(The Australian, 16/10/2023)
Saudi Arabia has suspended talks on normalising ties with Israel as the war rages between Israel and Hamas.
“Saudi Arabia has decided to pause discussion on possible normalisation and has informed US officials,” a source familiar with the discussions said.
It came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Riyadh with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, on the latest stop on a six-nation tour of the region. After that meeting, the Saudi foreign ministry called for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza” and the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid.
The Gulf kingdom, home to Islam’s holiest sites, has never recognised Israel and did not join the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates as well as Morocco establish formal ties with Israel. US President Joe Biden’s administration had been pushing hard in recent months for Saudi Arabia to take the same step.
Under de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of the ageing King Salman, Riyadh had laid out conditions for normalisation, including security guarantees from Washington and help developing a civilian nuclear program.
In an interview with Fox News last month, Prince Mohammed said “every day we get closer” to a deal, though he also insisted the Palestinian issue was “very important” for Riyadh. “We need to solve that part. We need to ease the life of the Palestinians,” he said.
The deal was seen as a long shot by many analysts even before the war began.
“Normalisation between the kingdom and Israel is an American initiative and project that the kingdom has welcomed in case the US could deliver an agreement addressing the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians – one that the Palestinians would accept,” said Saudi analyst Hesham Alghannam. “In reality, Israel was not really ready to reach an agreement with the Palestinians that would give them the minimum of their needs.”
Joost Hiltermann, Middle East director of the International Crisis Group, said there was “no way that any Arab country can seriously engage with Israel about normalising relations when their publics see what is happening in Gaza”.
In the week since Hamas launched its attack, Riyadh has voiced increasing disquiet about the fate of Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where Israel has launched thousands of strikes and ordered the evacuation of the territory’s north, prompting thousands to flee.
On Friday, Saudi Arabia denounced the displacement of Palestinians within Gaza and attacks on “defenceless civilians”.
Prince Faisal similarly decried civilian casualties after meeting Mr Blinken on Saturday. “The primary sufferer of this situation are civilians,” he said.