Saudi Arabia prefers to normalize ties with Israel under Biden - report
Aides said the Crown Prince would prefer to save such a deal for the incoming administration.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during photo session with other leaders and attendees at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019(photo credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE/FILE PHOTO)
Saudi Arabia appears to have delayed plans to normalize ties with Israel until after President-elect Joe Biden enters office on January 20th, theWall Street Journal reported on Friday.It speculated that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “pulled back from a deal, according to the Saudi advisors and US officials, largely because of the US election result.”The Journal added according to Saudi aids, the prince “was reluctant to take the step now, when he could use a deal later to help cement relations with the new American leader.”Reuters similarly speculated that normalization with Israel could be “a carrot to get (Biden’s) focus away from other issues, especially (Saudi) human rights,” according to a foreign diplomat in Riyadh.The news organization reported on the issue in the aftermath of Sunday’s surprise meeting in Saudi Arabia’s city of Neom, between the Crown Prince, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.The meeting was kept secret and revealed by the media only a day later. According to the Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu and Pompeo had hoped to “win assurances” with regards to a normalization deal, but the meeting ended without any conclusions on that score.The meeting itself is seen as the latest break through in Saudi ties with the Jewish state. Already in September, Saudi Arabia agreed to open its airspace to Israeli flights. The country is high on the list of Arab states who could potentially sign a normalization deal with Israel, particularly in light of the growing threat from Iran. The meeting itself is seen as a strong signal to Tehran that there is growing regional alliance against Iran.But US President Donald Trump’s electoral loss in the November 3rd elections aside, the Saudi leadership has been split on the issue of normalization with Israel.The elder King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is opposed to a deal with Israel, while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman supports it.Upon his return from the Saudi visit, on a trip that also include a stop in Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Pompeo told Fox News that he expected that more normalization deals would be reached between Israel and its Arab neighbors under the rubric of the Abraham Accords.
“I expect more normalization announcements. Whether they’ll come in the next 30 days or 60 days or six months is difficult to know, but the direction of travel is very clear, and the rationale for that has a little bit to do with American policy,” Pompeo said.Under the US brokered Abraham Accords, Israel has already signed normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Sudan has already committed to a deal with Israel, but it has not yet been formalized.Among the issues which could push forward such a normalization agreement in the last weeks of the Trump administration could be an US deal to sell arms to Saudi Arabia.In the aftermath of the UAE-Israel deal, the US approved the sale of the advanced F-35 fighter jets to the UAE. Saudi Arabia is also interested in a deal for advance US weaponry, something that it would likely have an easier chance of achieving from the Trump administration than a Biden one.There has also been media speculation, including in the Guardian that among the items under discussions on Sunday with the Crown Prince was the possibility of offering Saudi Arabia some form of custodian ship on the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the al Haram al Sharif. Jordan now has a special and exclusive custodial relationship to the third holiest site in Israel, which houses the al Aqsa mosque.According to the Jordan News Agency, King Abdullah has spoken out against any attempts to change the status quo at the site in a letter he wrote to the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.He said it was important to stop any steps to impose a “new status quo in Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif.”Anna Ahronheim contributed to this article.
