In his recent statements, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs considers that the authorization granted to the Israeli air force to fly over the airspace is not normalization. “We allow all states to fly over our airspace and we have allowed them this. Don’t call it normalization.” said Fayçal ben Farhane, on July 16, in his press briefing at the end of the Jeddah summit attended by American President Joe Biden and 9 heads of Arab states. “This is not the prelude to establishing relations with Israel,” he continues in response to a question regarding the kingdom’s decision announced the day before “to open its airspace to all air carriers”.
The same rhetoric concerning the green light given by Israel to the departure of the multinational force stationed since the Camp David agreements of 1979 on the island of Tiran, an essential measure to consequently authorize the transfer to Saudi Arabia of its sovereignty and that of Sanafir, two confetti of 62 and 33 km² at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba. In exchange for what Riyadh should preserve “freedom of navigation in this strategic strait of the Red Sea, including for Israeli ships bound for the port of Eilat”, in the words of the US president who sponsored this transfer calling it a historic decision. “.
“It’s not normalization”, retorted F. ben Farhane during the improvised press briefing in Jeddah.
Other steps that illustrate the Saudi journey towards normalization have already been taken. The most recent, most significant, took place during the pilgrimage season: the Saudi authorities appointed a cleric who advocates normalization with Israel, Sheikh Mohamad Issa, to lead the prayer and deliver the sermon on Arafat’s day, the culmination of this religious rite.
In recent years, dozens of Israeli officials have visited Saudi Arabia, according to Israel Hayom. The same goes for dozens of businessmen and tech pioneers who signed deals there for Saudi investments in Israeli companies and investment funds, according to the Israeli business daily. Globes, that they surrendered with their Israeli passports. the Wall Street Journal revealed last May the Saudi government’s first multi-million dollar investment in Israeli tech companies
Not to mention that Saudi Arabia had sponsored the normalization process of four Arab countries that are its closest allies in 2020: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. With the latter she paid the 335 million dollars claimed by the United States to reimburse the victims of attacks once morest the United States embassy in Kenya and Tanzania, attributed to jihadists who had been hosted by Sudan, during the reign of Omar al-Bashir.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not fail to express his “Gratitude to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his contribution to the conclusion of four historic peace agreements known as the Abraham Accords”.
In fact, the standardization process is going well, gradually, without signing an agreement. Its formalization can wait.
And it seems that the Saudi leadership feels that the time has not yet come to do so. The considerations driving this procrastination have nothing to do with the statements of its leaders who insist on the need to restore the rights of the Palestinian people and to advance the two-state solution.
No pressure is exerted on the part of the Saudis in this direction. If not statements, no effect on the Israelis. In the Palestinian territories of 1967, supposed to constitute the geography of the coveted Palestinian State, colonization continues. And no question for the Israelis to share al-Quds with the Palestinians. The Palestinian neighborhoods to the east of the holy city are being gradually nibbling away at by the Jewish settlement organizations which are extending their hold there.
Saudi policy is fiercely hostile to both Palestinian resistance movements and the Lebanese resistance. The Saudi press is full of positions that denigrate them, on the pretext that they are in the pay of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
On several occasions, Saudi officials have said that “Arabia will be the last to normalize relations with Israel.” These remarks in no way reflect the rejection of normalization but the need for other Arab countries, and Muslims by extension, to go ahead with it. Otherwise, it risks its leadership of the Arab-Islamic world.
The Israelis understand this very well. They prefer to formalize normalization with a state whose aura in the Islamic world would not be damaged. In the meantime, they are the ones who unveil the normalization measures, in their declarations and via their media. These revelations seem to embarrass the Saudi authorities in the least, who do not even bother to deny them. A matter of “trivialization”, according to some analysts.
During the Arab summit, the correspondent of the Israeli television channel Channel 13 was in Jeddah. “Be careful that we are broadcasting live. You talk to me and I answer you. All of this is done live. We are in Jeddah. If you want another hint of normalization, this broadcast has been cleared,” he boasted during a live broadcast on his television in occupied Palestine. “Despite the denials of F. ben Farhane, what is happening is a step towards normalization”, added the Israeli correspondent.
