Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told NBC News on Friday that Saudi Arabia was making “good progress” on normalizing relations with Israel before the savage Hamas attack of October 7, which touched off a Gaza war that made further progress politically impossible.
“I think before October 7, we were making very, very good progress. It’s hard for me to describe how close we were. It’s something I can’t really quantify,” the top Saudi diplomat said from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
“We were working towards the Palestinian issue — which was key for us as well — but we were making good progress,” he said.
“We need to talk about the whole picture, meaning the situation of the Palestinian people. What we need is to talk about Palestinian statehood. What we feel is key at this time is to find a credible and irreversible path to a Palestinian state,” he argued.
Prince Faisal said his government is working with the U.N. and U.S. government to “reach a roadmap for peace in the Middle East.”
“We all need to work towards de-escalation. The region is already in turmoil. Our message to everyone, including to our neighbors in Iran, is that we need to work towards de-escalation,” he said.
Faisal explicitly stated during a WEF panel on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia would be willing to recognize Israel as part of a broad agreement that included Palestinian statehood.
“We agree that regional peace includes peace for Israel, but that could only happen through peace for the Palestinians through a Palestinian state,” he said.
“Peace and security for Israel is intimately linked with Palestinians’ peace and security. We are fully on board with that,” he declared.
“What Israel is doing now is putting the prospects for regional peace and security at risk,” he added, referring to Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas atrocities.
The Times of Israel noted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to coordinate messaging on the demand for Israel to halt its operation against Hamas in Gaza and move toward Palestinian statehood.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rejected U.S. pressure to halt the Gaza operation or make concessions to a Palestinian state.
“I can say something about what they call the day after Netanyahu. I do not love to speak of myself in the third person. But those who speak of the day after Netanyahu are talking about the creation of a Palestinian state led by the Palestinian Authority,” he said at a press conference in Tel Aviv.
“This conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is not about the absence of a Palestinian state but about the existence of the Jewish state,” said Netanyahu.
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The Israeli leader noted that “every territory we withdraw from, terror is leveled against us,” so “Israel must maintain security control over all the territory west of the Jordan River.”
“I have explained this truth to the Americans,” Netanyahu said. “An Israeli Prime Minister has to be able to say ‘no’ even to our best friends. To say ‘no’ when it’s necessary and to say ‘yes’ when it’s possible.”
The Biden administration petulantly rejected Netanyahu’s stance, clearly angling for that “day after Netanyahu” by telling Israelis they would be diplomatically rewarded for giving the Palestinians a state.
“For the first time in its history, you see the countries in the region who are ready to step up and further integrate with Israel and provide real security assurance to Israel, and the U.S. is ready to play its part, but they all have to have a willing partner on the other side,” said frustrated State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
An even more condescending Biden administration official told NBC News that the Israeli prime minister could probably be brought to heel with enough pressure.
“If we took such statements as the final word, there would be no humanitarian assistance going into Gaza and no hostages released,” the official said of Netanyahu’s dismissal of U.S. and Saudi demands for a Palestinian state.
“As with those and many other issues, we will continue to work toward the right outcome, particularly on issues where we strongly disagree,” the Biden official said.
Pollster Dana Scheindlin told Politico on Friday it was illogical for the Biden team to paint Netanyahu as an unreasonably intransigent one-man obstacle to peace plans because “Israelis are in a belligerent mood,” and 75 percent of them reject U.S. demands for concessions to the Palestinians after the October 7 atrocities.
Many observers suspect Hamas and its sponsors in Iran hoped the October 7 attack would disrupt peace negotiations and make it impossible for Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel; in light of Prince Faisal’s comments, the entire hideous nightmare might have been unleashed because Iran thought the Saudis and their Gulf allies were close to reaching a diplomatic agreement with Israel.
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The Financial Times on Thursday reported the Sunni Arab states are preparing to offer a grand bargain, backed by the U.S. and European governments, to offer Israel diplomatic recognition in exchange for a halt to the war in Gaza, statehood for the Palestinians, and Palestinian membership in the United Nations.
“Given the Israeli body politic today, normalization is maybe what can bring Israelis off the cliff,” an Arab official said.
The Financial Times noted:
Saudi Arabia’s willingness to consider normalizing relations potentially provides an important bargaining chip with Israel, which has considered diplomatic relations with the kingdom the grand prize in its efforts to develop ties with Arab states. The oil-rich kingdom stands out as a leader of the Sunni Muslim world and custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites.
The problem facing these Arab leaders and Biden officials is that the Israelis — not just Netanyahu’s administration, but a strong majority of the population, according to the polls — have legitimate reasons to doubt that diplomatic sweeteners and pledges of security from the Sunni Muslim kingdoms are enough to balance the risk of rewarding one of the most savage attacks in human history by creating a Palestinian state that could very well become a permanent base for even larger attacks.