US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday voiced hope that President-elect Donald Trump will pick up his work to normalize ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, acknowledging a historic deal will not happen under Joe Biden’s administration.
Blinken until recently was still voicing hope at reaching an agreement, which he had dangled as an incentive for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to show moderation in the Gaza war.
“The work that we’ve done on putting in place the elements of that deal, including what we and Saudi Arabia would do together, what they would do with Israel, all of that is now there,” Blinken said in an interview with MSNBC.
“My hope is we’ll move as far as we can, but it won’t be complete,” he said.
“But we’ll be able to hand it over, and then the next administration can decide how it wants to proceed.”
He offered rare praise for Trump’s record in shepherding the 2020 Abraham Accords in which the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco forged ties with Israel, its first normalizations with the Arab world in decades.
“Now the opportunity is there — and I know this is something that the president (Trump) will be focused on -– to broaden that out with the Saudis,” Blinken said.
Netanyahu had considered Israel’s growing acceptance in the Arab and Islamic worlds a key legacy. Saudi Arabia would be a major prize due to its role as the guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites.
Momentum broke down when Hamas carried out a massive attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel, which has responded with a relentless military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
But Blinken in recent months said the Biden administration had negotiated a US package to offer Saudi Arabia if it agreed to normalize with Israel, which is believed to include security guarantees by Washington for the kingdom.
De facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, however, has ruled out recognizing Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state — an idea anathematic to much of Netanyahu’s hard-right government.
