The Saudis’ visit to Israel was confirmed by both the Israeli foreign ministry and Major General Eshki, despite denials from official Saudi media.
Eskhi, who is Chairman of the Middle East Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies, said that he had dinner with the general director of the Israeli foreign ministry, Dore Gold, in a hotel on Palestinian territory.
“This was a personal visit; I did not get permission from my government, because my government won’t block any Saudi from going to Jerusalem or to the occupied areas,” Eshki said.
“The main purpose [of the visit] was to solve the Palestinian issue according to what the Arabs agreed on, which is the Arab Initiative. I discussed this with him and said we won’t normalize relations with you until after the implementation of the initiative and return rights to its owners. We have had enough of trading in Palestinian blood,” Eshki told Iran’s Alalam channel on July 25.
A Saudi foreign ministry official on Wednesday told Al-Hayat newspaper that Eshki “does not reflect the views of the Saudi government.”
There are no official relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saudi Arabia bans its citizens from traveling to Israel and Israel does not issue visas to Saudis. But foreign experts believe that Eshki’s visit could not have happened without Saudi government approval.
“Although the latest visit may not have been Eshki's first trip to Israel, this time he was reportedly accompanied by a number of Saudi academics and businesspeople. Despite the absence of mutual diplomatic recognition, all of these individuals would have needed special dispensation from the Saudi government to make the journey,” said Simon Henderson, Baker fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at The Washington Institute, in an article posted on July 25.
It is a “[h]ighly notable event for the traditionally risk-averse Saudis. No current Saudi officials were included, but the visit could not have happened without high-level official approval,” said Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, in an article for the Wall Street Journal on July 26.
“This is not necessarily a harbinger of strengthening ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But it indicates how Saudi Arabia and the region are changing.” he added.
According to media reports, the main purpose of the visit was to discuss the Saudi-led 2002 Arab peace initiative. After his meeting with Gold, Eshqi released a statement, saying “If he announces that he accepts the initiative and gives all rights to Palestinians, Saudi Arabia will start to make an embassy in Tel Aviv,” according to Breaking Israel News.
“Saudis and Israelis could work together when Israel announces that it accepts the Arab Initiative,” Eshqi told Israel’s Channel 10 News.
Eshki, who was the advisor to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador in Washington DC, told the Wall Street Journal last August, “The main project between me and Dore Gold is to bring peace between Arab countries and Israel. This is personal, but my government knows about the project.”
In recent months, there have been reports of intelligence cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia with respect to the Islamic State and Iran.
“The Saudi leadership want to see unity in the Arab stance, and the international community stance against Iran. They consider it as the main threat and Saudi Arabia believes Iran is digging under the Saudi regime. Therefore they first want to create a wide Arab front and at the international level as well, and in this context, they consider Israel as a friend and ally,” Deiran Sigel, a researcher on Arab affairs at the Middle East Department of Haifa University, told Rudaw on Wednesday.
In Israel, they consider Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as a target to expand their relations with Arab countries and certainly there is a clear joint interest with the risk of terrorism in the region.
“There is communication between Israel and Arab countries especially in recent years when the region has seen changes, it makes this communication more necessary. Saudi Arabia is a big country in the Gulf peninsula, so it is one of the main countries in any Middle Eastern proposal. There are countries that have trade and economic relations with Israel via different offices in the Gulf such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and there are close relationships,” Kamal Hassan, board member of the Israeli institute for regional foreign policies (MITVIM), told Rudaw.
The Woodrow Wilson Center scholar argues that Saudis are more worried about Iran than ISIS. Based on the logic of shared enemies, Saudi Arabia is seeking to engage with Israel and build close ties.
“This visit reflects far more change in Saudi views than those in Israel. The Jewish state has long pressed for normalization with Arab states, particularly those in the Gulf. Such a public visit suggests Saudi willingness to test the waters. Changes in the region wrought by the Arab Spring, the rise of Iran, and shared worries over the Iran nuclear agreement have narrowed the divide between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Saudis appear to be more worried about Iran and the rise of ISIS than about being seen with the Israelis,” said Miller.
“The logic of shared enemies has created more intimacy in Israeli-Egyptian relations as well. Egypt and Israel both have interest in restraining Hamas and the jihadis operating in Sinai. What’s striking is that Saudi Arabia and Egypt seem to be using the Palestinian issue not to isolate Israel but as a basis to engage,” he added.
In Israel, it is accepted that they have non-diplomatic relations with Arab countries and there is a desire to make these relations open, but Arab countries insist on keeping discussion secret at this stage.
Three members of the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, Issawi Frej, Michael Rozin, and Ksenia Svetlova who attended the meeting with Eskhri revealed that the Saudis expressed eagerness to progress on discourse with Israel on the peace initiative.
“The Saudis want to open up to Israel,” Frej said, according to Breaking Israel News. “It’s a strategic move for them. They want to continue what former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat started [with the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty]. They want to get closer with Israel, and we could feel it clearly.”
Earlier this year, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal publicly shook hands with Israeli’s defense minister Moshe Yaalon at a conference in Germany.
This is not the first time that Eshki and Gold have met. In August 2015 the two shook hands and spoke at a joint panel of the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
