 1991, with security being the most important of these fields.
By the same logic, the sudden move by the Southern Transitional Council forces in southern Yemen must also be understood. Until then, they had been part of the internationally recognised Yemeni government under the 2022 understanding that led to the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council headed by Rashad al Alimi. These forces attacked the governorates of Hadramawt and al Mahra, seized control of them, and removed forces that were supposed to be their allies and represented within the Yemeni Presidential Council.
As a result, the Southern Transitional Council forces became capable of positioning themselves along a portion of Saudi Arabia’s southern border, which stretches 458 kilometres with Hadramawt alone.
The Council justified its attack on Hadramawt and al Mahra by claiming it sought to tighten the siege on the Houthis and expel military groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood from the two governorates, even though the latter is part of the Yemeni Presidential Council. Yet the timing of these actions with the Israeli recognition of Somaliland does not appear coincidental, particularly as both separatist movements in the two countries receive financial, military, and logistical backing from an Arab state that some say is allied with the occupying state.
In Somaliland, there is a strategic presence of this state at the port of Berbera, which it operates and heavily invests in. It also maintains advanced security relations with the unrecognised government there.
A report by Reuters stated that this state played the primary role in securing Israeli recognition for Somaliland, due to the infrastructure it built at the port and the services it could provide Israel in terms of movement, contracting, facility usage, and security oversight of the Bab al Mandeb Strait.
In southern Yemen, there is confirmed information that this Arab state and the occupying state operate a joint security system on the Yemeni island of Socotra.
Other information indicates that this state contracted retired Israeli officers to train and organise the Security Belt forces affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council, and that these officers participated in an assassination programme that began in 2015, targeting figures opposed to the Council, enabling it to expand its influence in southern Yemen.
The website Middle East Eye published a report speaking of a joint platform for exchanging security intelligence between the two states known as “Crystal Ball,” through which the intelligence capabilities of both sides are designed and enhanced.
Other reports also spoke of the arrival of an Israeli media delegation in Aden, including Israeli journalist Jonathan Spyer, who met officials from the Southern Transitional Council and, accompanied by one of them, visited front lines with the Houthis in al Dali governorate.
In this context, Aidarus al Zubaidi, head of the Southern Transitional Council, did not rule out normalisation with the occupying state. At the end of last September, he said that “restoring the independence of southern Yemen could open the path to normalisation with Israel,” stressing that “the Abraham Accords are necessary to achieve regional peace.”
In the larger picture, the occupying state must be seen in Somaliland, Aden, Hadramawt, and Socotra.
For Saudi Arabia, this means the occupying state controlling a vital global maritime passage, the Bab al Mandeb Strait, which historically lies within its sphere of vital influence, depriving it of its geographic depth through Hadramawt that connects it to the Arabian Sea, and establishing direct contact with the occupying state along its southern borders. All of this exerts pressure on the Kingdom and pushes it to move to protect its national security, as seen recently in military attacks targeting the supply lines of the Southern Transitional Council.
Based on the above, Netanyahu’s talk of the possibility of normalisation with Saudi Arabia appears to be nothing more than part of a complex pressure strategy that does not aim at peace as much as it seeks to re-engineer the security environment surrounding the Kingdom.
When the political path is blocked, the geopolitical path is opened by force. A maritime encirclement through Bab al Mandeb, penetration in the Horn of Africa, and hostile positioning on Saudi Arabia’s southern borders through Hadramawt and Socotra.
In this context, normalisation shifts from being a sovereign choice to an outcome intended to be imposed under the threat of undermining national security.
The danger of this course lies not only in attempting to coerce Saudi Arabia, but in opening the door to a new phase of deepening and expanding regional instability.
