MESOP Saudi peace raises pressure for Israeli MIDEAST WATCH LONG WAY TO GO:
Minister warns entire right wing opposes settlement freezes and withdrawals; Hanegbi: There is still a long road ahead.
By LAHAV HARKOV Published: JULY 31, 2023 12:05 JERUSALEM POST
As the US intensifies its efforts to bring about peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, pressure for Jerusalem to make concessions to the Palestinians has also grown in recent days.
Israeli-Saudi normalization has long been conditional on some kind of tangible progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front. As The Jerusalem Post has reported in recent months, Riyadh is looking for a greater concession than Jerusalem made in conjunction with the 2020 Abraham Accords, when Israel agreed to drop its plan to apply sovereignty to West Bank settlements and normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates.
The Saudis are looking for concrete steps toward Palestinian statehood. Merely a commitment not to annex settlements for the next four years would not suffice for the prominent Gulf state, Israel Hayom reported multiple diplomatic sources as saying on Monday.
The Biden administration has also been pushing Israel to do more for the Palestinians. This is in order to gain domestic support for its normalization push, an American diplomatic source said, confirming reporting on Kan.
The elements that the Saudis seek from the US in the framework of such a deal, such as weapons sales, a mutual defense treaty, a civilian nuclear program, and economic benefits, would be a tough sell to Democrats, who have spoken out on human rights issues in the kingdom, especially after the murder of US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Washington is also pushing for the deal to be completed by the end of 2023, in order to avoid a prolonged fight in Congress about the benefits for the Saudis during an election year.
Will a US deal for Israel-Saudi normalization go through?
However, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi Hanegbi said on Monday that he shares US President Joe Biden’s assessment, as reported by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Friday, which Hanegbi summarized as “there is a long road ahead but…there is a possibility to advance this matter.
Hanegbi explained to KAN that Israel is not currently engaged in talks with the Saudis, but that they receive “reports and full transparency” from the US.
When it comes to benefits for the Saudis, Hanegbi said that “the Americans have to decide what is right for them [to give to Riyadh] in this context…Israel will not concede anything that will erode its security.”
Discussions about Israel-Saudi peace reached a new pitch over the weekend, with Biden’s comment to Friedman and his remark at a 2024 reelection campaign event that “there’s a rapprochement that may be underway.” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited Jeddah “to discuss bilateral and regional matters, including initiatives to advances. Common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world,” the White House said.
Netanyahu said that a high-speed train project the government launched on Sunday could “be able to connect Israel by train to Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula. We are working on that, too.”
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said on Sunday that it is premature to discuss a deal.
If there will be one, Edelstein told Army Radio, “there are clauses that are far more important or problematic than declarations in the Palestinian realm…There are some things we can live with better and some things we can live with less well.”
Meanwhile, Iran expressed opposition to a Saudi-Israel agreement, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani saying that normalization would harm regional peace and stability.
Reuters contributed to this report.