Saudi Arabia Appoints Envoy to Palestinians Amid Push for Ties With Israel

Saudi Arabia has appointed its first envoy to the Palestinian administration within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, a transfer extensively seen as linked to efforts led by the USA to forge diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The Saudi envoy to Jordan, Nayef Al-Sudairi, will now concurrently function a “nonresident ambassador to the State of Palestine,” the Saudi Ministry of International Affairs introduced on Saturday in a short statement. Saudi Arabia acknowledges Palestinian statehood throughout the West Financial institution, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured throughout the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967.

The announcement got here amid escalating efforts by the USA to determine formal relations for the primary time between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It additionally adopted hypothesis in Israel that Saudi Arabia — which has lengthy opposed enacting formal ties till the Israeli-Palestinian battle has been resolved — would possibly now be ready to take action with out Israel’s offering the Palestinians with higher autonomy.

“It’s form of a test field,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stated in an interview broadcast final week. “It’s important to test it to say you’re doing it.”

However Saudi and Palestinian analysts stated that the appointment of Ambassador Al-Sudairi confirmed that Riyadh was severe about securing higher therapy for the Palestinians.

“That is the Saudi approach of speaking one thing,” stated Abdulaziz Alghashian, a Saudi skilled on Riyadh’s relationship with Israel. “They’re saying that this is a little more than a test in a field.”

The Saudi ambassador to Jordan has lengthy informally overseen the Palestinian file, in observe if not in title. The formal acknowledgment of that twin position is “a response to the notion in Israeli circles that the Saudis don’t actually care concerning the Palestinians,” stated Mr. Alghashian, who is predicated in Riyadh.

If a deal is reached within the coming 12 months, it’s anticipated to contain a three-way settlement during which the USA gives Riyadh with higher army assist and assist for a civil nuclear program, and Israel affords the Palestinians some form of concession.

On Sunday, the Israeli authorities, which is dominated by lawmakers against Palestinian sovereignty, continued to downplay the relevance of the Palestinian element of the negotiations.

Eli Cohen, the Israeli international minister, stated on Sunday in a radio interview that the announcement was largely symbolic. “The Saudis wish to convey a message to the Palestinians that they weren’t forgotten,” Mr. Cohen stated. However in actuality, “the Palestinian subject just isn’t the primary subject inside the talks,” he added.

However Palestinians took coronary heart from the announcement — notably its assertion that the ambassador would additionally serve, a minimum of in title, as consul normal in Jerusalem. Israel has managed all of Jerusalem since 1967 and declared the town as its undivided capital, however Palestinians hope that a minimum of a part of it would in the future function the capital of a Palestinian state.

The appointment of a consul there’s seen as assist for these Palestinian aspirations, stated Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Middle, a Palestinian analysis group in Ramallah, West Financial institution.

“On a deeper stage, it’s seen from a Palestinian perspective as a message that the Saudis won’t abandon the Palestinians of their consultations with the U.S. and Israel on a potential normalization deal,” he stated.

However Mr. Cohen, the Israeli international minister, stated Israel wouldn’t allow Saudi Arabia to open a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem.

“We don’t enable international locations to open consulates” to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, he stated. “This isn’t appropriate with us.”

Israel established diplomatic relations in 2020 with three Arab international locations, together with the United Arab Emirates, ending years of isolation within the Arab world and resulting in hypothesis that Saudi Arabia can be subsequent. The Biden administration has now made Saudi-Israeli relations one in all its key foreign-policy objectives.