Israel Can Rescue MBS From the Iranian Trap

This article was originally published in Mako on September 14, 2026.

One can imagine Mohammed bin Salman standing alone before the enormous map in his palace in Riyadh. For years, he moved ports, futuristic cities, oil pipelines, and alliances across it as though they were chess pieces. He planned to transform Saudi Arabia from a kingdom dependent on oil wells into a modern power: NEOM in the desert, tourist resorts along the Red Sea coast, financial centers, sporting events, and new industries. Then, within a matter of days, the pieces began moving without him.

Houthi missiles and drones struck southern Saudi Arabia, setting oil facilities and infrastructure ablaze and injuring 73 people. Among the targets were a military base and oil infrastructure in cities near the border, in an area that is also home to the Jazan refinery, which has a refining capacity of approximately 400,000 barrels per day.

At the same time, the Houthis scored an even greater achievement: the capture of the port city of Mocha and an advance toward the islands and positions that control access to Bab al-Mandab. This is their most significant territorial gain in years and a severe blow to the Yemeni forces backed by Riyadh. According to regional sources, Iran supplied weapons, advice, and guidance that helped facilitate the operation.

Bin Salman turned to U.S. President Donald Trump and requested a direct American strike against the Houthis. Trump refused. The commander of U.S. Central Command arrived for urgent consultations, and Washington signaled that it would increase defensive assistance but would not join the offensive campaign Riyadh had requested.

At that moment, the crown prince discovered that the diamond-studded golden telephone in his palace office is not necessarily the phone that will bring someone rushing to your aid.

What Happened to the “Mecca Agreement”

Only in August, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the “Mecca Mutual Defense Agreement.” Broadly speaking, the agreement stipulates that an attack on any one of the three countries will be considered an attack on all of them. But Saudi Arabia learned sooner than expected that agreements on paper and declarations of solidarity from its regional partners yielded little more than paperwork and diplomatic statements. Pakistan promised to act “when the time comes”; Turkey sent warm words while the refinery burned.

An alliance that is not activated is like an insurance policy whose fine print is discovered only after the property has burned to the ground. In Riyadh’s hour of need, its friends are offering little more than manifestos. This does not mean that Saudi Arabia has been completely abandoned. There is diplomatic support, coordination, and defensive assistance, but nothing beyond that.

The Iranian-Houthi plan is simple and brutal: turn geography into a vise. To the east lies the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 million barrels of oil per day passed in 2025. When passage through the strait was restricted, Saudi Arabia was forced to divert a significant portion of its oil exports through the East-West Pipeline to Yanbu and the Red Sea ports. However, the alternative pipeline capacity available to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is estimated at only about 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels per day, far below the normal volume passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

At the end of this escape route lies the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the “Gate of Tears.” Some of the world’s most important trade and energy routes pass through the strait, including roughly 7% of global oil production. The Houthis already control the port of Hodeidah, have captured the port of Mocha, and are seeking to establish themselves near Perim Island and Dhubab, positions from which they can threaten traffic through the strait.

At the height of the crisis, more than 70% of Saudi oil exports were redirected to the Red Sea route. Following Houthi threats, Saudi cargo traffic in the area fell sharply. Ships can, of course, bypass Africa via the “Cape of Good Hope,” but the voyage becomes longer, insurance costs rise, revenues are delayed, and every tanker becomes a fresh exercise in risk calculation. The detour can add millions of dollars to a single voyage.

This is a double chokehold: Iran applies pressure from the east, while its Yemeni proxy does so from the west. If the Strait of Hormuz is the front door for Saudi oil exports, Bab al-Mandab is the emergency exit. Tehran wants to hold the key in one hand and the fire extinguisher in the other.

This Time, the Checkbook Is No Iron Dome

For decades, Saudi Arabia managed to convert wealth into security. During the 1991 Gulf War, it pledged to provide the United States with approximately $13.5 billion to cover part of the war’s costs; the wealthy countries in the coalition financed a substantial share of the American military effort. In Yemen, too, Riyadh tried to buy stability through negotiations that included paying salaries to public-sector employees in Houthi-controlled areas, opening ports, reconstruction, and economic arrangements.

This time, however, money is struggling to buy what Saudi Arabia needs. The Houthis are not merely an organization seeking funding. They control a geostrategic asset that gives them and Iran leverage over vital trade arteries. Payment can buy a respite, but it also teaches the extortionist that extortion pays.

Nor are Saudi coffers limitless. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a budget deficit of approximately 6.2% of GDP in 2026, alongside rising debt and higher insurance and shipping costs. At the same time, “Vision 2030” and bin Salman’s megaprojects require enormous investment. Every riyal spent on a war of attrition, compensation, or rerouting ships around Africa is a riyal that is not building a city, a port, or a better future for the kingdom.

This also explains the personal danger facing the crown prince. His legitimacy rests on a promise: stability, modernization, and prosperity. If infrastructure is burning, investment is fleeing, and alliances are proving hollow, bin Salman is losing more than revenue. He is losing the narrative on which he built his rule. The throne itself begins to wobble.

The Israeli Interest

Until October 2023, the Houthis were not even included in Israeli intelligence’s collection priorities. From Israel’s perspective, they were a peripheral theater. Officials familiar with the situation described Israeli intelligence on them as close to nonexistent. Yemen is distant, closed off, and difficult to penetrate, while Israel’s attention was focused primarily on Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, and Hamas.

Since then, the picture has changed fundamentally. Hundreds of launches toward Israel and attacks on shipping routes forced the IDF Intelligence Directorate, the Israeli Air Force, and the broader intelligence community to transform Yemen from a peripheral theater into a major operational portfolio. Target banks were built, and surveillance was expanded to cover the chain of command, weapons-smuggling routes, missile and drone systems, production facilities, ports, and Houthi security apparatuses.

The results are already evident. Israel has succeeded in striking ports, power stations, fuel depots, military headquarters, and intelligence facilities deep inside Yemen. In one case, a gathering of senior Houthi officials was identified hours before the strike. Subsequently, the IDF Intelligence Directorate even established a dedicated department for the Houthi theater.

Israel does not have a complete intelligence picture, and the Houthis have demonstrated considerable resilience. But the difference between October 7, 2023, and today is the difference between someone feeling their way through the dark and someone who has already drawn a map, marked the targets, and learned the enemy’s rhythm of breathing. This is an asset Saudi Arabia needs now.

Israel has another advantage that makes its offer more practical: the diplomatic and security foothold it has established in Somaliland, on the African side of the Gulf of Aden.

Israel recognized Somaliland in December 2025 and provides training to local security forces. Although Somaliland denies that an agreement has been reached to establish a permanent Israeli base, the presence there is already an operational reality. Security cooperation and potential access to the port and airport at Berbera give Israel potential strategic depth vis-à-vis Yemen.

The city of Berbera lies on the Gulf of Aden coast, facing the Yemeni theater and close to the approaches to Bab al-Mandab. If cooperation is expanded, with Somaliland’s consent, the area could be used for early warning, intelligence, maritime surveillance, logistics, search and rescue, and air operations. Its relatively short distance from the Houthi-controlled coast could shorten response times and reduce dependence on long-range sorties launched from Israel.

In other words, Israel is not offering Saudi Arabia merely a better pair of eyes. It is building itself a balcony overlooking the “Gate of Tears.”

The Support Already in the Neighborhood

This is where Israel should put an offer on the table that cannot be intercepted by a drone: an immediate, full-fledged strategic alliance.

Israel can offer Saudi Arabia a combination of early warning, air defense, real-time intelligence, electronic warfare, launcher detection, protection of oil facilities and ports, security for shipping routes, and, if necessary, active participation in containing the Houthi threat.

The combination of the target bank built since 2023, the capabilities of the Israeli Air Force, Israel’s multilayered air defense systems, and the possibility of operating from the African theater creates a comprehensive security umbrella that none of Saudi Arabia’s other allies currently offers in its entirety.

Israel would, of course, pay a price. The Houthis could resume their attacks against it, and Iran would seek to portray the move as an Israeli-Saudi alliance directed against Tehran. But that is a limited and temporary price compared with the strategic prize: written, formalized, and publicly declared Israeli-Saudi normalization, not a vague promise for the future and not a process that can be buried in committee.

Israeli assistance should not look like the extortion of a wounded kingdom. A peace agreement born of humiliation will not endure. The proposal should be presented as an alliance between two countries that understand that the same enemy threatens them with the same missiles, from the same shores, through the same Iranian ring.

An Arab proverb says: “When the bull falls, the knives multiply”. Saudi Arabia has been wounded, but it has not fallen. Israel must not become another knife seeking to exploit its weakness. It should be the shield that proves to Riyadh which partner shows up when the sirens sound.

Strategic windows do not remain open for long, certainly not when the Houthis are approaching the strait. The current crisis may be that rare moment when Israeli interests, Saudi anxiety, and the Iranian threat converge at a single point. When the house is on fire, you do not look for friends in Washington who promise to send a fire truck next week. You call the neighbor who knows where the water shutoff valve is.

Israel should now offer bin Salman what none of his allies can provide in full: intelligence built under fire, battle-tested defense systems, the ability to reach the Yemeni coast, and a foothold on the other side of the strait. In return, it should demand not a gesture, not a secret meeting, and not a promise for the “day after,” but the Holy Grail of the Middle East: an open, signed, and immediate Israeli-Saudi peace agreement.

The Houthis are trying to close the “Gate of Tears.” Israel and Saudi Arabia can open the gateway to a new Middle East together.