(Washington) The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas attacked Israel in order, among other things, to undermine talks aimed at normalizing relations between the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia, US President Joe Biden said on Friday.
“One of the reasons they did this […] for which they attacked Israel […] is that I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Mr. Biden said during a fundraising event, specifying that Riyadh was thinking in these discussions of officially recognizing the Jewish state.
Saudi Arabia, a heavyweight in the Middle East, has decided to suspend negotiations on possible normalization with Israel sponsored by the United States, a week after the Hamas attack on Israel which is shelling from the Gaza Strip.
This suspension was announced on Saturday October 14 during a visit to Riyadh by American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who spoke with his Saudi counterpart, Faisal bin Farhane.
The latter had called for an “immediate ceasefire in Gaza and its surroundings”, and the lifting of restrictions imposed by Israel on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory, according to a press release from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs , published at the end of the meeting.
Saudi Arabia, guardian of the first holiest sites of Islam, “has decided to suspend discussions on possible normalization with Israel and has informed American officials,” a source close to the Saudi government told AFP.
The Gulf kingdom has never recognized Israel and has not joined the 2020 Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, which allowed its neighbors, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Morocco , to establish official ties with Israel.
He has been pressed in recent months by the American administration to do the same, with Riyadh demanding in exchange security guarantees from Washington and assistance in developing a civil nuclear program.
In an interview with Fox News last month, the crown prince and de facto ruler of the kingdom, Mohammed bin Salman, said he was “getting closer every day” to a normalization agreement with Israel, while emphasizing the importance of the Palestinian question for his country.
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip, opposes normalization agreements with Israel.