Analysts say it is not a good sign for Israel and Israeli-Saudi relations that delegations from the Palestinian organizations Fatah, which governs the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, are publicly visiting Saudi Arabia. Negotiations between them are to take place on the Kingdom’s territory, which could give hope for Palestinian national reconciliation. It is worth noting that there are currently two de facto Palestinian quasi-state entities that do not recognize each other, one of which is the Gaza Strip, which is also under blockade. Commentators note that all this comes after several years of Saudi hostility toward Hamas and the much-discussed warming of relations with Israel by Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf monarchies. This so-called normalization took place under the auspices of the so-called Abraham Accords, and its culmination was to be the so-called deal of the century, aimed at resolving the Palestinian issue and paving the way for Jewish-Arab reconciliation. All this was a project of Donald Trump and his Zionist circle, especially his Hasidic son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism.
In fact, even then, when many Muslim resources were crying out about the betrayal of the Palestinian cause by the Arab monarchies, we urged not to overestimate the value of Trump’s PR campaigns, since he was acting more as a showman and businessman than as a strategically-minded politician. We immediately wrote that the «deal of the century» would turn out to be a failure, and we were right, as very few people remember it today. Similarly, Arab-Israeli normalization turned out to be quite modest, essentially reduced to limited business contacts and other practical interactions. However, the Palestinian issue has not disappeared from the Arab agenda, which once again confirms the fact that Hamas, which Trump and company tried to remove from the world stage, is being brought back for discussion. According to them, reaching an agreement with Fatah would be nonsense. Although in reality, as we have noted many times, the perception of an irreconcilable Hamas and a spineless, traitorous Fatah is nothing more than a stereotype — both organizations, each in its own way, defend the Palestinian cause, and the contradictions between them are more related to tactics, methods, priorities, and allies.
What is important, as many analysts note, is that Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) seems to have cooled toward Benjamin Netanyahu. And this is logical — if Netanyahu was once the favorite of the then American President Trump, he is now, along with President Joe Biden, perceived by the American establishment as a lame duck and an obstacle to American policy in the Middle East. MBS is also distancing himself from this policy and has recently made efforts to get closer to China. Through China’s mediation, MBS has managed to at least freeze, if not end, the Saudi-Iranian proxy war in Yemen.
On the other hand, Israel’s positions in the region are objectively weakening against the backdrop of an internal systemic crisis and the Netanyahu government’s appeasement of ultra-Zionist extremists. After all, the latter are rightly beginning to be seen by a growing number of people, not only in the Arab and Muslim world, as the source of serious problems in the country and the region.
Therefore, in a sense, what is happening now in this area looks like a return of regional politics to its foundation, which is national solidarity. In other words, the Palestinian issue was and remains an issue of the entire Arab world, and it is not possible to separate one from the other, no matter how much the ultra-Zionists in Israel and beyond want it.