For years, Saudi Arabia has worked to diversify its security relationships and reduce its dependence on any single partner. It has spent enormous sums on its military; strengthened its ties with Washington; and developed increasingly close defense relationships with Pakistan and Turkey.
Then reality intervened.
In August, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, declaring that an armed attack against one would be considered an attack against all three. Barely a month later, that commitment is being tested.
Iran-backed Houthi forces have intensified attacks on Saudi cities and energy infrastructure. Over the weekend, the threat reached the capital itself, as the Houthis claimed missile and drone attacks on Riyadh, while also claiming a strike on an Aramco facility in Yanbu. At the same time, they have expanded their position along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and threatened the approaches to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
Saudi Arabia is again confronting the organization it fought for years, only this time against the backdrop of a much wider confrontation with Iran and its regional network.
The response of Riyadh’s new allies is instructive. Pakistan condemned the attacks, but when asked how it intended to fulfill its obligations under the new defense agreement, its Foreign Ministry said that no military response was currently under discussion. Turkey has since said that it is prepared to help meet Saudi military needs under the pact, although so far this has remained an expression of willingness rather than direct military involvement. Perhaps that will change, but there is already a lesson here: A defense agreement is not the same thing as a partner willing and able to act when missiles are actually flying.
This matters because Saudi Arabia is hardly defenseless on paper. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi military expenditure reached $83.2 billion in 2025, making it the eighth-largest military spender in the world. Over many years, the kingdom has purchased some of the most advanced Western weapons available.
However, while money can buy aircraft, missiles and sophisticated air-defense systems, it cannot guarantee operational experience, intelligence superiority, initiative or the willingness to take military risks.
Israel has all four. That is why the current Saudi predicament should be viewed in Jerusalem not with satisfaction, but with strategic clarity. A weakened Saudi Arabia is not in Israel’s interest. The two countries face many of the same threats, first and foremost Iran and the regional network it has built around itself. Houthi control over strategic areas of the Red Sea threatens not only Saudi Arabia but Israel, international trade and the wider regional order as well.
Israel therefore has every reason to continue acting against the Houthis and, more broadly, against Iran’s ability to use proxies to surround its enemies and threaten critical infrastructure. But there is an important distinction between Israel acting because its own national security requires it and Israel providing capabilities that directly strengthen Saudi security.
A recent analysis by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies argued that Israel should offer Saudi Arabia practical assistance quietly and without demanding immediate political compensation. By demonstrating that Israel can provide a valuable additional layer of security, the argument goes, Jerusalem can gradually build trust and eventually create the conditions for normalization.
There is logic in that approach, but the current circumstances point to a different conclusion: Israel has already demonstrated its value. Saudi leaders do not need another lesson in the powers of Israeli intelligence, air defense, precision-strike capabilities or the ability to operate against Iranian-backed forces. They have watched Israel fight Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran itself.
The question is no longer whether Israel can be useful to Saudi Arabia. It is whether Riyadh can continue benefiting from Israeli strategic power while treating an open partnership with Israel as politically unacceptable.
If Saudi Arabia sees Israel as an important part of the regional security architecture, it should be willing to say so publicly.
It should not. Political reciprocity is in order.
This does not mean Israel should demand a peace treaty tomorrow morning in return for every piece of intelligence or operational action that indirectly benefits Riyadh. Diplomacy does not work that way, and normalization between two major regional powers should not be reduced to a transactional exchange during a crisis.
But neither should Israeli assistance be unconditional. There should be a ladder of reciprocity, and each step should be based on actions rather than declarations.
The first step ought to be political acknowledgment. If Saudi Arabia sees Israel as an important part of the regional security architecture, it should be willing to say so publicly. Not necessarily through full diplomatic recognition at the outset, but through an official acknowledgment that Israel is a legitimate regional partner in confronting common threats.
The next steps should be practical and visible. Saudi and Israeli officials should begin formal and publicly acknowledged dialogue, perhaps initially under an American umbrella. Civil and economic contacts should expand. Cooperation in fields where the two countries have obvious shared interests, including technology, energy, water, aviation and regional infrastructure, should gradually move out of the shadows.
Security cooperation should follow the same principle. The deeper the intelligence sharing, early warning, air-defense coordination or operational cooperation requested from Israel, the greater the level of political reciprocity that should accompany it.
The eventual objective should be clear: full normalization and, beyond it, a genuine strategic relationship among countries that see Iran and its armed proxies as a central threat to regional stability.
Saudi Arabia will point to a major obstacle: the Palestinian issue. Riyadh has repeatedly said that it will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without a Palestinian state. But supporting Palestinian aspirations does not require making resolution of the conflict a prerequisite for every step toward an open relationship with Israel. Riyadh must decide whether a conflict it cannot resolve by itself should continue to block a relationship that increasingly serves its own national security interests.
Saudi Arabia does not need to abandon its relationships with Turkey, Pakistan, China or other powers. States pursue interests, not friendships. But strategic hedging has limits. Riyadh cannot treat Israel as politically inconvenient when diplomatic statements are issued while relying on it as an indispensable regional military power when missiles and drones approach Saudi territory.
At some point, Riyadh must determine what Israel is: a capable neighbor whose military strength it is content to indirectly benefit from, or a legitimate strategic partner with whom it is willing to establish an open relationship. That choice cannot remain entirely private. For decades, quiet cooperation with Arab states was often the only cooperation possible, and secrecy was sometimes necessary.
But the Middle East has changed. The Abraham Accords demonstrated that relations with Israel need not remain hidden, while the confrontation with Iran has shown how shared threats create shared interests. The current Saudi crisis adds another lesson: When a serious military threat emerges, geography, capability and willingness to act matter more than declarations signed in ceremonial halls.
The test should be deeds. Saudi Arabia does not need to leap from no formal relations to a strategic alliance overnight. But it does need to begin moving, publicly and measurably, in that direction.
Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman has spent years building Saudi Arabia’s strategic flexibility. The Houthi challenge may now be exposing the limits of that approach. Turkey and Pakistan are important partners, and the United States remains indispensable. But when Iran and its proxies threaten the region, Israel is not a distant power making promises from outside the neighborhood. It lives there and has repeatedly demonstrated both the capability and the willingness to act.
Israel should continue doing so because defeating the Iranian axis serves Israel’s own interests. But if Riyadh wants Israeli power to help protect the kingdom when missiles are flying, it must also be willing to give Israel a legitimate place at the table when diplomacy begins. Strategic partnerships cannot remain secret forever, and should never come free of charge.
