Even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far remained silent about reports of a US-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement, his political opponents have been sharply critical, treating the deal like a strategic disaster.
Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, leader of the Israel Beitenu party, wrote on X that a civilian nuclear program for Saudi Arabia “will end with nuclear weapons and lead to a wild arms race across the entire Middle East.”
Democrats party chair Yair Golan, a retired military general, said the agreement creates a “dangerous reality” for Israel, accusing Netanyahu of achieving “the impossible”: “He both lost the chance for normalization with Saudi Arabia and enabled it to gain nuclear capabilities.”
Under the Biden administration, nuclear cooperation between the US and Saudi Arabia was directly linked to the normalization process with Israel, said Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the INSS.
“The October 7, (2023) attack and war that followed took the prospect of normalization out of the equation as Saudi Arabia has only become more aggressive against Israel,” he told CNN, adding that with the current right-wing Israeli government there are really no political conditions for it.
“For the Saudis, it’s a win-win – they got nuclear without paying anything for it,” Guzansky said.
Guzansky says the agreement carries a dangerous proliferation risk, and may establish a “Saudi model,” which other states in the region will invoke and seek similar terms. He said Israel probably cannot stop the agreement, “but it can try to improve it, through Congress, and there is room for improvement, for example in matters of supervision and inspections.”