A Saudi newspaper reported on Sunday that the country had told the Biden administration that it was freezing U.S.-brokered efforts to normalize relations with Israel because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government was unwilling to make any concessions to the Palestinians close.
An Israeli and an American official both said the report was false.
According to the Elaph newspaper report, which purportedly cites officials in Netanyahu’s office, the US has informed Israel of the Saudi stance. It said Israel was “confused” by the move and believed the Saudis were ready to push forward the normalization of relations without tying it to progress on the Palestinian issue.
The report by the London-based newspaper’s Israel correspondent highlighted the insistence of far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir that Israel should not make concessions to the Palestinians, adding that without progress on Ramallah there can be no progress on Riyadh .
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Last month, Netanyahu indicated he was open to gestures toward the Palestinians if a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia depended on it, and suggested he would not allow coalition members to block a deal.
“Do I think it can be done and do I think political issues will block it? I doubt it,” Netanyahu told Bloomberg News. “If the political will is there, there will be a political path to achieve normalization and formal peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech at the Prime Minister’s Office on September 13, 2023. (Haim Zach/GPO)
“I think there is enough space to discuss possibilities,” he added.
Netanyahu’s comments echoed what Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said a day earlier in an interview with Elaph, often seen as a public messaging broker between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
“The Palestinian issue will not be an obstacle to peace,” Cohen said.
“We also proved this in the Abraham Accords. We all have an interest in improving life in the Palestinian Authority areas.”
But Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners have ruled out a compromise with the Palestinians.
“We will not make any concessions to the Palestinians. It’s a fiction,” Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, told Army Radio last month.
Smotrich said that while Israel was interested in the U.S.-brokered deal with Riyadh, “it has nothing to do with Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank by its biblical names.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks during a rally in support of the government’s planned judicial reform in front of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on September 7, 2023. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
However, the Saudis have intensified their engagement with the Palestinians in recent weeks.
Saudi Arabia will co-host an event this week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly focused on reshaping the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, three U.N. diplomats told The Times of Israel on Thursday.
The event, titled “Peace Day Efforts for Peace in the Middle East,” will take place on Monday and will be hosted by Saudi Arabia along with the Arab League and the European Union in cooperation with Egypt and Jordan, one of the diplomats said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be the keynote speaker.
Neither the Israeli nor Palestinian missions were invited to the event, the UN diplomat said, explaining that the event was focused on bringing together key global stakeholders on the issue in order to “reinvigorate” the peace process.
The current Israeli government under Netanyahu has refused to entertain the idea of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority and is instead moving to radically expand Israel’s presence in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority supports a two-state solution, but its leadership has been marred by corruption allegations and President Mahmoud Abbas was sharply criticized last week for using a series of anti-Semitic phrases in his speech.
Both Netanyahu and Abbas will be at the United Nations this week.
Two weeks ago, Riyadh hosted a delegation from the Palestinian Authority to discuss how a normalization agreement could be used to advance the Palestinian cause.
Saudi leaders assured the visiting delegation that Riyadh “will not give up” on the Palestinian cause even as it discusses normalizing ties with Israel, a U.S. and an Arab official told the Times of Israel last week.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, left, meets with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi port city of Jeddah on April 19, 2023. (Wafa)
The message was relayed at several meetings between the Palestinian Authority delegation and senior Saudi officials, including Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, the U.S. and the Arab official said.
Last month, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Jordan began serving as Riyadh’s first non-resident ambassador to the Palestinians, as well as its first non-resident consul general in Jerusalem.
The Arab official said that Riyadh Ramallah had made it clear that it was prepared to move away from its long-held public stance against normalizing relations with Israel if there was no actual two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that the Palestinian Authority has come to accept this development and therefore demands measures that fall short of direct statehood.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report