Don’t Let Noise Shape the Israel-Saudi Relationship

The noise has been deafening lately.

Not long before Israel and the U.S. launched the ongoing attack against Iran, a senior Israeli minister joked that Saudis “ride camels,” while a map displayed behind the Prime Minister raises eyebrows about territorial ambitions in northern Arabia. American Jewish media, understandably on edge after October 7, has been lumping Saudi Arabia in with Qatar and Turkey as part of a hostile “Sunni crescent,” as if Riyadh and Hamas were cut from the same cloth. In Saudi Arabia itself, state-aligned newspapers have run editorials that would have been unthinkable five years ago, and government-appointed imams in Mecca and Medina have called for victory against “Zionist aggressors.”

With every word, statement or symbolism put under extreme scrutiny people are seeing diplomatic chasms everywhere. I understand the anxiety; I share some of it. But I also know something that public commentary rarely captures: what is said loudly in public is almost never the full story of what is happening quietly behind closed doors. And right now, behind those doors, there is a story that demands to be told honestly.

I have spent decades working across diplomatic channels, serving under every American president since George W. Bush. I have sat in rooms where the public narrative bore almost no resemblance to the private conversation. The Middle East, more than anywhere, is a region where the gap between rhetoric and reality is not a sign of deception – it is the very architecture of diplomacy. Leaders speak to their streets. And then they speak to each other.

The Palestinian issue is the clearest example of this. Let me be direct, because this piece would be dishonest if I weren’t: Saudi Arabia’s demand for a credible path to Palestinian statehood is not theater. The Saudi street cares deeply about Palestinian dignity and sovereignty. Mecca and Medina carry an obligation that no Saudi ruler can simply set aside. When MBS insists that normalization requires movement on the Palestinian question, he is not stalling – he is governing. Any framework that dismisses this as an obstacle to be managed rather than a problem to be solved will fail.

But here is what the pessimists miss: a genuine difference on one issue, however serious, does not define the totality of a relationship — unless we allow it to. The history of diplomacy is full of breakthroughs between parties who disagreed bitterly on one dimension while finding common ground on others. The question is not whether Jerusalem and Riyadh see the Palestinian issue identically. They do not. The question is whether there are creative arrangements 0 involving sequencing, international guarantees, economic frameworks for Palestinian development – that allow both sides to move forward without either abandoning its core commitments. I believe there are. And I believe serious people on both sides know it.

Because when the moment has truly mattered, Saudi Arabia’s actions have told a different story than its editorials. In April 2024, when Iran launched over 350 drones and missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia provided critical intelligence before and during the attack that helped protect Israeli lives. That was not the behavior of an adversary. That was a partner communicating, in the most serious language available, where its real interests lie.

And then came February 28, 2026, and the historic week we have witnessed since. When the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, and Tehran – in its hubris – retaliated by firing missiles at Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s response was unambiguous. Saudi Arabia condemned Iran’s attacks as “blatant and cowardly,” and joined the coalition, alongside Israel. Riyadh had, in the weeks prior, been part of the lobbying effort that helped move President Trump toward action in the first place. When Iran chose aggression, the kingdom chose sides.

That is not the behavior of a country drifting into the arms of Israel’s enemies. That is a country that, when pushed to the wall, knows who threatens it and who does not; even if full normalization has yet to happen, it is a country actively cooperating with Israel in a region where actions speak louder than words.

So why does the American Jewish community struggle to see this? Partly it is history, and history deserves its weight. Partly it is the inflammatory rhetoric that has genuinely increased in the Saudi press, and which should be called out rather than excused. And partly it is that some of our community’s voices have made the mistake of treating every uncomfortable Saudi statement as a verdict on the relationship, rather than as a symptom of domestic pressures that any leader of a Muslim-majority nation must navigate.

Yes, careless comments from certain Israeli officials have caused real damage. When a senior minister mocks Saudi culture, he is handing ammunition to every voice in Riyadh that argues the relationship with Israel is not worth the political cost. Words have consequences, and Israel’s friends in the American Jewish community should say so clearly.

But our community’s responsibility does not stop at criticizing Israeli gaffes. We also have an obligation to be honest about who Saudi Arabia is – a nation with genuine tensions with Israel over Palestinian rights, yes, but also a nation that, in the moments that counted most, stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel against Iran, for stability. That combination is not a contradiction. It is the complex reality we must work with, without over-reacting to every Saudi saying.

At some point the war with Iran will end, and diplomatic talks about the future of the region will resume. The loudest voices – on any side – do not get to define this relationship, or our future. The quiet conversations do. They always have.