FOCUS ON ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN TALKS OVER EVENTUAL NORMALIZATION: SAUDI FM

Fri 16 October 2020:

Bringing Palestinians and Israelis to the negotiating table should be the priority of peace efforts before “eventual normalization” with Israel, the Saudi foreign minister said Thursday. 

Saudi Arabia has always envisioned that normalization with Israel would happen, but the current focus should be on bringing Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.

Prince Faisal is in Washington this week for the inaugural US-Saudi strategic dialogue. During joint remarks with his Saudi counterpart Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he hoped Riyadh would consider striking its own deal with Israel. 

“We have always envisioned that normalization [with Israel] would happen, but we also need to have a Palestinian state and a Palestinian-Israeli peace plan,” the Saudi FM said.

“In the end, the only thing that can deliver lasting peace and lasting stability is an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” Prince Faisal said during a webinar with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The process of peace is a strategic necessity to the region, he said.

Asked if the recent peace deal signed between the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain with Israel helped the process, Prince Faisal said it “does help lay the groundwork” to get the Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table.

Prince Faisal said getting Israel to take “annexation off the table for the time being” was one of the positives of the Abraham Accords.

But he added that more work was needed. “The important thing is to get them on the table.”

Last month, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain both agreed to recognize the Jewish state under the US-brokered Abraham Accords. President Donald Trump said he expected “five or six” countries, including Saudi Arabia, to soon forge their own normalization deals. 

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