US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Friday it could be possible to roll out a framework for the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia along with a two-state solution proposal for Israel and the Palestinian Arabs before a Gaza ceasefire is in place, marking a reversal in the order of events that US officials had previously expected to follow.
“Certainly that’s, that’s possible,” Blinken said. “Ceasefire or not we’ll continue to make these possibilities known. But in order to actually realize this, there’s going to have to be an end of the conflict in Gaza. And as I said, there’s also going to have to be a resolution to the Palestinian question, or at least an agreement on how to resolve it.”
US officials had previously said that the ongoing negotiations to secure a ceasefire had to reach an agreement before any further regional efforts could manifest.
Referencing the countries that came to Israel’s defense after Iran launched its April 13 aerial attack, Blinken said you could “see a path in the future where Israel is genuinely integrated in the region, where other countries are helping to make sure it’s defended.”
“But that also requires that (the conflict in) Gaza come to an end, and that there be a clear pathway to a Palestinian state. In that kind of future, Israel gets what it has sought from the start of its existence, which is normal relations with countries in the region,” he told CNN.
Blinken cited the sustained US efforts to work towards normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as part of a potentially reach a historic agreement to bring the Israel-Hamas war to an end.
“We’ve been working intensively to flesh it out, working with our partners, working – with European partners on this as well. And I think the more concrete it becomes, and the more it moves from the hypothetical and theoretical to something that’s actually possible, that’s real, then everyone involved is actually going to have to make decisions and make choices. And so we’re doing this work. And we’re trying to make it as real as possible,” Blinken said.
Israel and Saudi Arabia appeared to be on track towards normalization before Hamas’ October 7 attack against Israel and the war in Gaza which followed.
Shortly after the start of the war in Gaza, sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia is putting the US-backed plans to normalize ties with Israel on ice.
Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, later said that he believes talks on normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia will resume immediately after the conclusion of the war in Gaza.
More recently, the top Saudi diplomat indicated that normalization with Israel requires both an end to the fighting in the Gaza Strip as well as the establishment of a Palestinian state, which Saudi officials have long insisted is a condition for normalization with Israel.
Blinken said late last month that the United States and Saudi Arabia have made "good progress" in talks on normalizing ties between the kingdom and Israel.
"I believe we can reach an agreement, which would present a historic opportunity for two nations, but also for the region as a whole," Blinken said.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)
