The Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung revealed the fact that there exists a “secret alliance” between Saudi Arabia and Israel, intended “to restrain Iran’s expansion in the region, despite the absence of any official relations between the two countries.”

“For the time being, Riyadh rejects any official normalization of relationships with Israel as long as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not resolved and normalization has not been publically declared by Arab countries and thus there will be no exchange of ambassadors,” said Pierre Heumann, the newspaper’s correspondent in Israel in his report.

“There is an intensive secret cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel in order to achieve the main goal of curbing Iran’s expansion project and undermining its regional ambitions,” said the reporter. He added that “there exists indeed military cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Tel Aviv.”

The reporter quoted unidentified sources from Riyadh as saying “the Kingdom is currently considering the possibility to purchase Israeli weapons and it has shown an interest in purchasing defence systems for the tanks and the iron dome, which Israel claims has proven to be effective in countering rocket attacks from Gaza Strip.”

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According to the newspaper, “Riyadh seeks to intercept missiles coming from Yemen. Observers from Tel Aviv and Riyadh are confirming that cooperation between the security services of Israel and Saudi Arabia is very advanced, although Saudi Arabia has been officially denying any sort of cooperation with Israel,” as the newspaper put it.

According to the newspaper “the Saudi elite has abandoned its fears of overt contact with representatives of Israel long time ago.” CIA Director Mike Pompeo announced in early December last year that Saudi Arabia is working directly with Israel and other Sunni countries in the field of fighting terrorism.

Earlier, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said in a radio interview that “there were several contacts with Saudi Arabia, but they were kept secret at the request of Riyadh.”

The newspaper stressed that a number of Saudi prominent figures met up with Israeli officials in public. In October, the two former Intelligence chiefs in Israel and Saudi Arabia met to exchange views about the US policy in the region. The newspaper noted that former Saudi Intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal held talks with former “Mossad” chief Efraim Halevy. Al-Faisal was even ready to participate with his Israeli counterpart at a symposium at the Jewish Community Centre in New York.