Iran, regional deals and Israeli-Arab relations

“At the end, Israel will not have any other choice but to act to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Israel’s former national security adviser Yaakov Amidror told The AJN while in Australia recently.

“I don’t see the Americans acting and for sure I don’t see other countries doing the job.”

Major General (res.) Amidror, who served as national security adviser under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2011 to 2013 and is now with the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), visited Sydney and Melbourne in March with JISS president Professor Efraim Inbar for a series of lectures and briefings.

With Iran’s nuclear program “almost close to fruition”, Inbar told The AJN should Tehran acquire a bomb then Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia “will follow suit”.

“This has to be prevented by all means,” he said.

Commenting on the recent deal Iran signed with Saudi Arabia to re-establish relations after years of animosity, Inbar said, “I don’t believe that Iran and Saudi Arabia put aside their differences.

“They are rivals that prefer at this stage maybe to speak. But they continue to be rivals,” he said, adding he didn’t think it will affect Saudi-Israel relations.

There were hopes after the signing of the Abraham Accords that Saudi Arabia may be warming to the idea of normalising ties with Israel.

But the Saudis made a point of saying, after opening the kingdom’s airspace to Israeli passenger planes last year, that the step was not the beginning of such a path.

“The rumours about an opening of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel I think were too premature,” Inbar said. “MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] is not going to risk his position before he consolidates his power … After all, all he wants from Israel he can get under the table.”

Amidror said the Iran-Saudi deal, which was brokered by China, was “more about giving a signal to the Americans than the Israelis”.

“It was a Saudi way to say if you are not here, someone else will take the position and it will probably be the Chinese,” he said.

But he said there was significance to Oman opening its airspace to Israeli airliners earlier this year.

“It means that despite the fact that some countries do not want yet to have political relations with Israel, they are ready to make some practical steps which are important for Israel, enhancing the relations,” he said.

In terms of who may be next to join the Abraham Accords, Amidror said “no one knows”, but clarified that “if it will be quiet in the West Bank, the easier it will be to bring other countries in”.

Asked whether controversial statements from far-right members of the Israeli government such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir were causing concern in the Arab world, he said, “The answer is a clear yes.

“It’s not that they like the Palestinians, but they don’t want the tension to rise in the West Bank and this is why for them, declarations and deeds like what we heard from Smotrich and others are against their interests.”

Inbar said “some irresponsible statements by government officials” won’t harm the relations with Arab countries, “but the atmospherics are not good”.

“After all, the relations between us and the Arab countries are based on on interests,” he said.

“They know that in terms of foreign policy and military policy, Netanyahu is fully in control and they should not expect any surprises from him. He is a known quantity.”

But he blamed Israeli opposition figures Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz for “the composition of this government”.

“[They] boycotted Bibi … and didn’t leave much choice for Netanyahu to form a government more to his liking, including centrist parties,” Inbar said.

“So basically he was forced to have those partners, which I’m pretty sure are not his cup of tea.”

With almost no chance of Israel and the Palestinians reaching any sort of agreement in the near future and citing a poll that said 80 per cent of Palestinians support military resistance, Inbar said the level of violence is “going to oscillate over the next years, sometimes we’ll have more, sometimes we’ll have less”.

Asked what Israel should do in the inevitable event of a power vacuum once the elderly Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas exits the scene, he said, “I advise my government to be an observer and not to get involved. It is an internal Palestinian affair.

“Of course, if there is a chance that Hamas will take over, then we should prevent it.”