From my balcony in the Judean mountains, I can see the lights of Jordan on a clear night and the skyline of Amman at sunrise. On other nights, I simply look south and east and know that the same Iranian missiles and drones from the Houthis in Yemen threatening my children and grandchildren are also threatening the mosques, holy cities, the oil fields, and the very capital that keep the House of Saud in power. That is the uncomfortable intimacy of this region. We are not friends. We are not yet even fully acknowledged as legitimate neighbors. Yet Riyadh is knocking on Jerusalem’s door like a man who has four wives and seeks out his mistress for marital counseling.

Let’s call it what it is. Saudi Arabia is treating Israel as that secret mistress.

The official household is crowded, and they don’t always get along. Wife number one is Pakistan: nuclear-armed, Sunni, and now bound to Riyadh by a mutual-defense pact signed in Mecca itself. Wife number two is Turkey: NATO’s second-largest army, Islamist, and freshly joined to the same Mecca Joint Defense Agreement (Mecca Pact) that treats an attack on one as an attack on all. Wife number three is Egypt: the first Arab state to make (a cold) peace with Israel, a partner in Sinai security, and a regular interlocutor sharing a threatened body of water with the Saudis; it is an essential lifeline to Cairo’s shipping and its own stability. Wife number four is the United States, still the biggest and best arms supplier and now offering a glittering dowry of 48 F-35s worth more than $24 billion.

All four are public. All four come with contracts, smiling photo-ops, and statements about Islamic solidarity or strategic partnership. The first three of the four are more concerned about their own marital chamber – and the tribes that they come from – rather than the well-being of the house itself, and would have no problem burning it all down to protect their own interests. None of them, so far, has stopped the Houthis from shooting at Saudi oil........

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