AFP
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 22:49
Never before has Israel paid a diplomatic visit to Saudi Arabia, until today. Israeli Tourism Minister Katz is at a UN conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh. He describes the visit itself as an opportunity to promote tourism to Israel and strengthen international ties.
It is a new sign of the rapprochement between the two countries. At the same time, Saudi Ambassador Nayef al-Sudairi visited the West Bank today. This is seen as an attempt to play a diplomatic role in the biggest point of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians: the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Pro-Palestinian
The fact that there have never been ties with Arab countries since the founding of Israel in 1948 has everything to do with that conflict. Like most other countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is strongly pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist, and therefore against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
The Saudi diplomat spoke with Palestinian President Abbas during his visit today. He promised that Saudi Arabia will do its best to end the Israeli occupation to limit and said the Saudi government is “working towards the establishment of a Palestinian autonomous state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Correspondent Israel and Palestinian Territories, Nasrah Habiballah:
“The Palestinians hope that Saudi Arabia will at least put pressure on Israel, for example by demanding that Israel not further expand settlements in the occupied West Bank. But the question is to what extent Prime Minister Netanyahu can go along with this.
He is in an ultra-right coalition with hardliners who do not see anything in a two-state solution. In fact, some want to annex the West Bank instead of working towards a separate Palestinian state.”
Israel and Saudi Arabia have not revealed much about what the improved relations will mean for the conflict and whether concessions will be made. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu previously said his focus is on normalizing ties with Arab states, not yet on a solution to the conflict.
That process of forging diplomatic ties has been ongoing since 2020, when Netanyahu established ties with Gulf states such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Israel has also been seeking diplomatic rapprochement with Egypt, Jordan and Morocco for some time.
American influence
For these Arab countries, recognizing the Israeli state and establishing diplomatic ties is primarily an attempt to get closer to the United States, an important ally of Israel. But the Arab countries also hope to gain access to advanced weapons.
The countries previously also formally and informally set the guarantee of Palestinian statehood as a condition. But the new ties between Arab countries and Israel have so far yielded little for the Palestinians, and Israel has had to make few concessions in practice.
Fear of Iran
For Israel, having allies like wealthy Saudi Arabia is extremely important, especially because of the shared fear of Iran. With the influence of the United States, an ally of both countries, the goal is clearly to form a power bloc against Iran.
Iran has been a major threat to both the US and its Arab allies for years. The country produces more enriched uranium than agreed in 2015, which reinforces fears among the US and EU about the development of a nuclear weapon. With the normalized Saudi-Israeli ties, the US hopes to stand strong against arch-enemy Iran.
2023-09-26 20:49:07
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