Israeli-Saudi Normalization: An Effective Incentive for Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking?

To help end the war in Gaza and facilitate a pathway to an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution, the United States developed a special package of regional initiatives. A key component of this package is apparently Israeli-Saudi normalization, which is seen as a potentially major incentive for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
The Arab Peace Initiative linked the prospect of Israeli-Arab diplomatic rapprochement to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more than 20 years ago. Since then, Israel signed normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco, hoping that its next major regional achievement would be to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. But in the absence of any significant progress on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and particularly following the breakout of the current war in Gaza, normalization with Riyadh has become that much more difficult to achieve, as the Saudi government conditions normalization with Israel on genuine and irreversible steps toward a two-state solution. At a time when skepticism in post-Oct. 7 Israel toward the two-state solution is at its peak, can the prospect of normalization with Saudi Arabia provide sufficient incentive to alter public preferences and official policies? And more specifically, can Israeli-Saudi normalization be a game-changer in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts?
The Middle East Institute webinar will bring together Israeli and Arab experts to discuss these and related questions. Moreover, the panelists will seek to identify conditions under which such an incentive structure can be most effective by drawing lessons from previous attempts to utilize third-party inducements in the Middle East peace process.
Speakers
Asher Kaufman
John M. Regan, Jr. Director, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Nimrod Goren
Senior Fellow for Israeli Affairs, Middle East Institute
Aziz Alghashian
Fellow, American Gulf States Institute in Washington; Sectarianism, Proxies, & De-sectarianisation Project
Michal Yaari
Lecturer, Hebrew University; Ben Gurion University; Open University
Huda Abuarquob
Peacebuilding Specialist; Conflict Transformation Expert; 1325 UNSCR Women, Peace, and Security Advisor