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A source told AFP on Saturday that Saudi Arabia has stopped talks about possibly making things better between it and Israel because of the war going on between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
On October 7, Hamas attacked Israel in a big way, killing 1,300 people. In response, Israel dropped bombs on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 2,215 people, in preparation for a possible ground invasion of the area.
“Saudi Arabia has decided to stop talking about possible normalization and has told US officials,” an AFP source who was familiar with the talks said.
The source talked on the same day that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Prince Faisal bin Farhan of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh. This was the last stop on Blinken’s six-nation tour of the area.
After the meeting, the Saudi foreign ministry asked for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and its surroundings” and for aid to be sent right away to those in need.
The Gulf kingdom is home to some of the holiest sites in Islam, but it has never recognized Israel. It also did not sign the Abraham Accords, which were brokered by the US and led to official ties between Israel and its Gulf neighbors, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco.
In the past few months, US President Joe Biden’s government has been putting a lot of pressure on Saudi Arabia to do the same thing.
‘No way’ to normalise
As de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of the ailing King Salman, set the terms for normalization. These included security promises from Washington and help with building a civilian nuclear program.
Last month, Prince Mohammed told Fox News that “every day we get closer” to a deal. He also said that the Palestinian problem was “very important” for Riyadh.
“That part needs to be fixed. “We need to make things easier for the Palestinians,” he said.
Many experts didn’t think the deal would work, even before the war started.
“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,” stated Saudi expert 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.”
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The head of the International Crisis Group’s Middle East office, Joost Hiltermann, said, “After seeing what’s happening in Gaza, there is no way that any Arab country can seriously talk to Israel about normalizing relations.”
