Security Horizons

Security Horizons

Great Changes in the Relation between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist Regime Reasons and Contexts

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Amir Hussein N’emati 1
Amir Muhammad Hajiyousefi 2
1 Corresponding author: PhD candidate of political science, international relations, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2 Associate professor at the Department of political science and international relations, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Domestic, regional and global changes in recent years have generated new conditions for the Saudi government, which has pushed its foreign policy toward alignment with regional countries, particularly, making a close covert relation with the Zionist regime.  Given this fact, the present study is intended to investigate the reasons and the context that have caused this approach in Saudi foreign policy. This study is conducted through descriptive-analytical method using Randall Schuler's theory of balance of interests in the theoretical framework of neoclassical realism. The main finding of the research indicated that this was affected by the emergence of a new generation of government elites in Saudi Arabia, as the mediator variable, having specific priorities and perceptions in policymaking influenced by four variables of elites’ integration, elites’ consensus, social integration, and social cohesion, and the vulnerabilities of the state, as a the structural internal dependent variable. Furthermore, Iran's increasing regional influence along with changes in US foreign policy, as a structural independent variables, has normalized the relations between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime, the independent variable, to achieve security and the goals and to have bilateral interests.
Keywords
distinction
balance of interests
neoclassical realism
Saudi Arabia
the Zionist regime (Israel). 
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  • Receive Date 31 October 2019
  • Revise Date 04 April 2020
  • Accept Date 29 December 2019
  • Publish Date 23 October 2019