Blinken says Israel and Saudi ties are 'ready to go,’ urges Trump to accept Biden plan for Gaza
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia is ready to go, but requires following through on ending the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a commitment to a pathway to a Palestinian state.
Blinken, speaking at the Atlantic Council, said negotiations to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could happen in the next few hours or next few days, a first, critical step in the plan the Biden administration has laid out to capitalize on major power balances shifting in the Middle East.
“We stand here today with a historic window of opportunity still open,” Blinken said.
The Trump administration failed in its first term to secure ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia under the banner of their Abraham Accords, which marked a major shift in Israel’s integration into the region with ties established with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The Biden administration has said it was on the brink of achieving Israeli-Saudi ties under the Abraham Accords, but that was frozen with Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack and Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas.
Opposition to a Palestinian state grew among the Israeli population traumatized from Hamas’s attack, even at the expense of Saudi normalization. And the death toll and humanitarian crisis wrought on the Palestinians amid Israel’s war hardened, even more, attitudes in Arab and Gulf countries that a Palestinian state is necessary.
“The need to end the war in Gaza and for a credible road to Palestinian statehood is all the more urgent for Riyadh,” Blinken said.
“Israelis will have to decide if actually realizing a foundational dream, being integrated into the region… whether that is worth also the decisions necessary to finally resolve their relationship with the Palestinians, as well as ending the conflict in Gaza," he said. "That's a decision that only they can make.”
Blinken said the Biden administration is handing off to President-elect Trump a detailed post-conflict plan for Gaza that would include Israel fully withdrawing from the territory, preventing Hamas from filling back in, and providing for Gaza’s governance, security and reconstruction.
The plan would require a reformed Palestinian Authority (PA) alongside international partners to establish and help run an interim administration with responsibility for banking, water, energy, health and civil coordination with Israel. The international community would provide funding, technical support and oversight, Blinken said.
The interim administration would include Palestinians from Gaza and representatives from the PA but would hand over “complete responsibility to a fully reformed PA as soon as it’s feasible.”
A senior United Nations official would work in close cooperation with administrators while overseeing international stabilization and recovery efforts, the secretary continued. An interim security mission would be made up of members of “partner nation security forces” and vetted Palestinian personnel.
“We would stand up a new initiative to train, to equip, to vet a PA-led security force for Gaza to focus and gradually take over for the interim security mission. These arrangements would be enshrined in a UN Security Council Resolution,” Blinken said.
The secretary said that partner nations have said they would participate in an interim security force, “but if, and only if, it is agreed that Gaza and the West Bank are reunified under a reformed PA as part of a pathway to an independent Palestinian state.”
“And therein lies the rub,” Blinken continued. “Reaching agreement will require all parties to summon the political will to make hard decisions, to make hard compromises.”
Blinken said the Biden administration has set up an agreement with Saudi Arabia on a U.S.-Saudi component of normalization with Israel, to include establishing Saudi Arabia as a treaty ally of the U.S.; a defense cooperation agreement; an energy agreement that includes civil nuclear cooperation, and an economic agreement to bolster bilateral trade and investment for both sides.
“The prospect of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia represents the best opportunity to achieve the long sought goal of Israel's greater integration in the region, and is also the best incentive to get the parties to make tough decisions necessary to fully realize the aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians and cut the Gordian knot that has held back progress up to this point,” Blinken said.