Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Arab officials Monday in Saudi Arabia about the war between Israel and Hamas and the difficult problems it has created, from humanitarian aid to hostages. Blinken plans to travel to Jordan and Israel on Tuesday.
After landing in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, shortly after dawn, Blinken met with Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, and then with foreign ministers and a top foreign policy adviser from five other Arab nations in the Persian Gulf. which, together with Saudi Arabia, form the Gulf Cooperation Council. Prince Faisal was also part of that second meeting.
The State Department listed the ceasefire and hostage issues first in the summary it released of Blinken’s one-on-one meeting with the prince. The two “discussed ongoing efforts to reach an immediate ceasefire in Gaza that would ensure the release of hostages held by Hamas,” the department said.
The two diplomats also discussed greater regional integration and “a path toward a Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel,” the summary said. That was a reference to negotiations on a comprehensive deal that would involve the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestinian representatives agreeing to terms that would result in the creation of a Palestinian state and greater diplomatic recognition for Israel in the region.
Blinken planned to meet Arab and European officials in a group later Monday to discuss plans to rebuild Gaza, even though Israel is still waging its war there and has not backed down from its difficult, and perhaps impossible, goal. to completely eradicate Hamas.
Saudi Arabia will host a three-day meeting of the World Economic Forum and senior Arab officials, including Blinken’s diplomatic counterparts, will attend the event in Riyadh. The meeting includes senior ministers from Qatar and Egypt, the two Arab mediators in multiple rounds of talks on a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
“The quickest way to end this is to achieve a ceasefire and the release of the hostages,” Blinken said in an onstage conversation with Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum. “Hamas has before it an extraordinarily generous proposal from Israel. And right now, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas.”
“I am hopeful that they make the right decision and we can achieve a fundamental change in the dynamic,” he added.
Blinken and other top advisers to President Biden have also been trying to push for a long-term political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is where the broader deal comes into play. In a call intended to pave the way for Mr. Blinken’s trip, Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone Sunday afternoon for nearly an hour.
The two leaders discussed “increases in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” according to a White House statement released after the call, and Biden repeated his warning against an Israeli ground attack on Rafah in southern Gaza. He also reviewed with Netanyahu the negotiations on the release of hostages.
In the best-case scenario, the Biden administration envisions Saudi Arabia and perhaps some other Arab nations agreeing to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. In exchange, Saudi Arabia would receive advanced weapons and security guarantees, including a mutual defense treaty, from the United States and a commitment to American cooperation on a civilian nuclear program in the kingdom.
For its part, Israel would have to commit to a concrete path toward founding a Palestinian nation, with specific timelines, U.S. and Saudi officials say.
“I think it’s clear that in the absence of a real political horizon for the Palestinians, it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to actually have a coherent plan for Gaza itself,” Blinken said in Monday’s public address. .
Prince Faisal said on Sunday that Saudi officials hoped to discuss concrete steps toward creating a Palestinian state during Blinken’s visit to Riyadh. Calling the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza “a complete failure of the existing political system,” he told a news conference that the kingdom’s government believes the only solution is “a credible and irreversible path to a Palestinian state.”
Before the war began last October, American and Saudi officials were in intense discussions to reach an agreement on the terms of such a proposal. For those negotiators, a big question at the time was what Israel would accept. Since the war began, the Americans and Saudis have publicly insisted that Israel must accept the existence of a Palestinian state.
But Israeli leaders and ordinary citizens have become even more resistant to that idea since the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Israeli authorities say Hamas and its armed allies killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 hostage. . Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including thousands of children, Gaza Health Ministry officials say.
Vivian Nereim and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed with reports.