Just weeks before Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, Saudi Arabia said it was inching closer to normalizing diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. Despite three months of war that have left more than 23,000 Palestinians dead and the Arab world seething, Riyadh is signaling that a recognition of Israel could still be on the table.
On another tour of shuttle diplomacy across the Middle East, including to Saudi Arabia and Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week said that normalization talks continue to take place and “there is a clear interest in the region in pursuing that.”
Saudi crown prince says normalization deal with Israel gets ‘closer’ every day
“With regard to integration, to normalization, yes, we talked about that actually on every stop, including of course here in Saudi Arabia,” Blinken told reporters in Saudi Arabia before heading to Israel. “And I can tell you this: There’s a clear interest here in pursuing that,” he said. “This interest is there, it’s real, and it could be transformative.”
In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom said “absolutely there’s interest” in normalizing relations. “There’s been interest since 1982,” Prince Khalid bin Bandar said.
But experts say the price that Saudi Arabia would demand in exchange for normalization would be higher now than before the Gaza war, as Riyadh may feel compelled to extract more concessions from the United States and Israel.
CNN has reached out to the Saudi foreign ministry for comment.
“The Saudi government is still open to normalization on condition that Israel takes concrete steps on the ground to create the foundations of a two-state solution,” Ali Shihabi, a Saudi author and analyst, told CNN. “That would be, for example, completely removing the blockade from Gaza, fully empowering the PA (Palestinian Authority) in Gaza and (the) West Bank, withdrawal from key areas in (the) West Bank etc.”
The steps, Shihabi said, must be “concrete and not empty promises that Israel could forget about after normalization like it did with other countries that normalized (with Israel).”
While Blinken did not call for a ceasefire in Gaza, he added that Israel’s further integration into the Middle East would require that “the conflict end in Gaza,” as well as the paving of a “practical pathway” to a Palestinian state.
The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Most Muslim and Arab countries have refused to recognize Israel until such a state is established.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to the media at the airport in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, on January 8.Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have repeatedly shot down the prospect of a Palestinian state. Last month US President Joe Biden said the Israeli government “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”
In 2020, four Arab nations, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, recognized Israel under a set of treaties known as the Abraham Accords, sidestepping the longstanding Arab demand for a Palestinian state. Since then, the Biden administration has been working to bring Saudi Arabia, widely regarded as the leader of the Muslim world, to follow suit, a move that could have opened the door to other Muslim countries to recognize Israel.
