Stand with Palestine, says Saudi Arabia. Will ‘normalisation talks’ with Israel be affected?

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia weighed in on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, said his country continues “to stand by the Palestinian people. This comes in the backdrop of Saudi Arabia and Israel, spurred on by the United States, holding talks to normalise relations. Israel has already penned historic treaties with Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and others states in the region. But what did Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) say? And will this derail Saudi-Israel ‘normalisation’ talks? Let’s take a closer look: What did MBS say? Saudi Arabia’s state media quoted MBS as telling Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas that he was working to prevent “an expansion” of conflict after the surprise Hamas attack on Israel. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also told Abbas the Gulf kingdom continued “to stand by the Palestinian people to achieve their legitimate rights to a decent life, achieve their hopes and aspirations, and achieve just and lasting peace,” the official Saudi Press Agency reported. MBS has also spoken about the crisis by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, SPA reported. MBS last month told Fox News l that the Palestinian issue was “very important” for Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest sites in Islam in Mecca and Medina. “We need to solve that part. We need to ease the life of the Palestinians,” he added. What about the deal? The United States has been making a yearslong, painstaking diplomatic push – which began under the previous administration and is known as the Abraham Accords – to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to improve relations. US president Joe Biden, eager for a major diplomatic win before next year’s presidential election, has pushed for a deal, and more talks were expected in the coming weeks — despite skepticism from some of Biden’s fellow Democrats about the proposed security guarantees to the conservative kingdom, whose rights record has long been under scrutiny. US officials say they intend to press ahead, but they also acknowledge efforts are unlikely to bear fruit while there is an active conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Blinken had been planning a trip to the Middle East, with stops in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, later this month, but those plans are now on hold, according to three US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations. While Blinken may still visit Israel and several neighbouring countries to look for ways to ease tensions, he is no longer expected to go to Saudi Arabia, and the Morocco stop for a meeting of foreign ministers in the so-called Negev Forum will almost certainly be postponed, according to these officials. [caption id=“attachment_13189232” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] US president Joe Biden, eager for a major diplomatic win before next year’s presidential election, has pushed for a deal, and more talks were expected before the attacks. Reuters[/caption] The Negev Forum brings together the top diplomats from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States to look at ways to advance Arab-Israeli cooperation with an eye also on improving conditions for the Palestinians. Weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed aside the Palestinian issue during a speech at the United Nations. He said normalisation in 2020 with three other Arab nations in the so-called Abraham Accords had “heralded a new age of peace.” Netanyahu said at the time that Israel was on the cusp of a bigger prize — recognition by Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites.

But now Netanyahu has proclaimed that Israel is at war.

A US official said it was “premature” to discuss the violence’s effect on normalization, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the conflict with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, by telephone. What do experts say? That any progress towards normalising ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia has been dealt a heavy blow by the ongoing fighting. Saudi Arabia, remember, is yet to recognise Israel as a state. The Kingdom, led by the United States, was seemingly being inched towards normalisation towards Israel in exchange for security guarantees from the United States as well as assistance developing a civilian nuclear programme. As Saudi researcher Abdulaziz Alghashian told The New York Times, “It doesn’t look encouraging for the prospects of this mega deal.” Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle East studies at Princeton University, told Fortune, “The Saudi statement was intended to save face in the Arab and Islamic world in which the Palestinian cause remains important.” “If Israel’s retaliation leads to many tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, then Saudi will have a hard time justifying a peace with Israel,” Haykel added. Political scientist Myriam Benraad, who specialises in the Arab world at Schiller University in Paris, told France24, “Beyond the Israeli-Palestinian context, there is an Israeli-Arab context that is going to be extremely tense.” She noted that “public opinion in Arab countries is still overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian”, even though the “proliferation of conflicts in the Middle East have pushed the issue of Palestine into the background”. Hussein Ibish, senior resident school at the Arab Gulf States Institute, said, “This is clearly an effort to put a stop to the Saudi-Israeli normalisation process, and I think [Hamas] has a very good chance of doing that.” “It seems to me that Israel is in an impossible situation. Anything they do to try and prevent this from happening again is going to mean more suffering for Palestinians, greater occupation, greater restrictions and more brutality on the Israeli side,” added Ibish.

“That is going to make it harder for the Saudis to move forward.”

Ibish noting Saudi Arabia’s statement on Saturday that mentioned its warnings of an ‘explosive situation’ in Gaza years in the making, said Hamas would have taken such matters into account. “It was always a tough hill to climb, and that hill just got a lot steeper,” said Brian Katulis, vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute in Washington. The violence throws a spotlight on disputes between Israel and the Palestinians and “makes it harder to sweep those complicated issues under the rug the way the 2020 Abraham Accords did,” he added. Joost Hiltermann, Middle East director of the International Crisis Group, which looks to resolve conflicts, said Hamas may have acted in part due to fear of a “looming further marginalization of the Palestinian cause in Palestinian eyes” if Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel. With Israel expected to respond forcefully to Saturday’s attacks, Arab states will likely feel obliged to take a harder stance in line with public sentiment, he said. “If that all happens, then I would foresee a scenario where, just like we have a cold peace between Israel and Jordan, between Israel and Egypt, we end up with a cooling of the relationship between Israel and the Emirates and probably a delay, at least, of any sort of deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_13220822” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Experts say Iran likely lent Hamas a helping hand in carrying out the attacks. Reuters[/caption] Steven Cook, a senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations, pointed to a survey that showed just two percent of Saudis backed normalising ties with Israel. “It wasn’t that long ago,” he noted, “that there were telethons happening in Saudi Arabia in support of Hamas suicide bombers.” But analysts also noted that the Saudis have every reason not to walk away from efforts at forging a normalisation deal. Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that in the long term bin Salman is looking to diversify the oil-rich kingdom’s economy and strengthen its security. As part of any pact, Saudi Arabia is pushing Biden for a nuclear cooperation deal and defense guarantees from the US. “He needs normalisation and will continue to move forward,” Dubowitz predicted. Of the crown prince, Dubowitz added, “The Saudis had better be careful because they are playing with fire in Washington.” Iran likely lent helping hand: Experts Iran, a military and financial backer of Hamas, meanwhile, will undoubtedly be watching closely. Tehran, the great West Asian rival of Israel and an enemy of Saudi Arabia, labelled a possible deal between the nations as a ‘betrayal of the Palestinian people’. Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi in September said, “Under no circumstances are the regional countries willing for the Islamic countries to abandon the sacred principle of the plight of the Palestinian people because the liberation of the holy city of Jerusalem is at the core of the belief of all Muslims.” Iran’s clerical leadership, which since last year has suppressed major protests led by women, supports Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group and hailed the offensive. Though Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks, experts say they likely lent a helping hand.

“It’s too early to tell, but Hamas/Iran did these attacks in part to stymie the normalisation process,” Haykel told Fortune.

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Professor Karim Emile Bitar, West Asia expert at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy told France24, “I very much doubt that Hamas alone could have prepared and decided to launch the strikes.” “I think Iran has been growing increasingly nervous because of the ongoing Saudi-Israeli rapprochement,” Bitar added. This could explain “this turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. “This is about Iran’s priorities in the Middle East,” said Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. With inputs from agencies