Gordon Lubold and Michael R. Gordon
Biden administration officials said Tuesday that a U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia was within reach, but that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government might balk at the historic agreement rather than accept Riyadh’s demands for a new commitment to a Palestinian state and a halt to the Gaza war.
“The Saudis have been clear that [normalization] would require calm in Gaza and it would require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday. “It may well be that in this moment Israel isn’t able or willing to proceed down that pathway.”
For months, the administration has hoped Netanyahu would grab at the long-sought prize of normalization with Riyadh as part of a sweeping agreement aimed at halting the Gaza war and transforming the region’s long-static divisions.
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