I'm not really sure that Israel is the main force keeping Saudi Arabian regime out of harm's way, to be honest, even with the cooperation between them.
Israel and the Saudis are pretty close allies. To the extent that the two have plotted out air corridors by which Israel jets could fly through to bomb Iran.
And the US barely has an inherent interest in Saudi Arabia. Israel is credited for helping the US "fight terrorism in the Middle East" or maintain those puppets, but really they're just helping us help them. When it comes to things that don't directly benefit Israel, they don't care. Israel has never even fought ISIS for example, the largest recent terrorist threat in the region. And they're allowed to maintain some neutrality in situations like Russia's attack on Ukraine. You might even call them neutral wrt ISIS since they aren't in this mostly symbolic list: https://www.state.gov/the-global-coalition-to-defeat-isis-pa...
For all the things Israel has done against the US's wishes (like West Bank settlement), the US has struggled to do just one thing Israel doesn't like: the Iran nuclear deal. But at least one of our major parties is somewhat willing to push it. I think they're also somewhat annoyed with our focus on Ukraine.
Your understanding is wrong. Saudi Arabia has great relations with Israel - they're just not being officially flaunted that much. In fact, not only is Israel's politicians and state apparatus acting in synch with Saudi positions and interests, but even the media and academia are awash with pundits and so-called experts which are essentially parroting the skewed Saudi outlook: Demonization of Iran, presentation of almost every conflict in the region as Shiites vs Sunni, suppression of criticism of US/Saudi-supported regimes and strong men, ignoring the government's active support of Islamic fundamentalists etc.
Sorry to say this but your understanding on Israel - Saudi relations is poor: they are excellent.
I don’t blame you since the media usually carry that narrative.
Anyone who can protect the rulers from the people is in excellent terms with the rulers. The rest is just posturing.
Have you been following the Middle East news lately at all? Israel is clearly allied with Saudi camp, and there already have been plenty of almost official visits.
It's complicated. Officially Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic relations with Israel and considers them as illegal occupiers in Palestine. But that's just for PR purposes in the Arab Muslim world. However behind the scenes they frequently cooperate and share intelligence on matters of mutual interest.
You can't question our alliance with Saudi Arabia without questioning our alliance with Israel. Well, you can, but the former flows from the latter. If we're going to be allies with Israel, then Iran is our enemy. If Iran is our enemy, then Saudi Arabia is our friend. We've come up with all sorts of other rationalizations over the years, but that is the core of it.
I've begun to see the faintest whiffs of questioning the Saudi alliance among the foreign policy establishment, but I suspect our deeply pro-Israel sentiments will prevent anything from changing for a long time.
What is Saudi Arabia? If we're talking about the rulers (read: the Saud family), they're certainly friendly with Israel.
Both nations share a common enemy: Islamists who deny the right of Israel and Saudi Arabia to exist. Note: a necessary step in the establishment of a Caliphate is the destruction of the modern Arab states, all of which Islamists generally regard as illegitimate.
The Saudi people are obviously very anti-Israel, which ties the hands of the rulers to some degree. Or at least prevents the rulers from openly being friendly toward Israel.
The friends we've chosen in the region also don't help us. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Israel are particularly well-liked in the region (and that's putting it lightly), but both are seen as US puppets.
Honestly I don't think we really care much anymore what the Saudis think; the regime has fantastic wealth but very little real power beyond holding the purse strings for hyper conservative terror groups. I think eventually the hypocrisy and opulence of the regime will cause the terror groups to throw off their former masters and come after them -- and all credible reports say the Saudi army isn't much more than a facade propped up by a handful of US contractors. We probably wouldn't let them fall to terror groups, but we also aren't really comfortable propping up a regime that is actively funding a proxy war against us.
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