By Raviv Drucker
Jan 13, 2025
A few months after the Gaza war began, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s key decision-maker.
Crown Prince Mohammed told a surprised Blinken that he wants to do it – referring to normalization with Israel. “Not only do I want to pursue it, but I want to pursue it with urgency,” the Saudi monarch added. “I think we need to try to get this done in the next few months because then you will be into your election season. It’s going to be hard for you to do anything then.”
“What do you need from Israel in order to actually do the normalization?” Blinken asked. “I need quiet in Gaza and I need a clear political pathway for the Palestinians, for a state,” the crown prince replied.
According to the detailed account in Bob Woodward’s book “War,” when Blinken asked why he wanted a Palestinian state, the frank response was: “It doesn’t matter that much…. [But] I have 70 percent of my population that’s younger than I am. Before October 7, they paid no attention to Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since October 7, that’s all they are focused on. … And I have other countries in the Arab world, in the Muslim world that care deeply, and I will not betray my people.”
Blinken received Crown Prince Mohammed’s approval to raise the matter with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was very interested. Until then, it had seemed that October 7 had destroyed the previously excellent prospects for a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement.
“What do you think he means by quiet in Gaza?” Netanyahu asked Blinken, who responded that there would be no Israeli boots on the ground in the Strip.
“We’re going to work on this,” Netanyahu said, and asked: “Palestinian pathway. What does that mean?” It needs to be clear, irreversible, genuine and credible, Blinken responded. “We can work something. We’ll need creative wordsmithing on it,” the prime minister then declared, according to Woodward’s account. “No, no, no, you missed the point,” Blinken replied. “It can’t – not creative wordsmithing. It’s got to be real.”
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