Saudi normalization plan complicated by Trump's Gaza plan: NYT
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Since the war on Gaza, the Saudi leadership has demanded an irreversible route in the region toward Palestinian statehood.
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President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a news conference in the East Room of the White House on February 4, 2025. (AP)
While the United States pursues its wish to incorporate Saudi Arabia into the "Abraham Accords", President Donald Trump's proposal to displace two million Palestinians from Gaza and rebuild the strip as the "Riviera of the Middle East" may have caused a setback to this end, The New York Times reported.
Saudi Arabia, along with several other Arab countries, swiftly rejected the plan, and the kingdom reaffirmed its demand for a Palestinian state before any normalization with the Israeli occupation, citing it was a non-negotiable condition.
The statement was released just after Trump claimed Riyadh had no such condition as he received Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House.
The Israeli PM said normalization with Riyadh is not only feasible, rather he "thinks it's going to happen."
Meanwhile, Netanyahu audaciously asserted that Saudi Arabia could take forcibly displaced Palestinians in and create a Palestinian state for them on Saudi land in an interview for Channel 14 conducted during his Washington visit.
Public indignation in the kingdom over the war, and now over Trump's suggestion to empty Gaza, has complicated the prospects for an agreement with "Israel" that was already going to be tough to implement, NYT highlighted.
Cracks are also becoming more evident in the connection between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
The kingdom's former espionage head and US ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal told CNN Wednesday that Trump "will get an earful from the leadership here" not just about the lack of sense in what he is suggesting but also about the immorality of "ethnic cleansing".
Since the war on Gaza, the Saudi leadership has demanded an irreversible route in the region toward Palestinian statehood.
"We have some red lines," Prince Khalid bin Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom, stated late last month. "And for us to end the last 75 years of pain and suffering caused by one problem has to include a Palestinian state."
The NYT noted that it is plausible that both Trump and the Saudi leadership are putting out maximalist stances as starting points for negotiations. They may eventually adjust to find a compromise, it added.
Gaza residents to confront displacement; US must be isolated: Exclusive
Only Palestinian unity is the way to confront Israeli schemes, said the head of the Joint List in the Israeli Knesset, Ayman Odeh, stressing that the Palestinian people have shattered the Israelis' point of strength: the military.
In an interview for Al Mayadeen, Odeh emphasized "the need to start establishing the widest global alliance to confront and isolate the administration of US President Donald Trump.”
Odeh also rejected the expulsion of the people of the Gaza Strip, stressing that "Trump's idea cannot be tolerated by the people of Gaza, who have stood strong for 15 months" in the face of the war of extermination waged by the Israeli occupation with American support.
The Knesset member also touched on Cairo's position on this issue, explaining that Egypt would reject the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, "for several considerations, the most important of which is Egyptian national security."
In addition, the head of the Joint List stressed that the Israeli occupation is pursuing the Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1948, "especially those who support Gaza."
Speaking to Al Mayadeen, Odeh highlighted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "classified us as enemies when he spoke about the internal front, alongside the fronts of Gaza, the West Bank, and South Lebanon." While he pointed out that "the attack he is being subjected to by members of the Knesset is due to the Israeli failure in Gaza," he stressed "the steadfastness of our moral and humanitarian position."
