Saudi Arabia has appointed its first envoy to the Palestinian administration within the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a transfer extensively seen as linked to efforts led by the United States 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 Foreign Affairs introduced on Saturday in a quick assertion. Saudi Arabia acknowledges Palestinian statehood throughout the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the course of the Arab-Israeli struggle of 1967.
The announcement got here amid escalating efforts by the United States to ascertain 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 sort of a check box,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stated in an interview broadcast final week. “You have to check it to say you’re doing it.”
But Saudi and Palestinian analysts stated that the appointment of Ambassador Al-Sudairi confirmed that Riyadh was severe about securing higher remedy for the Palestinians.
“This is the Saudi way of communicating something,” stated Abdulaziz Alghashian, a Saudi professional on Riyadh’s relationship with Israel. “They’re saying that this is a bit more than a check in a box.”
The Saudi ambassador to Jordan has lengthy informally overseen the Palestinian file, in observe if not in title. The formal acknowledgment of that twin function is “a reaction to the perception in Israeli circles that the Saudis don’t really care about the Palestinians,” stated Mr. Alghashian, who relies in Riyadh.
If a deal is reached within the coming yr, it’s anticipated to contain a three-way settlement by which the United States supplies Riyadh with higher navy help and assist for a civil nuclear program, and Israel gives the Palestinians some type of concession.
On Sunday, the Israeli authorities, which is dominated by lawmakers against Palestinian sovereignty, continued to downplay the relevance of the Palestinian part of the negotiations.
Eli Cohen, the Israeli international minister, stated on Sunday in a radio interview that the announcement was largely symbolic. “The Saudis want to convey a message to the Palestinians that they were not forgotten,” Mr. Cohen stated. But in actuality, “the Palestinian issue is not the main issue within the talks,” he added.
But Palestinians took coronary heart from the announcement — notably its assertion that the ambassador would additionally serve, a minimum of in title, as consul common in Jerusalem. Israel has managed all of Jerusalem since 1967 and declared town as its undivided capital, however Palestinians hope that a minimum of a part of it is going to sooner or later function the capital of a Palestinian state.
The appointment of a consul there’s seen as help for these Palestinian aspirations, stated Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center, a Palestinian analysis group in Ramallah, West Bank.
“On a deeper level, it’s seen from a Palestinian perspective as a message that the Saudis will not abandon the Palestinians in their consultations with the U.S. and Israel on a possible normalization deal,” he stated.
But Mr. Cohen, the Israeli international minister, stated Israel wouldn’t allow Saudi Arabia to open a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem.
“We do not allow countries to open consulates” to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, he stated. “This is not compatible with us.”
Israel established diplomatic relations in 2020 with three Arab nations, 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 considered one of its key foreign-policy objectives.
Source: www.nytimes.com