Saudi FM says no ties with Israel until peace with Palestinians
Says country committed to peace based on the Arab Initiative.
By LAHAV HARKOVSaudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan al-Saud attends the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, February 24, 2020.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Saudi Arabia maintains its policy of not making ties with Israel official until there is peace with the Palestinians, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said on Wednesday.Bin Farhan’s remarks were the first comments from a Saudi official on Israel and the UAE’s normalization agreement announced last week.“Saudi Arabia affirms its commitment to peace as a strategic option based on the Arab Peace Initiatives,” he said.The Arab Peace Initiative involves a full Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 lines, including dividing Jerusalem. It also calls for all Palestinian refugees of the 1948 War of Independence and their descendants, of which the UN says there are about five million, to be granted the right of return. The plan, also known as the Saudi Initiative, offers Israel peace and normalization with Arab states in exchange for accepting it.Bin Farhan also described “Israel’s unilateral policies of annexation and building settlements as illegitimate and detrimental to the two-states solution.”The announced normalization agreement between Israel and the UAE included an Israeli agreement to suspend any moves to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria.The Saudi foreign minister said that part of the agreement “could be viewed as positive.”Ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia have grown behind the scenes in recent years, in light of the countries’ shared opposition to Iran.White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner said that Saudi Arabia could have open ties with Israel after some of the other Gulf states do.“I do think we have other countries that are very interested in moving forward [with Israel]. And as that progresses I do think that it’s an inevitability that Saudi Arabia and Israel will have fully normalized relations and they’ll be able to do a lot of great things together,” he told CNBC on Friday.Kushner said that Saudi Arabia’s younger generation sees Israel as “almost the Silicon Valley of the Middle East” and wants ties, while older leaders are “still stuck in conflicts of the past.”“You can’t turn around a battleship overnight,” he added.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that he is working on an agreement to have direct flights between Israel and the UAE fly over Saudi airspace.Air India flights between India and Israel already fly over Saudi Arabia.
