Will the Saudis raise the Palestinian question in the White House? - opinion

The immediate issue is the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, but in concrete terms, the meeting will revolve around the question of whether this will be a formula based on Saudi Arabia and the UAE or on the Muslim Brotherhood-associated Turkey and Qatar.

While the reconstruction of Gaza is the initial item on the agenda, its implications will be far-reaching, encompassing the very future of the Middle East, including Israel’s place therein.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are making their participation in the reconstruction process conditional on a stable and ongoing ceasefire, Israel’s gradual withdrawal from most of Gaza, the elimination of Hamas, and granting governance functions in the enclave to the Palestinian Authority or another body with international legitimacy.

Part of these terms could, in principle, be acceptable to Israel, apart from giving the Palestinian Authority a role in governing.

While Gaza will be the opening item, it is clear that the wider subject of the Middle East and relations between Riyadh and Washington will also be addressed. The saga of the relationship started on February 14, 1945, a few months before the end of the Second World War, when, on the deck of the USS Quincy docking in the Suez Canal, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud, the Saudi king and leader of the dynasty that still rules the country.

Ibn Saud, like David Ben-Gurion at the time, had reached the conclusion that Britain’s days in the region were numbered and that America would be the dominant power in the Middle East and the world in general and acted accordingly. The matter at hand was Saudi oil in exchange for American security, and the essential elements of this have remained largely in place to this day, except for a relatively short period following the murder of Saudi journalist and regime opponent Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

This commitment was also a response to a possible initiative by British prime minister Winston Churchill to shape a regional arrangement for the Middle East to include a Jewish state. It was only the death of Roosevelt and his replacement by Harry Truman that eventually changed US attitudes in this respect.

Much has changed in the last 80 years with regard to America, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The State of Israel is here to stay, and though the US is still a major superpower, it is not the only one. Moreover, a new threat has emerged in the Middle East that is hostile to both the Arab states and Israel, namely, a nuclear Iran.

Saudi Arabia is a key player not only due to its political, religious, and economic weight but also because of its closeness to the US. It also made requests of America that do not directly relate to Israel but could affect it negatively in the future, such as the sale of advanced military technology, including F-35 planes, a mutual defense pact, and perhaps even the enrichment of uranium “for peaceful purposes.”

Though Saudi Arabia is not currently considered a military factor of great weight – in the First Gulf War it was said that seated behind every Saudi pilot was an American pilot acting like a driving teacher – but things can change.

In any case, satisfying these Saudi demands, or even some of them, and ignoring the diplomatic and political results originally intended by the US would be a serious step backward. Responding to the Saudi demands is also bound to encounter difficulties in Congress, which, in spite of the growing hostility toward Israel on the Left of the Democratic Party and parts of the extreme Right of the Republican Party, does not see Saudi Arabia and its leader as particularly positive elements.

As bin Salman told an American diplomat in 2021: “Am I personally particularly concerned by the Palestinian issue? The answer is no, but for my people, it is yes.”

Still, and perhaps more significantly, he and the younger pragmatic class in his country are aware of the threats to their goals posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its cohorts, and that may ultimately play the larger role in their decisions not only regarding the future of the Gaza Strip but, more importantly, a regional settlement under an American security umbrella.

The Palestinian problem will require formulas that Israel will also have to consider, though, without abandoning its fundamental security and general concerns. MBS probably understands that regional integration without Israel will fail to achieve the scientific, technological, and economic goals he has set for his country and the regime as a whole; thus, he will try to proceed with normalization with Israel, albeit cautiously and gradually.

One should not expect answers to all these questions right after the White House meeting, but there may perhaps be indications as to future directions.