Saudi Arabia outlines terms for normalization of ties with Israel, which include a 5-year pathway to a Palestinian state, according to a report in the New York Times.
Veteran journalist Tom Friedman, considered to have direct access to President Joe Biden reported late on Thursday, that the Saudi leadership also demand Israel withdraws its forces from Gaza and freezes settlement building in the West Bank.
In his report Friedman added that the progress toward a Palestinian state would also be conditioned on the Palestinian Authority undertaking reforms to make it a governing body that Palestinians trust and see as legitimate and Israelis see as effective.
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(צילום: Jim WATSON / AFP, Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS)
The New York Times report claims that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were nearing completion of a "formal alliance that could isolate Iran, curb China’s influence in the Middle East and peacefully inspire more positive change in this region than the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan ever did militarily."
Freidman wrote that 90% of the issues have already been agreed. The remaining questions are how precisely the U.S. would control the civilian nuclear energy program that Saudi Arabia will get under the deal; would the mutual defense component will be explicit and would there be a long-term commitment for Saudi Arabia to continue to price oil in U.S. dollars and not switch to the Chinese currency.
But on a future normalization of relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem, the article notes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would most likely refuse to accept the Saudi conditions.
"To put it bluntly, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has put his country’s worst religious extremists in jail, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put his country’s worst religious extremists in his cabinet," Friedman wrote.
He said Netanyahu has chosen a far-right coalition that would keep him in power and help him avoid the repercussions of his corruption trial leading the administration and the Saudi rulers to promote an agreement between them that would be taken to Congress for approval, "with the stated proviso that Saudi Arabia will normalize relations with Israel the minute Israel has a government ready to meet the Saudi-U.S. terms.