Two years into President Biden’s term, his aides began negotiating with Saudi leaders for the kingdom to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. But when the war between Israel and Hamas began last October, the talks ran out of steam.
U.S. and Saudi officials have tried to revive prospects for a deal by demanding more from Israel — a ceasefire in Gaza and irreversible steps toward the founding of a Palestinian nation. Today, these officials say they are close to a final agreement on the main elements of what the Saudis want from the deal: a U.S.-Saudi mutual defense pact and cooperation on a civilian nuclear program in the kingdom..
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke privately with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi leader, about these issues during his visit last month to Riyadh, according to the State Department. And Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, is expected to follow up during his visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend.
But there is no indication that Israeli leaders are considering joining, despite the symbolic importance for Israel of establishing ties with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Arab nation.
That resistance, along with a possible full-scale assault by the Israeli army on the Palestinian town of Rafah, jeopardizes a potential grand three-way deal that Mr. Biden sees as the foundation of a long-term solution to the decades-long following: old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for the creation of a Palestinian state, saying it would become a “haven for terrorism.” Most Israelis also oppose it, according to polls. Mr. Netanyahu has not proposed a system of governance for Gaza, and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, criticized him on Wednesday for the lack of such a plan.
Since Mr. Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia, U.S. and Saudi officials have begun to defy Mr. Netanyahu by publicly declaring that they are moving closer to agreement on a package of measures they would offer to Israel. Mr. Netanyahu can either accept the mega-deal and move toward regional peace and possible security cooperation with Saudi Arabia that could counter Iran, their common adversary, or reject it and perpetuate the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence and Israel’s isolation in the region, they say. .
“We continue to work to finalize both the bilateral elements of such an agreement as well as the path forward toward an independent Palestinian state,” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, said this month.
The “bilateral” part referred to negotiations between the United States and Saudi Arabia on their agreement, which, in addition to a defense treaty, would involve cooperation on a civil nuclear program with uranium enrichment in the kingdom, the sale of advanced American weapons. manufactured weapons and, potentially, a trade deal.
U.S. officials have stressed that Israel must agree to the creation of a Palestinian state for a deal to be finalized. Mr. Sullivan delivered this message on May 4 at a Financial Times conference in London.
“The integrated vision is a bilateral agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia combined with normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, combined with meaningful steps on behalf of the Palestinian people,” he said, adding : “All this must come together. »
This month, some Saudi and American political analysts who were briefed by Saudi officials argued that a bilateral deal – a “Plan B” – might be the best solution because the Israeli-Palestinian track seemed too difficult to achieve.
Saudi officials have made no such public suggestions and continue to insist on a broader deal with an Israeli commitment to a Palestinian nation. But they saw how far the US-Saudi negotiations have progressed.
“We are very, very close; most of the work has already been done,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh last month. On the path to Palestinian statehood, he said: “We have the outline of what we think needs to happen. »
He suggested that Israel could be persuaded, referring to “mechanisms within the toolbox of the international community that can overcome the resistance of any party, any troublemaker, any no matter which side.”
However, even the Saudis’ most immediate demand of Israel – a lasting ceasefire in Gaza – seems out of reach at the moment. Israel has avoided committing to a permanent ceasefire, and efforts by Arab mediators to get Israel to agree to a temporary ceasefire for the release of some hostages failed last week. At the same time, Israel has intensified its strikes in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge.
Saudi Arabia, the United States and other countries have warned Israel not to carry out a major offensive there.
Given all this, Saudi officials remain cautious about the domestic political cost of normalizing relations with Israel.
“At this stage it seems like a distant project,” said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the government.
Some regional officials say the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have gained very little from normalizing relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords that the Trump administration helped put in place in 2020. The government Israeli has failed to keep its promises to respect Palestinian territory in the West Bank.
“We hear this from the Saudis all the time: Look what happened to the Emiratis, look what happened to the Bahrainis, when they went all in,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Before the war, U.S. and Saudi officials planned to ask the Israelis for modest concessions for the Palestinians, U.S. officials say. But the stakes are now higher. Mr. Biden sees a deal involving a Palestinian nation as an essential part of ending the war. And Israeli acquiescence to such a state may be the only way for Prince Mohammed to gain broad support for the deal from citizens enraged by the killings of an estimated 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Mr Biden’s willingness to grant a mutual defense treaty and other benefits to Prince Mohammed is a stark departure from his vow during the 2020 presidential campaign to ensure the country remains a “pariah” due to human rights violations. These include the killings of civilians during the war in Yemen and the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and Virginia resident, by Saudi agents in Istanbul.
U.S. and Saudi officials are modeling the defense treaty on pacts the United States has with Japan and its other Asian allies. Both parties are trying to find the conditions that would trigger a mutual defense clause.
Prince Mohammed wants a treaty ratified by a qualified majority in the US Senate. But administration officials say that would be difficult without a strong Israeli-Palestinian component in the deal, because skepticism about Saudi Arabia is strong among many Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans.
For Saudi Arabia, the biggest threat is Iran. Saudi officials remain bitter that the Trump administration failed to intervene militarily when the kingdom’s oil facilities were attacked with drones and missiles in 2019 — an assault that Saudi and U.S. officials say was linked to Iran .
“The basic concept they tried to establish is: What would trigger American kinetic action to defend Saudi Arabia? said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the Arab Institute for the Gulf States in Washington.
“Saudi Arabia and other countries, including the Emirates, do not know when the United States will act,” he added.
U.S. officials say they are also considering securing pledges from Saudi Arabia to limit cooperation with China in advanced military and technological areas, and that the kingdom would continue to buy oil in dollars rather than in renminbi, the Chinese currency. However, China has no interest in being a security guarantor in the Middle East. And analysts say there is little chance that Saudi Arabia will abandon the dollar – to which its own currency is pegged – in favor of the renminbi.
The Biden administration also hopes that Saudi Arabia will commit to preventing oil prices from rising, particularly as the U.S. presidential election approaches. US and Saudi officials clashed over such perceived promises in 2022, when the Saudis went against Mr Biden’s wishes.
It is important for Prince Mohammed to guarantee American cooperation on a civilian nuclear program. U.S. and Saudi negotiators are working out the details of how the United States would maintain strict oversight of uranium enrichment in the country, officials say.
Prince Mohammed says he will develop nuclear weapons if Iran does, and some U.S. lawmakers and many Israeli officials oppose Saudi Arabia having any nuclear program.
Karen Young, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said the nuclear program was the “no.” 1 priority” for Prince Mohammed.
For Saudi Arabia, she said, “this has always been a bilateral agreement; this is not a trilateral issue.
“Israel is so peripheral,” she said, “which is beyond ironic.”
News Source : www.nytimes.com
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