The Israeli government might not be in the position to proceed with Saudi normalization given that such a deal requires a pathway to Palestinian statehood, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The Saudis have been very clear that [normalization] would require calm in Gaza, and it would require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” Blinken said.
“It may well be... that at this moment, Israel is not able or willing to proceed down that pathway,” he explained.
Blinken spoke just one day after US National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan visited Israel and Saudi Arabia in an effort to advance the triad deal.
It involves a security pact between Riyadh and Washington, a normalization deal with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and a pathway for Palestinian statehood.
The November presidential elections, which would also shift the makeup of the Senate, have set a tight timeline for the completion of such a deal.
The Senate has to approve the agreement with 67 out of 100 votes, given that it includes a security pact. The existing Senate would support the deal, as long as it includes all three elements. It’s unclear, however, if there would be enough backing in the next Senate.
Sullivan and the Saudi Foreign Ministry have said this week that work on the security pact is close to completion.
The spotlight, therefore, has now moved to the possibility of a normalization deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought such an agreement.
Securing such a deal was one of the goals he set for his government when it was sworn in at the end of December 2022.
His government, however, has opposed Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu, in a statement his office issued only on Saturday, explained that such a state would become a terror entity.
Blinken in his testimony to the Senate explained that the Israeli position on statehood could cause complications for completions of the deal.
“We have sought to move forward in negotiating the bilateral US-Saudi aspects of a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
“But even if we were to conclude those agreements, and I believe we actually can conclude them relatively quickly given all the work that’s been done,” he explained.
“They could not go forward, the overall package could not go forward, absent other things that have to happen for normalization to proceed,” Blinken said.
“In particular, the Saudis have been very clear that would require calm in Gaza, and it would require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.”
Jack Lew agrees
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew delivered a similar message in Jerusalem on Tuesday, when he addressed the Israel Democracy Institute’s Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society.
To move forward on normalization, he said, “There’s going to have to be some period of quiet, I think, in Gaza, and there’s going to have to be a conversation about how do you deal with the question of the future of Palestinian governance.”
The conversation about normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia is more complicated, Lew said, as he referenced the third pillar of the agreement, which is the pathway to a Palestinian state.
That Palestinian state, he said, would have to be a “demilitarized entity” and Israel would have to retain the right to defend itself.
“Now, if you start with that frame, it’s a question of how willing are leaders to get into that conversation and that’s what we’re going to find out,” he said.
Israeli regional integration is particularly important to combat Iranian regional aggression, Lew said.
He referenced the united work of five armies – the US, France, Great Britain, Jordan, and Israel – which took to the skies to defend the Jewish state from an Iranian missile and drone attack, as an example of what the future could be like.
President Isaac Herzog told the conference that Sullivan had discussed the Saudi deal with him, as he threw his support behind that initiative.
“This is a move that could bring about tremendous change, a historic ‘game-changer’ that constitutes a victory over the empire of evil.”
He stressed, “I very much hope that this possibility is being seriously considered, as the empire of evil sought on October 7 to destroy the chance for normalization. Our struggle, in the end, is not only a fight against Hamas. It is a wider, strategic, global, and historic battle, and we must do everything to integrate into the grand vision of normalization.”
US President Joe Biden, two months before the October 7 attack, presented a visionary plan for the picture that turned Israel and the region into a global transit hub, and Israel should do everything possible to transform those ideas into reality, Herzog said.