The Saudis repeated that normalization required two things, Blinken said, “One, there needs to be calm in Gaza; two, there needs to be a clear and credible pathway to a Palestinian state."
His words were part of a series of statements the Biden administration has made about its intention to pursue a peace process once a ceasefire is in place.
One of them is the plan to derail Israel-Saudi normalization.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have many shared interests, chief among them the struggle against radical Islam propagated by groups such as ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood.
He has visited Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, meeting senior leaders and officials, in order to discuss Hamas.
BEHIND THE LINES: The supposed “progressives” in the Biden administration are the ones who are cleaving to older ideas, while the “conservatives” in Riyadh are looking to move beyond them.
For Israel, normalization with Saudi Arabia has enormous implications for normalizing Israel’s relationship with Muslim-majority countries in the region and internationally.
In a speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he claimed any countries that would normalize with Israel were “betting on a losing horse.”
PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh warned his cabinet that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was working to "annex" Area C.
Netanyahu might well have seized the opportunity of his address on the world stage to defuse this matter among the others.
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