The Israel-Saudi connection: Iranian aggression is the matchmaker

The Iranian threat has pushed Saudi Arabia to seek secret cooperation with the only power in the region with the capability and willpower to stop Iran’s aggression: Israel.

By: Daniel Krygier, World Israel News

It has been an eventful time in the Middle East, even by the troubled region’s own standards. Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned and fled to Saudi Arabia, citing fear of being assassinated.

Yemen’s Houthis fired a ballistic missile travelling 800 kilometers before hitting the Saudi capital Riyadh.

The Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who the West believed was on his way out of power, gradually emerges as the winner in the bloody Syrian war. Recently, the Gaza-based terror regime Hamas signed a unity deal with its Ramallah-based rival faction Fatah.

The Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan, who overwhelmingly voted for independence, were once again abandoned by the West and their self-determination is severely threatened by the Baghdad regime.

The common denominator for these seemingly unrelated dramatic events is Iran and it is has clear implications for Israel and the West.

Like Iraq’s former despot, Saddam Hussein, Iran’s regime has hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East. Unlike the former Iraqi dictator, Iran’s regime has survived by being much more careful to mask its aggression by using proxies and thereby avoiding a direct confrontation with the United States and her Western allies.

Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Assad in Syria, Iraq’s regime and Hamas are all Iranian proxies taking orders from Teheran.

Iran has long played a high-stake double game with the world, unconvincingly denying its nuclear and imperial ambitions. On November 4, Iran’s naked aggression was unmasked and exposed to anyone who still doubts it.

In a dramatic live announcement on the Saudi TV channel Al-Arabiyah, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation after fleeing to Saudi Arabia, where he was born. Hariri, who until recently served as a fig leaf for Iranian influence in Lebanon, accused Iran and its Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah for oppressing the Lebanese people and seizing power in Lebanon.

Hariri, who is by no means a friend of Israel, did not mince his words regarding the true nature of Hezbollah and its extensive military build-up:

“Over previous decades, Hezbollah was able to impose a reality in Lebanon with the power of its weapons, which it claims is the (anti-Israel) resistance’s weapons, which are aimed at the chests of our Syrian and Yemeni brothers, not to mention the Lebanese.”

Tacit Cooperation: Temporary or Promising?

Hariri, who blames Iran and its Hezbollah and Syrian proxies for the murder of his father in 2005, accused Teheran and its allies for plotting an assassination against him as well. Lebanon’s Prime Minister confirmed what Israel has been warning about for years. Iran’s genocidal regime has ambitions to establish a Shiite Middle Eastern empire stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean at the expense of Sunni Arabs.

Iran is threatening Israel from Lebanon and Syria in the north and from Gaza in the south.

The gravity of the situation has resulted in a tacit and seemingly unlikely cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saudi Arabia is a fundamentalist Sunni state that officially does not recognize Israel and is not a friend of the Jewish people. However, the Iranian threat has pushed Saudi Arabia to seek secret cooperation with the only power in the region with the capability and willpower to stop Iran’s aggression: Israel.

It remains to be seen whether the tacit cooperation between Riyadh and Jerusalem is temporary or will eventually lead to official diplomatic relations. However, what is clear beyond any doubt is the fact that the Arab-Israeli conflict is merely a sideshow to the main Middle Eastern conflict between Iranian-led Shia Islam and Arab Sunni Islam.

Israel-Saudi relationsMiddle East