Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has reportedly turned down an Israeli offer to take part in the military campaign against Yemen’s Houthi movement, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The paper, citing an unnamed diplomatic source, said Israel sought Riyadh’s approval through American mediation for Israeli forces to join operations against the Houthis, and that the crown prince was not interested in Israeli military assistance.
Key Facts
- The report: Haaretz says Israel asked Saudi Arabia, via US mediation, to allow Israeli forces to join the fight against Yemen’s Houthis.
- The rejection: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly declined, fearing a negative reaction among the Saudi public to cooperation with Israel.
- Israel’s angle: Another source said Israel hoped joint military action would strengthen bilateral ties and lay groundwork for future normalization.
- No ties: Saudi Arabia has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel and says normalization depends on resolving the Palestinian issue, including a Palestinian state.
- No confirmation: Saudi authorities had issued no official comment on the report at the time of writing.
Why Riyadh rejected the Israeli offer
According to the report, the Saudi leadership worried that any public association with Israeli forces could trigger a domestic backlash. The Saudi crown prince viewed the political costs of such cooperation as too high, even as the kingdom faces a renewed wave of Houthi attacks. Riyadh’s official position remains that any normalization with Israel is inseparable from progress toward an independent Palestinian state, a red line that has kept the two countries from establishing formal ties. The reported Saudi rejects Israeli offer to the Houthi campaign suggests the kingdom prefers to manage its own defense rather than accept outside help that carries political baggage.
Israel’s normalization hopes
A second source familiar with the matter said the proposal served a broader purpose for Israel: turning shared security concerns into a channel for closer relations with Riyadh and, eventually, a formal normalization agreement. Israeli officials have long sought a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia, and US administrations have repeatedly pushed the idea under the Abraham Accords framework. A potential agreement appeared close in 2023 before the Hamas attack of October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza derailed regional diplomacy, leaving the Palestinian question as the central obstacle.
A war that keeps escalating
The report lands as fighting between Saudi-backed forces and the Houthis intensifies. Recent Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi territory, including strikes on airports in Riyadh that caused casualties and disrupted international flights, have raised the pressure on the kingdom’s defenses. Yemen has been at war since the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government. The escalation resumed in July after a period of relative calm following a UN-brokered truce that took effect in April 2022.
