West Bank leaders are signaling that they are willing to cooperate with White House efforts to strike a landmark Middle East DEAL But securing any agreement to cede control of even small parts of the West Bank from the current Israeli government remains in doubt.
Palestinian leaders want Israel to relinquish control over small parts of the West Bank and tear down some illegal Israeli communities there as part of any U.S.-brokered deal establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, said Saudi and Palestinian officials—far short of demands they have publicly made in the past.
The relatively modest Palestinian demands offer another sign that the West Bank leadership is willing to cooperate with White House efforts to broker a landmark Middle East deal.
The requests, reported earlier by Axios and the Times of Israel, signal a shift for Palestinian leaders, who accused the United Arab Emirates of stabbing them in the back in 2020 when the Gulf nation secretly negotiated a U.S.-brokered deal to formally establish diplomatic relations with Israel. That agreement paved the way for Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan to follow suit, creating momentum for Israeli efforts to establish diplomatic ties with more Arab and Muslim nations.
President Biden is making a push to open up diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, an agreement that would send a message to other Arab and Muslim nations that their decades of shunning Israel should come to an official end.
The complicated discussions face huge hurdles but securing Palestinian support would give any deal added legitimacy. Saudi Arabia has been a longtime financial and political supporter of Palestinian efforts to create an independent nation alongside Israel, but it cut off funding for the Palestinian Authority in 2021 amid persistent concerns about incompetence and corruption.
In talks with Palestinian leaders, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmanhas offered to resume funding to the Palestinian Authority if it cracks down on militant groups in the West Bank—a move that would help demonstrate that it could govern an independent state.
Palestinian Authority emissaries have provided U.S. and Saudi officials with specific ideas on what steps they would like to see as part of any Israel-Saudi agreement, the officials said. Those include calls on Israel to give the Palestinian Authority more control over some parts of the West Bank and a push to demolish illegal Israeli outposts often established without Israeli government permission by hard-line Jewish settlers, the officials said.
Palestinians also are pressing the Biden administration to follow through on its pledge to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem, which was closed by the Trump administration in 2019, and for the U.S. to back full Palestinian representation at the United Nations, the officials said.
The Palestinian requests don’t come close to the maximalist demands often made in public forums, where leaders hold firm to longstanding demands that Israel end its occupation and allow for the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The discussions between Riyadh and Ramallah are likely to evolve as the multifaceted negotiations gain momentum. Palestinian leaders could seek more significant concessions from Israel in the coming months, and the Biden administration has made it clear that it wants any deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia to advance efforts to create a Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia’s leaders also publicly say that they won’t establish diplomatic relations with Israel until they meet that threshold. But the kingdom isn’t expected to hold firm to those demands, which are widely seen as unrealistic under the current conditions.
The asks suggest that the Palestinian leadership is willing to compromise and understand that they will get little to advance their interests if they refuse to work with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia during the talks, political analysts said.
“It’s a positive sign that their leadership is becoming more pragmatic in its approach, as they can use the prospect of diplomatic normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia to bring tangible benefits to their people,” said William Wechsler, senior director of the Rafiq Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
Saudi Arabia is offering to resume financial support to the Palestinian Authority, said Saudi officials and former Palestinian officials familiar with the discussions, a sign that the kingdom is making a serious effort to overcome obstacles to establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.
Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi that he would be willing to accept the Saudi normalization deal with Israel as long as the Palestinian demands are met and stated in the deal, according to officials familiar with the meeting.
But securing any agreement to cede control of even small parts of the West Bank from the current Israeli government remains in doubt. Key members of the right-wing Israeli coalition oppose any deal that would relinquish Israeli control over West Bank land to the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu Refutes Resignation Rumors Tied to Israel-Saudi Deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies reports suggesting he will resign in exchange for a U.S.-backed normalization deal with Saudi Arabia and a plea deal in his criminal trials. The reports claim his resignation would be due to his inability to govern under Israel’s current political conditions.
“We won’t make any concessions to the Palestinians, it’s a fiction,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in an interview earlier this week on Army Radio.