Zohar calls for deal with Saudis without commitment to Palestinian state

Culture Minister Miki Zohar calls for a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia without committing to a Palestinian state, something which Riyadh has demanded as a prerequisite for establishing diplomatic ties.

In a statement, the Likud politician says that a normalization agreement “is a paramount Israeli interest and would change the future of the Middle East for generations to come — naturally while preserving the principles important to Israel and without recognizing a Palestinian state that would endanger our security.”

“Israel is a security power that operates together with the Gulf powers — this is the great nightmare of Israel’s enemies,” Zohar states.

According to Axios, US President Donald Trump urged Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in a phone call last month to normalize relations with Israel following the October 9 Gaza ceasefire deal.

Normalization, which seemed to be in the cards before the war in Gaza, has more recently faltered on Riyadh’s insistence that Israel commit to Palestinian statehood, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes, and which the Israeli public is even less likely to accept in the wake of the past two years.

Last month, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that he wouldn’t agree to a normalization agreement if it meant the establishment of a Palestinian state, disparagingly saying the Saudis could “keep riding camels.”

The far-right Religious Zionism party leader apologized a few hours later, with a caveat that it expected the Saudis “not to do us harm and not to deny our heritage, our tradition and the rights of the Jewish people to its historic homelands in Judea and Samaria, and to establish true peace with us.”