“But there’s an intriguing upside: The Israeli-Saudi mutual dislike of the Iran nuclear deal, and their de facto alliance against it, may weirdly prove one of the “silver linings” of this negotiation. Indeed, if the Israelis become a protector and defender of the Sunni Muslim countries, that could have lasting security benefits for Israel and might even open the way for progress on the Palestinian issue — without the usual American mediation…………………”

David Ignatius is, almost certainly again, repeating a common mistake of Western media and pundits. They all seem to believe, or want to believe, that the controlled Saudi media and those of a couple of Gulf countries and the Hariri clan in Lebanon represent all Arab opinion. A self-satisfying oversimplification of the Muslim and Arab worlds. He apparently buys the idea that Saudi regime opinion, as expressed in media owned by Saudi princes (Alarabiya, Asharq Alawsat, Al-Hayat) reflects broader Arab opinion. Not so.
Just ask the man and woman in the street all across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and not just the Gulf states or some neighborhoods of Beirut and Tripoli. Most Arabs (Sunni, Shi’a, or Vegan) do not have the same opinion of the Iranian nuclear program as the Saudi princes and their Wahhabi loyalists and the Wahhabi quasi-liberals of the Persian Gulf region.
So, if some 250 million in the MENA region have a different opinion, how can Israel become “protector” of all Sunnis (he means Sunni Arabs)? How about Israel becoming protector of only Wahhabis and Salafis and Wahhabi quasi-liberals among Gulf Arabs?

Cheers
mhg