Relax, MBS isn’t aligning with Islamists. He also isn’t normalizing with Israel soon |
After years of viewing Saudi Arabia as a keystone in the pro-American alliance in the Middle East, many observers have raised the alarm in recent months over a worrying shift in the kingdom’s posture.
Under powerful Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has been regarded as undeniably autocratic, but also a bulwark against hostile Iran-backed proxies and Muslim Brotherhood blocs.
And there was an assumption that the Saudis would normalize ties with Israel in the near future.
“We are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations, 16 days before Hamas invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, “a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
US President Donald Trump repeatedly expressed hope that Riyadh would join the Abraham Accords during his first term. After the October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza, Trump reportedly told MBS that he expected him to move toward normalization with Israel now that the fighting was over.
The war in Gaza has hardened MBS’s position for an Israel deal, but it was still seen as highly likely once the fighting ended.
That optimistic assessment has turned into a growing concern in recent months that not only is normalization an Israeli pipe dream, but that Riyadh is actively turning toward a regional Islamist axis led by Turkey and Qatar.
But the concern over the kingdom moving into the arms of Islamists is overblown, and fundamentally misreads both the structure of Middle East geopolitics and Saudi interests.
“That’s really far-fetched,” said Moran Zaga, Gulf scholar at MIND Israel. “It’s hard to describe what Saudi is doing as alliances, except what it does with Pakistan. It exploits opportunities; it’s signaling — mainly signaling to the United States, Israel and the UAE — that it has other partners.”
“It’s hard to describe what Saudi is doing as alliances, except what it does with Pakistan. It exploits opportunities; it’s signaling— mainly signaling to the United States, Israel, and the UAE— that it has other partners.”
“There are changes,” conceded Yoel Guzansky, senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. “But they’re not ideological. Saudi Arabia hasn’t joined an alliance. There is no such alliance.”
“Saudi Arabia is hedging,” he said.
Analysts fretted over an emerging “Islamic NATO” as Bin Salman signed a strategic mutual defense agreement with Pakistan in September. Then in January, Bloomberg reported that Turkey was seeking to join the pact, which would have brought together Saudi Arabia’s deep coffers, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and Turkey’s advanced military power.
Those military discussions took place amid diplomatic processes that set off the same alarms.
Eight-and-a-half years after he cut diplomatic ties with the energy-rich emirate next door, MBS sat with Qatari leader Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in December to sign a series of defense, transportation and investment deals. Bilateral trade is up over 600 percent since the restoration of ties in 2021, and the two Gulf countries have been aligning on regional issues as well, including in Syria and Gaza.
Not long ago, MBS and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were also regional rivals in a relationship marked by distrust. In 2018, Saudi agents killed and hacked apart dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at their embassy in Istanbul, likely on the orders of MBS. Erdogan leveled that accusation publicly, writing in The Washington Post — the influential publication where Khashoggi’s writing was published — that “the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government.”
Turkey and Saudi Arabia also clashed around regional conflicts, including in Sudan, Syria and Libya.
Now, the two regional powers are pursuing a steady reconciliation process.
On Tuesday, MBS hosted Erdogan, a leading Israel critic and Hamas backer, in Riyadh. In a joint statement, the two agreed to strengthen........