Saudi cools talk of Israel ties as wider war threatens

Just a year after announcing that diplomatic ties with Israel were getting closer, Saudi Arabia's de facto leader has shut down talk of normalisation as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to spread.

The tougher tone from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came the same day that exploding walkie-talkies killed members of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, again raising fears of a wider war.

The Iran-backed group blamed Israel and has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces since October in support of Palestinian movement Hamas.

The Saudis have previously made clear they want a path to a Palestinian state, but Prince Mohammed explicitly told the advisory Shura Council on Wednesday that an "independent Palestinian state" is a condition for normalisation.

"We affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without one," he said.

According to Saudi government adviser Ali Shihabi, the Saudi position was always clear, even if "some had insinuated that it was flexible".

Prince Mohammed wanted to "eliminate any ambiguity" with his latest comments, Shihabi said.

The prince quashed upbeat messaging from the United States, after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this month that normalisation was possible before President Joe Biden leaves office in January.

Days after the war in Gaza broke out on October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, Saudi Arabia suspended talks with the United States on a wide-ranging deal that included normalisation with Israel and a security package for the kingdom.

Weeks earlier, Prince Mohammed had told US TV channel Fox News that "every day we get closer" to normalisation, although he added: "For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part."

Only a handful of Arab countries recognise Israel, including Saudi neighbour and fellow oil-producer the United Arab Emirates, following the US-brokered Abraham Accords of 2020.

- Violence and 'atrocities' -

The US has pushed the idea of Saudi-Israeli normalisation, hoping to give an incentive to Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- who rejects a Palestinian state -- to stop the war and gain a powerful Arab ally, the guardian of Islam's two holiest sites.

But after almost a year of war in Gaza, relations with Israel are simply unthinkable for the Saudi public, analysts say.

"The violence of the war and the atrocities committed against the Palestinians have killed the possibility that normalisation could be accepted by public opinion in Saudi Arabia," said Rabha Saif Allam of the Cairo Center for Strategic Studies.

According to Anna Jacobs of the International Crisis Group think tank, "Israel has crossed all the red lines and is trying to start a multi-front war, which will further destabilise the Middle East".

The October 7 Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures as reliable.

- 'Pressure on Israel' -

Saudi Arabia initially opened talks on normalisation in an attempt to help calm the troubled region as it seeks to shift its oil-reliant economy to trade, business and tourism.

But a "spread of the conflict could affect development projects" and Saudi Arabia's ability to attract investment, Allam said.

Prince Mohammed is now trying to "increase pressure on Israel and the US to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza", Jacobs said.

He also wants to "prevent a wider regional war that would pit the US and Israel on one side and Iran and its (allies) on the other".

"This is a terrible scenario for Riyadh and all the Gulf states, who could be caught in the crossfire," she said.

For Jacobs, the question is whether Riyadh's increasingly "aggressive" stance "will be followed by action, particularly in its relations with the United States, Israel's greatest ally".

"Saudi Arabia seems to be signalling, at least in public, that normalisation with Israel is off the table for now," she said.

"But how else could Saudi Arabia rally the Arab and Islamic worlds and apply pressure on Israel and the US?

"That is the question we should be asking."