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NEW YORK — The prospect of a historic diplomatic normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia inched closer to reality Wednesday.
President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed optimism about an Israeli-Saudi breakthrough as they met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The much-anticipated meeting was otherwise fraught with unusually stark tensions.
“I think that under your leadership, Mr. President, we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of the meeting. It was the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative, nationalist coalition returned to power at the end of 2022.
American and Israeli officials warned that the meeting would be cold because of Mr. Biden’s frustration with the Netanyahu government’s contentious judicial overhaul and aggressive Jewish settlement policies, but the comments about Saudi Arabia signaled a moment of warmth. The deal would build on Israel’s diplomatic recognition agreement with other Arab states under the Trump administration.
“If you and I 10 years ago were talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia, I think we’d look at each other like, ‘Who’s been drinking what?’” said Mr. Biden. He suggested that he and Mr. Netanyahu may be more aligned than meets the eye on a significant initiative that could redraw the strategic map for the volatile region.
In the closely watched meeting between the leaders of two longtime allies, Mr. Biden told Mr. Netanyahu that he plans to welcome him in Washington by December. The offer was designed to ease tensions over a perceived snub of the right-wing leader, who has had an uneasy relationship with the current U.S. administration.
Mr. Netanyahu has not received the traditional White House invitation for new Israeli leaders, even though Mr. Biden and Congress hosted President Isaac Herzog this year to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Israel’s statehood.
The semi-casual meeting inside the InterContinental Hotel in Manhattan took on unusual significance. They were a few blocks from U.N. headquarters, where the General Assembly gathering of world leaders is playing out.
The Biden administration has been critical of Mr. Netanyahu’s efforts to overhaul his nation’s independent judiciary. Critics say the plan is intended to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court and power over its executive and legislative branches. Mr. Biden has also complained about Israel’s expansion of its settlements in the West Bank. Palestinians say they need the land for a future independent state.
Mr. Biden said at the top of the meeting that he was prepared to “discuss some of the hard issues, that is upholding democratic values that lie at the heart of our partnership, including the checks and balances in our systems.” He said the two would discuss the Palestinian situation and their joint effort to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
The comments on Israel-Saudi relations suggested common ground on another initiative.
Saudi-Israel breakthrough?
Biden administration officials have been quietly brokering indirect talks between the Israelis and Saudis for months in an effort to advance the Abraham Accords brokered under President Trump to end a long diplomatic freeze between Israel and four Arab powers.
Mr. Biden has cautiously embraced the accords, named after the prophet recognized by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They brought normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. The 2020 development marked the first official acknowledgment of Israel’s sovereignty by Arab nations since Egypt and Jordan broke from the rest of the Middle East to establish diplomatic ties with Israel in 1979 and 1994, respectively.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the wealthiest and most powerful of the Gulf Arab powers, remained on the sidelines, in large part because of the Netanyahu government’s policies toward the Palestinians. Although Riyadh has signaled tacit acceptance of the spirit of the Trump-era accords, it has yet to formally join.
Mr. Netanyahu, who worked closely with Mr. Trump on the Abraham Accords, has said the inclusion of Saudi Arabia would mark a “quantum leap” forward for Israel and the region.
“I think such a peace would go a long way for us to advance the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict, achieve reconciliation between the Islamic world and the Jewish state and advance a genuine peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” the Israeli prime minister said.
“This is something within our reach,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Obstacles remain, and it is unclear whether the Saudi royal family is as optimistic as the Israeli prime minister or Mr. Biden.
Although Saudi officials have participated in back-channel talks on normalization with Israel, they have conditions. Most notably, Riyadh is pushing for a nuclear cooperation deal and a more formal security guarantee from the United States as the price for its cooperation.
The Saudis have also said they expect Israel to make significant concessions to the Palestinians, which analysts say may be impossible for Mr. Netanyahu. The prime minister’s hold on power in Jerusalem relies on a coalition of right-wing and religious Israeli parties during soaring tensions with the Palestinians. Several of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition partners are firmly against the idea of giving the Palestinians their own state.
Mr. Biden appears to be cognizant of this and of the reality that the Saudis are wary of normalizing relations with Israel because of concerns over the plight of the Palestinians.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that “there is no other way” to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than by establishing an independent Palestinian state.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged the complexity of negotiations over Saudi-Israeli normalization.
“Everyone involved understands the potential benefits, sees the transformative nature of what this would be, but the devil is always in the details,” Mr. Blinken said during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.
“Making sure that in terms of what the Saudis are looking for, the Israelis are looking for … what we’d be looking for, can we line all that up? Can we make it work? That remains to be seen,” he said. “It’s challenging. But, again, I come back to this proposition that if we can get there, it would be one of the biggest changes for the good that we’ve seen in that part of the world. And beyond that, I think you’d see positive repercussions well beyond the Middle East.”
Tense meeting
Mr. Biden was wrapping up two days of diplomacy at the U.N. gathering, which was notable in part for the absence of key leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the heads of France, Britain and India.
As the General Assembly leaders’ speeches went on, the U.N. Security Council held a tense special meeting on Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is heading Moscow’s delegation to the General Assembly while President Vladimir Putin stays away from this year’s annual gathering, arrived nearly two hours into the Security Council meeting.
Mr. Lavrov slipped into the chamber as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was delivering remarks sharply critical of Russia, accusing Moscow of “committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine on an almost daily basis,” while also engaging in “reckless nuclear saber-rattling.”
Mr. Lavrov countered in his own remarks, pushing a common Kremlin-narrative that Ukraine is a puppet of the United States, asserting at one point that Washington should “command” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to enter into negotiations with Moscow and bring an end to the 18-month-old war.
Before the meeting started, all eyes were on whether there would be fireworks between Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Zelenskyy, who also attended the meeting. But the two never did cross paths: The Ukrainian leader left shortly after delivering his own remarks, during which he asserted that Russian atrocities in Ukraine warrant stripping Moscow of its veto power on the Security Council.
• Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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