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Saudi Arabia has appointed its first envoy to the Palestinian administration within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, a transfer broadly seen as linked to efforts led by the US 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 Overseas Affairs introduced on Saturday in a quick statement. Saudi Arabia acknowledges Palestinian statehood throughout the West Financial institution, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured throughout the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967.
The announcement got here amid escalating efforts by the US 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 — may now be ready to take action with out Israel’s offering the Palestinians with better autonomy.
“It’s type of a examine field,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel mentioned in an interview broadcast final week. “You need to examine it to say you’re doing it.”
However Saudi and Palestinian analysts mentioned that the appointment of Ambassador Al-Sudairi confirmed that Riyadh was severe about securing higher therapy for the Palestinians.
“That is the Saudi method of speaking one thing,” mentioned Abdulaziz Alghashian, a Saudi skilled on Riyadh’s relationship with Israel. “They’re saying that this is a little more than a examine in a field.”
The Saudi ambassador to Jordan has lengthy informally overseen the Palestinian file, in observe if not in identify. The formal acknowledgment of that twin position is “a response to the notion in Israeli circles that the Saudis don’t actually care concerning the Palestinians,” mentioned Mr. Alghashian, who is predicated in Riyadh.
If a deal is reached within the coming 12 months, it’s anticipated to contain a three-way settlement wherein the US supplies Riyadh with better navy help and assist for a civil nuclear program, and Israel gives the Palestinians some sort 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, mentioned on Sunday in a radio interview that the announcement was largely symbolic. “The Saudis need to convey a message to the Palestinians that they weren’t forgotten,” Mr. Cohen mentioned. However in actuality, “the Palestinian problem is just not the primary problem inside the talks,” he added.
However Palestinians took coronary heart from the announcement — significantly its assertion that the ambassador would additionally serve, not less than in identify, as consul normal in Jerusalem. Israel has managed all of Jerusalem since 1967 and declared the town as its undivided capital, however Palestinians hope that not less than a part of it would someday function the capital of a Palestinian state.
The appointment of a consul there’s seen as help for these Palestinian aspirations, mentioned Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Heart, a Palestinian analysis group in Ramallah, West Financial institution.
“On a deeper degree, it’s seen from a Palestinian perspective as a message that the Saudis is not going to abandon the Palestinians of their consultations with the U.S. and Israel on a potential normalization deal,” he mentioned.
However Mr. Cohen, the Israeli international minister, mentioned Israel wouldn’t allow Saudi Arabia to open a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem.
“We don’t permit nations to open consulates” to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, he mentioned. “This isn’t suitable 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 one among its key foreign-policy objectives.
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