Gaza War Dooms Biden’s Plan

According to David B. Ottaway, a year after the onset of the Israel-Hamas War, the Biden Administration’s plan for a new Middle East security architecture anchored in an alliance between the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia is dead for the foreseeable future.

Its death is another victim of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to allow an independent Palestinian state as a basis for a solution to the conflict that most countries, including the United States, are demanding.

Before the war started, US diplomats were making progress in nudging Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) toward establishing ties with the Jewish state. Both the crown prince and Biden were talking optimistically about Saudi recognition of, and open cooperation with, the Jewish state.

Two of Saudi Arabia’s closest allies, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain had already taken that step in the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Biden was enticing MBS with a formal US-Saudi defense treaty to protect the kingdom from its chief enemy, Iran. The Palestinian cause was fading, in the minds of Arab leaders, and Israel was on the verge of fulfilling its dream of winning recognition from the Middle East’s Arab powerhouse. 

The Gaza War halted all this momentum in its tracks, and there is no ceasefire in sight. The Israeli military has occupied all of Gaza and, in the process, killed nearly 42,000 Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters, displaced most of its 2.2 million Palestinian population from their homes, and inflicted massive damage on its infrastructure.

This has caused even Arab leaders with no love for Hamas because of its Islamic roots, refusal to recognize the Jewish state, and ties to Iran to harden calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Nowhere is this shift in the attitude of Arab leaders better on display than in Saudi Arabia. In an interview with Fox News on September 20, just 17 days before the Hamas attack, MBS went out of his way to deny reports that US-led negotiations over Saudi normalization of relations with Israel were in trouble.

To the contrary, he said, “every day we get closer” toward what he called “the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War.” He made no demand for a Palestinian state as a precondition, just that Israel “ease the life of the Palestinians.”

On September 19, 2024 he delivered quite a starkly different message at the annual opening of his kingdom’s consultative Shoura Council.

The Palestinian cause was “at the forefront” of Saudi attention, and he was working tirelessly to see the establishment of a Palestinian state.

He warned, “We affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without that.” He thanked the 143 countries that had already recognized a Palestinian state and urged others to follow suit.

If Saudi Arabia hews to this precondition, then the new Middle East the Biden administration has worked tirelessly to birth seems doomed, at least without a radical change in Israeli thinking and government.