Anwar Eshki, a retired major general in the Saudi armed forces, and Dore Gold, a former Ambassador and close to Israeli PM Netanyahu, shared a stage at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington yesterday as the two countries revealed a series of bi-lateral talks that have occurred for the purpose of thwarting a common enemy: Iran.
“A new merging of strategic interests between Saudi Arabia and Israel was on display on Thursday as two former officials from those countries appeared on the same stage to discuss their concerns about Iran’s actions across the Middle East,” David E. Sanger of the New York Times writes.
“Left unsaid was the fact that Saudi Arabia and Israel have never had diplomatic relations, or that the Saudi government has never formally acknowledged the existence of the Jewish state. But the two nations have quietly exchanged intelligence for years, particularly about Iran.”
That was the big reveal yesterday at CFR. Although the two nations are far from normalized relations, the unprecedented warming between Saudi Arabia and Israel is a sign of Iran’s increasing influence across the region.
“It was not a typical Washington think-tank event. No questions were taken from the audience,” writes Eli Lake in Bloomberg. “While these men represent countries that have been historic enemies, their message was identical: Iran is trying to take over the Middle East and it must be stopped.”
Eshki told Eli Lake directly that no real cooperation was possible until Netanyahu “accepted what’s known as the Arab Peace Initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plan was first shared with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman in 2002 by Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah, then the kingdom’s crown prince.”
