Why Netanyahu and Biden need each other for a Saudi deal

Protesters dogged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s every move during his weeklong visit to the United States shouting “democracy.”

But they could not drown out the potential history-making nature of the trip that seemed to be one of the opening acts of a potential Israeli-Saudi normalization deal.

For a historic moment like this, one might have expected a formal US announcement that it had opened talks for an intensive and complex quadrilateral deal involving Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.

Instead, there was simply so much consistent chatter about a deal that it became obvious negotiations were taking place.

Netanyahu’s trip to the US seemed to cement that understanding. The prime minister’s hour-long meeting with President Joe Biden in New York, the bulk of which focused on the Saudi deal, could even be seen as a leg in those negotiations.

This deal is unlike any other that Israel has engaged in. The US has helped Israel normalize six existing regional deals: with Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

A symbiotic relationship

It is unlikely that those six deals would have come to fruition without US support, but at the same time, Israel was the main focus of each bilateral deal.

In this situation, Israel is the bystander to a deal Washington wants to clinch with Riyadh, which involves a US-Saudi security pact.

Saudi Arabia has asked for US approval of its civilian nuclear program, which involves uranium enrichment, and for the ability to purchase sophisticated weaponry from the US.

The US, in turn, has asked Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel.

Among the factors driving Biden toward Riyadh is the need to keep oil prices down and to constrain China’s influence in the Middle East.

The deal itself rises and falls on the agreements reached between Washington and Saudi Arabia. So why, then, is Israel in the mix?

Should a US-Saudi agreement be reached, Biden would need Republican support to meet the 67-vote requirement in the Senate and Republicans are unlikely to want to help him.

Biden, who views himself as a strong supporter of the Jewish state, is hoping that if the deal helps Israel, Republicans would be swayed to back it.

But the timetable is tight, because of the 2024 elections. Supporters of the deal are presuming that it would be more difficult for a Republican president to push a Saudi agreement through the Senate. It’s presumed that the argument that the deal would help Israel would have less impact on Democrats than Republicans.

But the Saudis, in exchange for normalization with Israel, want to see concessions to the Palestinians.

Netanyahu, however, does not have the kind of coalition partners who would support the kind of gestures that might be required.

Even if the PA agrees to soften some of its demands, which have included statehood recognition and constraints on settlement activity, its water-downed list would still face opposition from Netanyahu’s government.

Netanyahu would then have to swap out his coalition partners. It’s a move that is unlikely given the enmity between him and the two largest parties in his opposition – Yesh Atid, led by former prime minister Yair Lapid, and National Unity, led by former defense minister Benny Gantz.

To move forward with the deal politically, Netanyahu would need to put something on the table that Israel would gain from the deal beyond the obvious diplomatic and economic benefits.

One option would be to turn it into a security issue. Israel is therefore seeking a defense pact from the US.

At the UN General Assembly on Friday, Netanyahu waxed poetic when he spoke of how the Middle East was on the cusp of history due to an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal.

Given the complexity of US politics, however, Netanyahu’s shot at making it happen might rest with Biden, a man he has been friends with for 40 years, but whom he has been at odds with over his judicial reform program.

Biden fears that the plan, which Netanyahu says will strengthen democracy, will instead transform Israel into a dictatorship.

But Biden will need Netanyahu to secure Israeli approval for the terms of the deal.

Netanyahu, in turn, will need Biden, because his term in office could provide the necessary political will for the deal.On Wednesday, under the weight of the pending Saudi deal, both men sat down to talk in New York for the first time in the nine months since Netanyahu took office.

The drumbeat of the anti-judicial reform protesters might have sounded loud outside.

But inside the room where they sat, they both already know that they have to start to smooth over the tensions between them if they want to ride into history with a Saudi deal.