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Palestinians set out terms for agreeing to historic Saudi-Israeli deal
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has said there could be "a pivot of
history" with his country's ties with Saudi Arabia
By Tom Bateman
BBC News, Jerusalem

A cash boost of hundreds of millions of dollars and more control of land
in the occupied West Bank are among Palestinian demands in the event of
a three-way deal involving the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the BBC has
learned.

Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) held talks in Riyadh with
Saudi counterparts on Wednesday.

They were also due to see US officials.

The Americans are long thought to have been pushing for a landmark pact
to normalise Israel-Saudi ties.

It would be underwritten by Washington and would include a major
security deal the Saudis want to achieve with the US. But the prospects
for such agreements face significant obstacles and remain distant.

"We don't expect any imminent announcements or breakthroughs in the
period ahead," said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan
on Tuesday.

However, given the scope for a historic realignment of ties in the
Middle East, there is continuing speculation over the framework for any
deal, with American shuttle diplomacy picking up again after trips by
officials to Riyadh, Amman and Jerusalem this summer.

Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat elbow bumps with an
Emirati official at Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates (1
September 2020)
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS
Image caption,
In 2020 three Arab nations, including the United Arab Emirates,
normalised ties with Israel
US President Joe Biden is likely to see a Saudi-Israel deal as a
breakthrough foreign policy prize he can present to voters ahead of next
year's election.

Saudi Arabia is a leader of the Arab and Islamic world. It has never
formally recognised Israel since the creation of the state in 1948.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked up the possibility last
month, claiming: "We're about to witness a pivot of history."

Any deal, though, would be deeply controversial.

In return for recognising Israel, Saudi Arabia is said to be demanding
US guarantees for advanced American-made weapons and, most contentious
of all, a civil nuclear programme including in-country uranium enrichment.

Israel for its part would benefit from trade and defence ties with the
Gulf superpower and further historic integration it has always sought in
the region, following on from other Arab state normalisation deals
brokered in 2020.

"These are mostly security and trade agreements. Fast forward to the
year 2023, and we now see that Saudi Arabia also wants to get involved
in this," said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the official
Palestinian negotiating team in the now-moribund peace talks with the
Israelis.

For a deal to succeed it would have to be seen to involve significant
Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler,
needs to assuage his own public - historically opposed to Israel and
deeply sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Israeli forces close all entrances and exits to Burqa due to tensions
between Palestinians and Jewish settlers in Burqa village of Ramallah,
West Bank
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Among demands of Palestinian officials is the transfer of parts of the
West Bank currently under full Israeli control
Meanwhile, President Biden will also need to prove he has won
significant gains for the Palestinians to get support from his
Democratic Party. Many in the party reject the idea of any defence
sweeteners for the Saudis due to the country's human rights record and
its role in the war in Yemen. They are also hostile to the idea of
rewarding Israel's current extreme nationalist governing coalition,
which they see as exacerbating tensions in the West Bank and which has
sparked unprecedented instability within Israel itself.

The team of top Palestinian officials in Riyadh - including the two men
seen as closest to President Mahmoud Abbas, the PA's intelligence chief,
Majed Faraj, and Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the Palestine
Liberation Organisation - met Saudi national security adviser Musaed
al-Aiban on Wednesday, according to a senior Palestinian official
familiar with the discussions.

Their list of demands in return for engaging with the American-backed
process was set out during a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of
State Barbara Leaf last week in Amman. The Palestinian official told the
BBC the demands include:

Transferring parts of the West Bank currently under full Israeli control
(known as Area C under the 1990s Oslo peace accords) to the governance
of the Palestinian Authority
A "complete cessation" of Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank
Resuming Saudi financial support to the PA, which slowed from 2016 and
stopped completely three years ago, to the tune of around $200m (£160m)
per year
Re-opening the US consulate in Jerusalem - the diplomatic mission to the
Palestinians - that was shut down by President Donald Trump
Resuming US-brokered negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians
from where they stopped under then-Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014.
Such concessions are very significant - reportedly already seen by the
Americans as overreaching by the Palestinians. But they are a far cry
from the official, publicly stated Palestinian position on Saudi-Israel
normalisation - which is to reject it outright if it does not leave them
with an independent state.

This follows the Arab Peace Initiative, a Saudi-led plan of 2002, which
offered the Arab world's recognition of Israel in return for Israeli
withdrawal from the occupied territories and a Palestinian state in the
West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem.

The current approach reflects the deep "bind" the Palestinian leadership
is in, according to Ms Buttu.

"Palestinians by and large don't want to be part of any of these
normalisation deals because [the Arab world's support] is the only tool
that we have left," she said.

"We've been told that we're not allowed to violently resist. We're told
that we're not allowed to pursue legal measures to demand an end to the
occupation. We're told that we're not allowed to pursue boycotts,
divestment and sanction."

"The Palestinian Authority is now questioning: should we instead be
trying to get our demands heard and realised, or should we do what we
did in 2020 which was to ignore it? And again it's a bind - no matter
what the Palestinian Authority does on this, it is doomed to fail," Ms
Buttu told the BBC.

A demonstration ahead of a speech given by Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's in Petah Tikva
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Judicial reform plans by Israel's current extreme nationalist governing
coalition sparked unprecedented instability
In 2020, three Arab countries - the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and
Morocco - normalised ties with Israel in deals brokered by the US under
President Trump. A fourth, Sudan, also pledged to take steps towards
diplomatic ties with Israel that year. But the process stalled amid
opposition in the country and a military coup the following year.

They were seen as a historic shift in relations between old adversaries
in the Middle East, involving diplomatic, trade and security ties. But
critics highlighted the significant US inducements also involved,
including access to top-shelf American-made weapons for Arab autocracies.

At the time, the PA was frozen out of discussions as it boycotted
diplomatic ties with the US in response to President Trump's
Israeli-Palestinian "deal of the century" - a peace plan heavily
weighted towards Israel - and his move of the US embassy to Jerusalem.
The PA saw the normalisation deals as a "betrayal" of Arab solidarity.

Instead, engaging with the Saudis this time may be a way to remind
Riyadh of the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative - the goal of an
independent Palestinian state - rather than being left out of the
process completely, suggested another senior Palestinian official.

But there are significant risks for the Palestinian leadership - already
deeply unpopular with its own public - in becoming involved if the
benefits are perceived as negligible.

Polling after the UAE-Israel normalisation in 2020 suggested the
overwhelming majority of Palestinians saw that deal as an abandonment of
the Palestinian cause that served only the interests of Israel.

Any Israeli concessions to the Palestinians are almost certain to be
rejected by the ultranationalists in Mr Netanyahu's coalition, amounting
to a further stumbling block to any deal. Mr Netanyahu earlier this year
brushed aside Palestinian concessions as a "check box" exercise that
wouldn't be part of any substantive American-brokered discussions with
Saudi Arabia.