A top advisor to US President Joe Biden has reportedly traveled
to Saudi Arabia as part of Washingtons relentless push to broker a
normalization deal between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.
The US-based news website Axios reported on
Saturday that Brett McGurk, Bidens senior Middle East adviser, had
arrived in Saudi Arabia to hold talks with Saudi officials that
will focus on the administrations efforts to reach a normalization
agreement between the Israel and the kingdom as well as other
issues.
According to the report, McGurk was also expected to meet with
Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman to discuss the kingdoms
normalization of relations with Israel.
McGurks visit is part of attempts by the White House to push for
a Saudi-Israeli deal in the next six to seven months before Bidens
presidential election campaigns.
The top advisors trip to Saudi Arabia comes less than two weeks
after US Secretary of State Tony Blinken visited the kingdom and
met bin Salman, with Saudi officials having snubbed the US
diplomats latest push for the normalization deal.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said at
a joint press conference with Blinken that without finding a
pathway to peace for the Palestinian people any normalization will
have limited benefits.
Saudi Arabia cautiously welcomed the US-brokered normalization
deals between the Israeli regime and the United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020.
The oil-rich kingdom itself, however, has been expected to jump
on the bandwagon since then, as the two sides have seen growing
contacts and de-facto rapprochement in recent years, despite claims
that it is committed to the 2002 so-called Arab Peace Initiative,
which conditions normalizing ties with Israel on the establishment
of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967
borders.
The Riyadh regime in November 2020 granted permission for
Israeli airlines to use its airspace, hours before the first
Israeli flight to the UAE was set to take off.
Palestinian leaders, activists and ordinary people have
repeatedly rejected Arab-Israeli normalization deals as a stab in
the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people.