Saudi Arabia says interested in Israel normalisation deal despite Gaza war

A deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia was close before 7 October, Prince Khalid bin Bandar told the BBC.

Despite the “deplorable” casualty figures in Gaza, the kingdom was still interested in establishing ties with Israel, said Bandar, however this would not “come at the cost of the Palestinian people”, he added.

Speaking about the Israeli government, Bandar said: “The problem that we have today with the current government in Israel is there is an extreme, absolutist perspective which does not work to achieve compromise and therefore you are never going to end the conflict.

“The unprecedented level of the violence that has been carried out by both sides – but in particular by what is meant to be a responsible state in Israel – over the past three months, I don’t think I have seen anything like it in my life,” he said. “The numbers are deplorable, absolutely deplorable,” the envoy added.

Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman told Fox News in an interview aired late September that they “get closer” every day to normalization with Tel Aviv. Israeli Premiere Benjamin Netanyahu said during his UN speech last month that the regime was at the cusp of a historic normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.

However, the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has reportedly blocked further talks.

Washington’s efforts for adding Saudi Arabia to the list of Arab countries that have signed the Abraham Accords come at a critical time when US President Joe Biden is seeking re-election and the US government has been left embarrassed by the kingdom’s bolstering of ties with Iran and Syria, and its further gravitation toward China.

The UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco signed US-brokered normalization agreements with Israel in 2020, drawing condemnations from Palestinians who slammed the deals as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people”.