Saudi Arabia has reiterated its long-standing position that it will not normalize relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state, countering recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Saudi Foreign Ministry emphasized that the kingdom's stance in favor of a Palestinian state along pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, remains “firm and unwavering.” The statement recalled Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s September 2023 remarks, where he stated that Riyadh would not establish formal ties with Israel unless this condition was met.
The Saudi statement did not directly reference Trump by name but clarified that its position had been communicated to both the previous and current U.S. administrations. Trump, during a press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had suggested that Saudi Arabia had not made Palestinian statehood a prerequisite for a peace deal with Israel.
While Trump and Netanyahu expressed optimism about a potential Saudi-Israeli agreement, analysts note that the ongoing Gaza war has intensified Saudi Arabia’s insistence on a more concrete pathway to Palestinian statehood before any normalization.
Trump’s first term saw the Abraham Accords facilitate Israel’s diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. Hopes for a similar deal with Saudi Arabia—an economic powerhouse and the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites—were put on hold after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Riyadh had been in negotiations for a U.S.-brokered defense pact and a civilian nuclear program in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel, but the conflict shifted priorities.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials pushed back against Trump's suggestion that Gazans should be permanently resettled elsewhere, a proposal he made while hinting that the U.S. could oversee such a relocation.
Speaking at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority’s UN envoy, dismissed the idea, stating, “Our homeland is our homeland… and leaders and people should respect the wishes of the Palestinian people.” He added that those displaced should be allowed to return to their original homes, including inside Israel.
Hamas also condemned Trump’s remarks, calling them an attempt to forcibly displace Gazans. “We consider them a recipe for generating chaos and tension in the region because the people of Gaza will not allow such plans to pass,” said senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri.
-Israel Times