Are the signs pointing to an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal?

The United States has hinted that more Arab nations may take steps to improve ties with Israel ahead of President Joe Biden’s arrival in Saudi Arabia on Friday.

All eyes are on the kingdom, where Biden is set to land despite an earlier vow to treat the kingdom as a “pariah” over the 2018 assassination and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

But despite recent signs of US-Saudi rapprochement, analysts think it’s unlikely Riyadh will agree to diplomatic ties with Israel — not during Biden’s visit or while King Salman, 86, is still in power.

The king’s official policy is that there should be no peace with Israel until it withdraws from the occupied territories and accepts Palestinian statehood.

Biden’s visit will likely focus on convincing the world’s largest crude oil exporter to increase its oil production.

Here are some questions and answers on the possibility of a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel:

Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Israel is a “potential ally with many interests that we can pursue together,” state media reported in March, attributing the statement to an interview with The Atlantic.

Additionally, the kingdom showed no opposition when its regional ally, the United Arab Emirates, established diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020, followed by Bahrain and Morocco under the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

In January 2021, Sudan’s interim government also agreed to do the same, but the northeast African country has yet to finalize the deal.

Saudi Arabia also allowed direct flights from the Emirates to Israel to travel through its airspace at the time, another implicit sign of approval.

Biden, who will arrive in Jeddah on the Red Sea, is set to travel straight from the Jewish state to Saudi Arabia and become the first US president to fly from there to an Arab nation that does not recognize Israel.

In 2017, his predecessor Donald Trump did the opposite.

In an apparent gesture of openness to Israel ahead of Biden’s arrival on Friday, Saudi Arabia announced it would lift restrictions on “all airlines” using its airspace – effectively suspending overflight restrictions on planes traveling to and from Israel.

In recent months, some Saudis have taken to social media – which is tightly controlled in the kingdom – to express support for a normalization that would mean a departure from the kingdom’s longstanding pan-Arab policy of isolating Israel until the conflict with the Palestinians is resolved is.

Esawi Frej, Israel’s regional cooperation minister, told Saudi newspaper Arab News in June that Riyadh would be “central” to any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

News website Axios reported in June that the United States was working on a “roadmap” for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, while the Wall Street Journal said the region’s two most influential nations were holding secret economic and security talks.

Yasmine Farouk of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said a relationship with Israel would contribute to greater acceptance of Saudi Arabia.

“It will open doors for the crown prince, with western people and parliaments accepting the kingdom and giving Saudi Arabia a bigger role,” she said.

This would reinforce Prince Mohammed’s vision of his country as “a world power, not just Arab and Islamic”.

Israel, for its part, wants normalization “because it will not only open the door to Saudi Arabia, but also to other (Arab and Muslim) countries that may already have secret talks with Israel but are not yet daring to normalize,” Farouk said.

The two countries have a common enemy in Iran, said a Riyadh-based diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“They look at it in terms of ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,'” he said.

Saudi officials contacted by AFP declined to comment due to the “sensitivity” of the issue.

Dan Shapiro, who served as former US President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Israel, told AFP he expects Biden’s trip to bring “some important steps” toward Saudi diplomatic recognition of Israel, “probably not full normalization, but one timetable leading in this direction”.

Actually implementing this roadmap is “difficult as long as King Salman lives,” said Farouk.

“The word ‘normalisation’ should be used more cautiously… There may be some form of relationship, but as far as the Emirates and Bahrain I’m still a bit skeptical.”

Kristian Ulrichsen of Rice University’s Baker Institute said full diplomatic relations are only likely if Prince Mohammed becomes king.

“In the meantime, we will likely see a continuation of the current approach of normalizing the notion that Saudi Arabia and Israel are not enemies but share certain regional and geopolitical interests,” he told AFP.