A two-state solution is not even a real point of contention – MbS only using it as an opening salvo

Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. He is the co-author, with Marc Lamont Hill, of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. Mitchell's previous positions include vice president at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Director of the US Office of B'Tselem, and Co-Director of Jewish Voice for Peace. “Biden push for Saudi-Israeli normalization reflects misreading of domestic and international politics,” May 28, 2023 dmr

Saudi Arabia in no hurry

Business between most Arab states and Israel has gone on for a long time, despite the existence of a technical, and largely ineffective Arab League boycott of Israel since 1945, before Israel was even created. In recent years, unofficial, clandestine cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel has emerged gradually from the shadows. The downside of that for Israel is that Saudi Arabia is already getting most of what it wants from Israel. Economic and strategic cooperation mechanisms have been established and continue to function, and the military dimension will become less and less important over the coming years, assuming the new agreement between the Saudis and Iran hold up. Since the Saudi royal family, including MBS, know that full normalization with Israel outside a permanent agreement with the Palestinians will be deeply unpopular not only among the masses in the kingdom but also among a considerable portion of the royal family itself, they have every reason to proceed very slowly on normalizing with Israel. This was what the Saudis were signaling recently when, addressing the last Arab League summit MBS stated that, “The Palestinian issue was and remains the central issue for Arab countries, and it is at the top of the kingdom’s priorities.” The statement is false on its face, of course, as the Abraham Accords and Saudi Arabia’s own thaw in relations with Israel demonstrate. But it was intended to send a message to Israel and the United States that normalizing with Saudi Arabia would come only at a steep price. MBS understands that the Saudis hold all the cards. The weakness Joe Biden demonstrated with his complete reversal on his attitude toward MBS means that Washington has few sticks to use with the Saudis, allowing MBS to ask for as many carrots as he can dream of. Now that a direct conflict between the kingdom and Iran is much less likely, MBS is free to hold out for the best deal possible in exchange for normalizing with Israel. Will Saudi demands include Palestine? It is hard to imagine that anyone believes that MBS really cares about the Palestinian cause. Of course, if he were to win something significant for the Palestinians, it would add to his status in the Muslim and Arab world. Still, fully realizing Palestinian rights and freedoms, whether in an independent Palestinian state or in a single democratic state between the river and the sea, is far too much to hope for even if the Saudis get the proverbial king’s ransom for normalizing with Israel. More likely, Palestine is a negotiating tactic for them. They know that the current Israeli government will collapse immediately if any concession that is more than cosmetic is made to the Palestinians. There is no way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could make such a bargain at this time, even if he wanted to, which he likely does not. The Saudis mostly want access to higher-scale U.S. weapons, enhanced military partnership with the United States, and U.S. aid in setting up a fully independent nuclear program with full enrichment capabilities. That’s an ambitious wish list, and doubtless, the Saudis know they will have to compromise on those demands if they want to get a deal done. And that’s where Palestine can enter the picture. MBS is clearly envisioning a deal with Israel netting him the kind of benefits that will catapult both his kingdom and him into a position of unprecedented regional power. By setting his sights so high in terms of military and nuclear benefits from the U.S., MBS can justify compromises on those points in exchange for concessions to the Palestinians. Thus, he would gain not only strategic advantages, but also the prestige of having won something meaningful for the Palestinians, which would count for a lot in the Muslim world. He could also thus contrast Saudi normalization with Israel with those of the other Arab states, which netted nothing for the Palestinians, from Egypt in the 1980s to the Abraham Accords today. MBS knows this Israeli government won’t give him that. But, unlike Netanyahu or Biden, MBS does not face popular elections every so often. He can afford to think in longer terms, and he has no reason to believe future elections in either the U.S. or Israel will bring in leaders less willing to grant him great gifts in exchange for his cooperation. On the contrary, it is very likely that future Israeli and American governments will have an easier time politically agreeing to his demands than the current ones do. In and of itself, Pinkas was right to say that normalization benefits the Saudi, Israeli, and American governments’ interests. But there are costs for all of them as well. The Netanyahu government, which depends on the far-right Religious Zionism and Jewish Power parties, has red lines, which are so strict in terms of giving nothing to the Palestinians it puts all the burden for paying off the Saudis on Washington. For Riyadh, the benefits are clear, but they, much more than the UAE or Bahrain, have some stake in not appearing to abandon the Palestinian cause, so they can afford to wait for the right deal to come along. The smallest benefits, ironically, accrue to the Biden administration. Their investment here is the result of a political miscalculation by the White House that overestimates the boon Saudi-Israeli normalization will be for Biden in 2024, combined with the correct assessment of some members of Congress—most notably Democrat and AIPAC shill Ritchie Torres of New York—that their efforts on Capitol Hill will benefit their own, more limited and narrow political ambitions.