Trump’s belated normalization condition for Saudi nuke deal doesn’t erase all Israeli fears
Times of Israel · LC · trust 52/100
US President Donald Trump calmed plenty of nerves in Israel on Thursday when he announced that the civilian nuclear deal his administration had signed with Saudi Arabia the day before would be retroactively contingent on the Gulf kingdom normalizing relations with the Jewish state.
It certainly removed concerns that a key incentive for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords was being taken off the table permanently, which had raised questions about Trump’s commitment to bringing about what would be a historic peace agreement.
Despite Thursday’s unexpected and positive development, the deal still gives Israel much to fret about.
It presents new proliferation challenges and is another indication that major American decisions are being made across the region without Israel’s input.
As the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia may not seem an obvious candidate for nuclear power.
“The main motive, when [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammed Bin Salman first flouted this idea, was to counter Islamic Iran,” said Hussain Abdul-Hussain of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “that if Iran gets nukes, Saudi will do too.”
However, given the massive damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program by US and Israeli attacks, it is not clear this is still the main driver.
The need for a civilian nuclear program is in large part the product of economic considerations. Riyadh aims to reduce carbon emissions under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic plan, and nuclear power can lower domestic Saudi consumption of oil for electricity and free up more oil for export.
Israel could live with a strictly civilian Saudi nuclear program that does not include uranium enrichment on Saudi soil. But without stringent safeguards, Saudi Arabia — which already has uranium ore reserves — could theoretically use an enrichment facility to produce highly enriched uranium, the fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon.
But the terms of the deal remain unclear.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the agreement could see US companies build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia.
“Once you have it on your ground, it’s only a question of the level of enrichment,” said Gil Murciano, CEO at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies. “You develop the knowledge. Slowly you can become, especially a country with resources such as the Saudis, a threshold nation.”
Saudi Arabia is a cosignatory of the NPT, a treaty that stipulates that cosignatories will not develop nuclear weapons. However, the NPT does not mention enrichment.
If the Saudis are eventually allowed to enrich on their own soil, as the Iranians did until 2025, then it stands to reason that other Sunni powers will want similar arrangements. How much more dangerous is a Middle East — especially for Israel — with Egypt, Turkey, and Algeria enriching on their own soil?
It should be noted, however, that when normalization seemed like a real possibility in 2023, Netanyahu and his top advisers seemed to be laying the groundwork for accepting a deal that would see uranium enriched on Saudi territory, despite firm opposition from the IDF, the Mossad, and the Israel nuclear energy agency.
In an interview that year, then-strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer was asked about Saudi Arabia having “civil nuclear capacity, including enrichment” in exchange for normalization, to which he responded: “Like so many things, the devil is in the details, and we’re going to have to look at what ultimately is agreed upon.”
Channel 13 quoted an unnamed source close to Netanyahu appearing to confirm Dermer’s sentiment: “Israel doesn’t rule [it] out — but first wants to know what the level of American monitoring of such a process would be, what would be the level of involvement and what would be Israel’s insurance policy, and accordingly devise a clear position.
According to Trump’s Thursday announcement, however, there will be “no enrichment of material,” which apparently means the deal wouldn’t grant Saudi Arabia the right to enrich uranium on its soil.
The deal “pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
If there is no enrichment in Saudi Arabia, and there are extensive “gold standard” international inspections, Israel has much less to worry about in terms of a potential ability for the Saudis to move toward a nuclear weapon.
It could also be a blueprint for the US to offer Iran if its leaders someday decide to adopt a different approach toward the country’s nuclear program.
The other pressing issue for Israel is normalization.
Under the Joe Biden administration, civil nuclear cooperation was an important inducement, along with security guarantees, in an effort to broker a normalization deal.
Though Trump occasionally returns to the goal of normalization, it seemed to have fallen by the wayside as he focused on boosting bilateral relations with other countries in the region. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright met Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in April and said the two countries were on “a pathway” to a civil nuclear agreement, with absolutely no mention of a wider deal that includes normalization.
And it is by no means guaranteed that normalization will remain a condition for the deal. American journalist Laura Rozen quoted an unnamed Saudi source who said in no uncertain fashion that Trump’s normalization demand came too late.
“It was signed. So nothing to renegotiate,” the Saudi source said. “Tweets don’t overturn signed agreements.”
Push the Saudis too hard, and they could turn to Russia or China — or even Pakistan, with whom Saudi Arabia signed an amorphous Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement only last year — to back their nuclear program.
While normalization has been a priority for both Netanyahu and the…
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