The shadow of Gaza over relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia

The Palestine issue has dominated the political landscape of middle eastern politics for the last quarter of century. Saudi Arabia’s rulers have also remained leading champions of the Palestinians cause. This has further helped to intertwine the Palestinian cause as a source of political and social capital for Saudi rulers¹ and its leadership claim of the Arab and Muslim world. This Saudi approach over the years has also been affected by a plethora of external and internal political events and has in turn impacted upon Saudi Arabia’s policy towards Israel.

Saudi Arabia has always remained a firm supporter of the Palestinian cause, yet it only emerged as one of the centrals players in the aftermath of the Egyptian defeat in the 1967 war. Saudi King Faisal was a signatory to the Khartoum resolution of 1967² which stipulated a rejection to have peaceful ties, recognition or negotiation with Israel. During the 1973 conflict between Arab States and Israel, Saudi Arabia not only financially backed Egypt but in a major move also imposed an oil embargo on United States and other western supporters of Israel. This move also showed the linkage of Saudi-US ties with Saudi Arabia’s Palestine policy. With the Egyptian normalization with Israel in 1979, Saudi Arabia emerged as a leading Arab player vis-à-vis the Palestine issue. If at one end this added to the political prestige and legitimacy of Saudi decision makers as leaders of the Arab and Muslim world, it also imposed certain conditionalities on their political and diplomatic room to manoeuvre. Yet Saudi Arabia’s approach towards the Palestine issue always remained a political one laced with diplomacy.

This was echoed first in the 1981 diplomatic initiative proposed by then Crown Prince Fahd³ in Fez Sumit of the Arab League. This plan touched upon all the customary Arab talking points regarding Palestine including establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, an Israeli withdrawal from all Arab territories occupied in the 1967 war, and the right of return to millions of Palestinian refugees.

However, the plan also hinted at a de-facto recognition of Israel in return. This was the first effective Saudi foray into the diplomacy concerning the resolution of the Palestine conflict. This initiative received mixed responses and was eventually rejected by Israel. After nearly twenty years and in the backdrop of the 9/11 and Second Intifada, Saudi Arabia’s de-facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah came up with another peace initiative. It is also known as the Arab Peace Initiative (API) in principle reproduced all the points of the Fahd Plan but also offered a complete political, economic and cultural recognition and integration of Israel into the region. This plan also remained a non-starter and eventually was overshadowed by regional political developments starting from the American invasion of Iraq and the simultaneous strengthening of Iranian influence through its regional proxies. The 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war further entrenched the popularity of the Iranian led axis of resistance.

Saudi decision makers have also maintained an expectation from the Palestinian leadership to be respectful of Saudi political sensitivities and to follow its political lead. In this regard, the Kingdom was disappointed by the Palestinian courting of Saddam Hussain during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and afterwards during the first Gulf War. Similarly, Saudis had been frustrated by the recurring spectre of internal divisions between Palestinian factions. In 2007, Saudi Arabia brokered an agreement within Mecca between Fatah and Hamas leading to a unity government, however only within a few months hostilities resumed between the two sides and the takeover of the Gaza strip by Hamas.

Dilemmas facing Prince crown MBD

The ascension of King Salman to Saudi Arabia’s Royal throne and the political rise of his son and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) has had a deep impact on Saudi politics and statecraft. As MBS has become the de-facto ruler of the Kingdom, there has been a tendency of some degree of revisionism vis-à-vis all planks of Saudi Arabia’s policy making. The emergence of Saudi nationalism under MBS and the image of a Kingdom ready to assert itself through military means has also affected Saudi Arabia’s traditional approach towards Palestine. The young Saudi decision makers apparently are far less emotionally connected to the Palestinian cause and much more pragmatic towards relationship with change in Saudi approach was also happening in the backdrop of strengthening personal ties between Saudi leadership and the then American President Donald Trump during his first term (2016-2020).

In 2018, Saudi Crown Prince MBS made media headlines as in a meeting with heads of Jewish Organizations he severely criticised Palestinian leaders for their failure to accept peace proposals. MBS also asserted that the Palestine was not amongst its top priorities. Now this discourse helped the young Saudi leader to establish himself firmly within US political quarters. However, this outburst didn’t result into any meaningful change within Saudi approach towards the issue echoing what some observers have called a unique Saudi balancing act in between its leadership of the Muslim World and its cooperation with its western security partners.

Yet this change in Saudi rhetoric also visible in the messaging coming from key Saudi interlocutors of the Palestinian file fitted well within the Saudi first environment. This discourse was also meant to de-link the Palestinian issue from the modalities of domestic Saudi politics and instilling a discourse within the young Saudis revolving around “national interest”. This has been the primary rationale under which Saudi Arabia started negotiations with the United States. These negotiations revolved around US providing Saudi Arabia with comprehensive security guarantees in return for Saudi normalization with Israel.

The Iran factor

On the regional level the Iran factor has played an important role in pushing for a greater alignment between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The rise of Iranian influence particularly after the American invasion of Iraq, the strengthening of Iranian regional proxies whether in Lebanon, Iraq or Yemen and the attempts by Iran to enrich Uranium and develop a nuclear program all contributed to raising the Saudi threat perception of Iran. As the second Obama administration initiated an engagement approach with Iran eventually leading to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement and sanction relief, Gulf States already perturbed by the rise of Political Islamists in the region post-Arab Spring found themselves further cornered.

All these factors contributed towards a greater alignment between the policies of Saudi Arabia and Israel. This led to speculation and media reports indicating covert engagement between the two sides. Yet any decisive engagement that could have led to any significant covert security or political cooperation was hindered by the divergence over the Palestine issue and the continued resonance of this issue within the Saudi populace. Therefore, no meaningful allied collaboration emerged against Iran. As Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities were allegedly attacked by Iranian launched missiles and drones resulting in the suspension of nearly half of its national output and as US withheld any retaliation⁴, it was clear for Saudi decisionmakers that a conflict with Iran would have disastrous consequences for Saudi oil infrastructure and by extension also for Saudi economy still largely dependent upon hydrocarbon revenues.

This compelled Saudi Arabia to initiate negotiations with Iran leading to a Chinese brokered détente between the two nations. In this backdrop, Saudi Arabia has no appetite to be drawn into an Iran-Israel conflict. Saudi Arabia may still be willing to normalise with Israel but clearly not at the cost of this détente which remains critical for progress on Saudi National Development Plan – Vision 2030. Thereby the Iran factor that brought the two sides closer to each other may not retain similar relevance anymore.

The shock of October 7

In an interview just a couple of weeks before the 7^th October 2023 Hamas attacks inside Israel, Saudi Crown Prince suggested that the Kingdom was getting closer to normalising ties with Israel. Furthermore, the Saudi Crown Prince didn’t explicitly link the agreement with the creation of an independent Palestinian State. Yet this Saudi stance changed rapidly in the aftermath of the 7^th October attacks carried out by Hamas and the ensuing Israeli military offensive in Gaza leading to the deaths of more than 53,000 people [Number of deaths as of May 15, 2025] in the strip]].

Unlike the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia didn’t officially condemn the Hamas attacks as it would have appeared to side with Israel. With the rise in death toll in Gaza, the language of Saudi condemnations of Israel has become extremely strong leading eventually to the Crown Prince accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza⁵. The images of death and destruction coming out of the Gaza strip have sensitised a new generation of young Saudis making it impossible to proceed with any form of political engagement with Israel and on the other hand re-linking the legitimacy and political capital of Saudi leaders with this cause. The recent statement by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu suggesting the creation of a Palestinian State within the Saudi Kingdom has also drawn a severe backlash from Saudi Arabia. This statement has pressed both the personal nerve of Saudi leadership and that of their nationalist project. The reaction within Saudi press targeted Netanyahu on a personal level elaborating his family’s involvement in the Zionist movement and as someone who inherited extremist and gangster like mentalities. These personalized attacks against him in Saudi press echoed the change in political atmosphere.

In this backdrop, the arrival of the Trump administration in White House, its publicized stance on Israeli actions in the Gaza strip and an expectation for Saudi Arabia to join Abrahamic accords created a strategic conundrum for a Saudi leadership that had boasted its strong personal ties with President Trump. However, during the recent trip of President Trump to Riyadh, both sides concluded agreements worth 600 billion $, focussing mainly on Saudi investments and partnerships with American technology sector and the Kingdom purchasing American defence equipment.

It appears that through these financial incentives that contribute towards American economic growth, Saudi Arabia has managed to create a direct strategic connectivity with Trump administration that no longer is hyphenated with Israel. Reports suggesting that Trump administration is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalise ties with Israel as a condition for progress on civil nuclear cooperation talks may indicate in this direction. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia’s success in influencing the Trump administration to lift sanctions from Syria is another blow to Israel’s strategic approach towards the region.

These dynamics highlight that the incentives for a Saudi-Israel normalization after the recent visit of President Trump to Riyadh may have reduced even further. Saudi leadership will now be hoping for the successful conclusion of the nuclear talks between the United States and Iran. A settlement between the US and Iran will pave the way for integration of Iran in regional security infrastructure while also reducing the chances of an Israel-Iran conflict. This will hypothetically make it easier for the Kingdom to advance normalisation with Israel in the long run, yet in the short term the Israeli actions in Gaza will put a check on any such engagement.