How Saudi Arabia is approaching Israel's war on Gaza
Analysis: With Saudi-Israel normalisation frozen for now, Riyadh has stepped up its public diplomacy over the Gaza war but is still treading cautiously.
30 November, 2023
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman last week called on all countries to cease arms exports to Israel – posing another roadblock in Washington’s monumental plan to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalise relations.
Just weeks before the deadly 7 October Hamas attack, a US-brokered normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia was underway. The deal would have been a significant geopolitical shift in the region with serious implications for the Palestinian national movement and was potentially one of the key drivers of the Hamas attack.
However, now almost two months into the Israel-Hamas war, any steps towards Saudi normalisation with Israel have come to a halt.
“Any sort of Saudi-Israel normalisation talks would be too toxic for Riyadh at this time,” Anna Jacobs, the senior Gulf analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG), told The New Arab. As the mass atrocities committed by Israel on Gaza “galvanise” the Saudi public and the Arab world, a resumption of normalisation talks would be “politically radioactive” for Riyadh, Jacobs said.