Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has been conducting secret talks with the Saudis since the election, in order to advance his desire for a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman has expressed willingness to negotiate, but raises various difficulties and sets impossible conditions
Since the elections, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has been conducting negotiations with Saudi Arabia in the Riyadh-Washington-Israel triangle, in order to prepare the ground for a normalization agreement that may come shortly between the two countries, Nahum Barnea published in the Shabbat supplement of Yedioth Ahronoth.
In an interview conducted as part of a series of interviews that Netanyahu has been conducting in the international media in recent weeks, Netanyahu said last week that his main goal in the foreign policy that will be outlined with the formation of the government will be to sign a peace agreement with the Saudis, in order to “end the Arab-Israeli conflict” according to him. He also said that peace with the Saudis “will expand the circle of peace beyond our wildest dreams.”
During the meetings that Netanyahu had with the Saudis, he expressed his desire for a normalization agreement that would not oblige him at all to make progress on the Palestinian issue. However, according to the report, Netanyahu pledged to avoid annexation throughout his term in exchange for such an agreement.
On the other hand, the Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman demands that Israel regulate his country’s relations with the United States, which have fallen into crisis. Between Salman and Biden there is mutual enmity, and Salman is not a welcome guest in the corridors of the White House. This situation is a difficulty for Saudi Arabia, which wants to resolve the matter Salman also demands that in exchange for a normalization agreement with Israel, the ban on the sale of advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia will be lifted in the American Congress.
At the moment it seems that the contacts between the two countries will not mature into an agreement, but the determination on the Israeli side is great and significant.