Saudi Arabia’s approach to Palestinian issue has long been shaped by King Faisal’s vision. In 1967 – when Israel attacked and defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria, captured Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and brought one million Palestinians under its control – he made East Jerusalem and Palestine the centerpiece of his diplomacy.
The 1973 Arab-Israel war further underscored his strategic acumen. As a shaken Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir pleaded with Washington for arms, Faisal accurately prophesied that US President Richard Nixon aimed to lift military pressure on Israel from Egypt, allowing it to consolidate its hold on East Jerusalem.
King’s assassination in 1975 marked the loss of a leader who confronted Zionist expansionism; it silenced a powerful voice for the Palestinian cause. By 1977, Sadat – at whose request Faisal imposed the 1973 oil embargo – was addressing the Knesset on peace and soon Cairo would become the first Arab country to normalize ties with Tel Aviv, fracturing regional consensus on Palestine.
Even so, Prince Salman (now King) sustained the mission Faisal entrusted in 1969, mobilizing public support for Palestine. In 2002, he countered Zionist slogan “A dollar you donate kills an Arab” with “A riyal you donate saves an Arab.” As a King, he has rejected any arrangement that excludes East Jerusalem from a future Palestinian state.
This stance is being tested as US President Donald Trump steps up pressure on Riyadh to join the Abraham Accords. Through the treaties – which omitted the Palestinian issue – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan established formal ties with Israel to secure peace. Yet the so-called blueprint of reconciliation between three Abrahamic religions in practice cemented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s faith in his military doctrine, encouraging him to pursue normalization without ending occupation.
Before Hamas attacks, even Riyadh was treading on this illusory path, having downgraded Palestine question from core of its foreign policy to merely a “very important” issue. But Israel’s war in Gaza terminated that flirtation. Veteran Saudi statesman Prince Turki al-Faisal’s blistering criticism of both Hamas and Israel for killing civilians and Western hypocrisy in valuing the Palestinian and Israeli lives laid bare the Kingdom's frustration with process derailment.
Israel’s genocidal campaign has since made normalization politically untenable and strategically unwise: driving Riyadh back to its earlier position: no recognition of Israel without establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Trump’s push to bring Riyadh into the fold faces another obstacle. Saudi conservatives resent the country's liberal direction and with polls showing 81% Saudis oppose the Accords, embracing Tel Aviv Israel now risks igniting public outrage.
Befuddling matters, far-right Israeli ministers – promoting ghastly ideas of expanding territorial expansion, starving Palestinians to death and resuming war – undermine any compromise. Netanyahu’s stubborn denial of a Palestinian state after his coalition partner Bezalel Stomrich’s derisive sneer – Riyadh can “keep riding camels in the Saudi desert” if it wants a two-state deal – reveal a deep schism between Saudi insistence and Israeli defiance to such a solution.
Trump’s vague nod to Palestinian statehood and Israeli threats to annex West Bank and several-hundred ceasefire violations reinforce the perception that while Washington wants to keep the illusion of a Palestinian state alive, Tel Aviv seeks to crush it outright. For Saudi Arabia, this rhetoric demands extreme caution.
Involvement of quasi-colonial figures like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, condemned for his disastrous role in 2003 Iraq invasion, in postwar Gaza governance is rankling regional states too. His perceived bias toward Israel as Quartet envoy long ago discredited him as a neutral mediator.
For much of the Arab world, his return evokes harrowing reminiscences of British colonialism. The 1917 Balfour Declaration pledged a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine; the 1922 British Mandate, granted by the League of Nations authorized London to establish it. By Mandate’s end, Britain-backed Zionist forces had captured 77% of Palestine, proclaiming independence as Israel in 1948.
While Riyadh held its ground, Egypt’s breakaway from a unified Arab response eased pressure on Israel, opening the floodgates for others. Riding the tide of slow-motion fragmenting regional consensus, Israel has trumpeted the Accords as a symbol of peace even as Gaza is in ruins and Israeli military operations across the Middle East threaten escalation.
Prior to its attack on Iran, Israel had launched 35,000 air raids in 20 months; its invasion of Qatar in September marked the sixth strike on a sovereign nation in just three days. Tel Aviv’s offensives on regional countries and several-hundred truce breaches reflect a grim reality: normalization without Palestinian rights hasn’t moderated Tel Aviv’s policy; it has legitimized Israeli aggression, encouraging it to wield military power as a tool to force other countries into signing treaties or face hostility.
Netanyahu’s continued belligerence even after achieving all of his Gaza war goals, resistance to a Palestinian state and military campaigns across the region have made it increasingly difficult for Saudi Arabia to defend any rapprochement with Israel.
As a result, Riyadh now finds itself embroiled in a strategic quagmire: it wants to straighten out relations with Israel while preserving its historic mantle as guardian of Palestinian cause and steward of Islam’s two most sacred places, Mecca and Medina.
Only a firm Israeli commitment to Palestinian statehood could help Saudi Arabia to navigate this dilemma. In short, Riyadh’s accession and credibility across the Muslim world pivots on Netanyahu – who has stubbornly denied any Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia may still envisage a future where pragmatism prevails but not at the cost of internal stability and historical identity. Trump’s elusive promises and Netanyahu’s intransigence to Palestinian statehood and Israel’s settlement expansions and ceasefire violations further complicate any Saudi move to formalize ties with Tel Aviv anytime soon.
From the Camp David Accords that established the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty to the 2020 Abraham Accords, normalization that sidestepped Palestinians did nothing to advance regional peace. Instead, they emboldened Israel to entrench its occupation and consolidate regional dominance.
With public anger boiling and support for the Accords collapsing across the Middle East, any Saudi move to forge ties with Israel risks igniting domestic outrage and eroding its standing in the Muslim world. As long as Israel’s war machine grinds on and Palestinian state remains a mirage, the prospect of Riyadh’s accession to the treaties anytime soon is remote.
*My article (unedited) first appeared in Express Tribune