Inside the Saudi campaign to oust Netanyahu while pretending to seek peace
Khaled Hassan | The Grand Strategy | Jul 23, 2026
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Around 14 July, reports of a deliberate leak began circulating. The method was classic deniable statecraft—tactical silence, the understanding that what is said in private can be easily denied in public.
According to a report in Israel Hayom, cited by outlets including JFeed, Saudi representatives of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman conveyed to senior U.S. officials in recent weeks that Riyadh was prepared to reopen discussions on joining the Abraham Accords, but only under key political conditions the current Israeli government was unlikely to accept. The two central, linked demands were that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu no longer serve as PM following the next Israeli elections, and that the policies advanced by Netanyahu’s government, particularly Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank)—settlement expansion and related measures—be reversed.
Saudi officials saw these as connected, on the view that Netanyahu in power would continue backing Smotrich’s approach. A third element referenced earlier wartime explorations of recognition in exchange for major Palestinian concessions, including a public Israeli commitment toward a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu rejected. Contacts reportedly went through the White House, State Department, and members of Congress. Earlier reports from 2025 had already indicated Saudi reluctance to normalise with the current Netanyahu-led coalition, especially amid settlement expansion, but the specific post-election Netanyahu exit plus reverse Smotrich policies framing matches this July 2026 reporting.
The leak was not an olive branch; it was a poison pill dressed as an offer. By setting unrealistic terms that any Israeli right?wing government would refuse, Riyadh handed a weapon to Netanyahu’s domestic opponents and to anti-Israel Washington, such as Tucker Carlson and Vice President JD Vance. The subtext was impossible to miss—normalisation could be achieved, but only if Israelis replaced Netanyahu.
Two days later, on 16 July, the second prong of the campaign struck. A Saudi channel, Al Arabiya English, interviewed Israeli President Isaac Herzog in his Jerusalem residence. Al Arabiya is a Saudi?based outlet, part of the MBC Group with deep ownership ties to the Saudi state. Giving Herzog such a prominent platform was a calculated embrace of Israel’s ceremonial head of state while the prime minister was being openly undermined.
The article quite accurately describes the situation with Saudi Arabia. They will non-committedly agree to anything that appears to diminish the Jewish state. Since they have plenty of money (at the moment), they feel that they can lean back and wait for people like Trump to lose patience and lash out at the apparent source of the problem, which, in the Arab view, is Israel and Israel’s current PM, Netanyahu.
It would be short-sighted for us to take these statements seriously. We already know that allowing those retired generals to take over the leadership of the country after refusing to even consider plans to deal with the Iranian problem before it blew up in their faces will get us nothing but Israeli concessions on a grand scale like we saw with previous PMs. Just consider Ehud Barak’s offer of 90% and more of Judea and Samaria along with what is called East Jerusalem. That is why the Saudis are so insistent on getting rid of him. With this step, they have realigned themselves with a lot of anti-Israel people who would like nothing more than to reduce Israeli to the dhimmi status they suffered under during the last 2000 years.
The only thing remaining is to play a similar game. While MBS feels safely in the saddle to become the king of Saudi Arabia, what would happen if he were gone? Maybe a little sparrow whispering in his father’s ear would change the situation… There are sooo many princes in SA that a replacement would be easy to find.