Two people who know what Riyadh is thinking told Reuters that Saudi Arabia has put on hold US-backed plans to improve relations with Israel. This means that Riyadh will quickly rethink its foreign policy goals as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas gets worse.
Because of the war, the kingdom has also had to work with Iran. As Riyadh tries to stop a wider rise in violence in the area, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the first time.
Two sources told Reuters that the US-backed talks on normalizing relations with Israel would be put off. These talks were a key step for the kingdom to get what Riyadh sees as the real prize, which is a US defense pact.
Before Hamas, which is backed by Iran, attacked Israel on October 7 and caused a war, leaders in both Israel and Saudi Arabia said they were getting closer to a deal that could have changed the Middle East.
Sources had said before the latest conflict that Saudi Arabia, which is where Islam began and has its two holiest sites, had made it clear that it would not give up on its goal of a US-led defense pact, even if Israel did not give the Palestinians major concessions in their quest for statehood.
But ignoring the Palestinians could make Arabs in the region angry, since Arab news sites would show pictures of Palestinians being killed in Israeli air strikes in response.
More than 1,300 Israelis were killed by Hamas forces in an attack on October 7. As of Friday, more than 1,952 Palestinians had been killed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The first person who knows what Riyadh is thinking said that talks couldn’t go on right now and that getting Israel to make more concessions to the Palestinians would have to be the main focus when they did start up again. This shows that Riyadh hasn’t given up on the plan.
Reuters sent emails to the Saudi government asking for feedback, but they did not answer.
“Thought to be illicit”
The Saudi rethink shows how hard it will be for Washington to make it easier for Israel to fit in with other countries in an area where the Palestinian cause is still very important to Arabs.
“Normalization was already seen as wrong [in the Arab world], and this war makes that even worse,” Aziz Alghashian, an expert from Saudi Arabia, said.
Washington wants to build on the Abraham Accords, which made things better between some Gulf states, like the United Arab Emirates.
He told a White House meeting this week that the work to get things back to normal was “not on hold,” but that the attention was on other problems that needed to be solved right away.
The first person who knows how the Saudis think said that Washington had asked Riyadh to condemn the Hamas attack this week, but Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan refused. This was confirmed by a US person who knows about the situation.
The war in the region has also brought the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and the president of Iran together for the first time since they reestablished formal ties in April thanks to an effort facilitated by China.
A Saudi statement said that the crown prince told Raisi that “the kingdom is exerting maximum effort to engage with all international and regional parties to halt the ongoing escalation.” This shows that Riyadh is taking steps to keep the situation under control.
Officials in Iran told Reuters that Raisi’s call to the crown prince was meant to back “Palestine and stop the spread of war in the region.”
The judge said, “The call was good and looked good.”
A second Iranian source said the call went on for 45 minutes and was approved by Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
De-escalating tensions
The Saudi government didn’t say much more about the call, but in a statement, the crown prince said that the kingdom was “against any form of civilian targeting and the loss of innocent lives” and that Riyadh would “unwaveringly stand up for the Palestinian cause.”
Arabia has been trying to ease tensions in other parts of the Middle East. For example, it wants to end the conflict in Yemen, where Riyadh is leading a military alliance against the Houthis, who are backed by Iran.
A top US State Department source said that Washington was “constantly in contact with Saudi leaders” when asked about Raisi’s call with the crown prince. Antony Blinken, who is the US secretary of state, has talked on the phone with his Saudi colleague several times.
That person said that Washington was asking partners that have ties to Hamas, Hezbollah (a militant group in Lebanon that fought a war with Israel in 2006) or Iran to “get Hamas to stop its attacks, to free the hostages, keep Hezbollah out, and keep Iran out of the fray.”
The first person who knew what Saudi Arabia was thinking said that Gulf states, even those with ties to Israel, were afraid that Iran could get involved in a fight that would touch them.
Alex Vatanka, who runs the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., said that the past week showed how different Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s ideas are about the area.
“Saudis are still sure that the region and Saudi Arabia need to move toward economic growth and cooperation in the region.” It looks like Iran thinks the most important thing is to fight Israel first, he said.
