Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Joe Biden meet at Al Salman Palace upon his arrival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 15, 2022. Photo: Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS

The prospect of normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia is becoming more realistic with each new day and could become a reality by early next year, according to leaders of the two countries who spoke about the issue this week.

In an interview with Fox News, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, said Wednesday that “every day we get closer” to a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia — two longtime foes — and raised some of the items that he has been negotiating with the US, which is seeking to broker an agreement.

“For us, the Palestinian issue is very important,” Bin Salman said. “We need to solve that path. And we have good negotiations [that] continue till now. We’re going to see where it will go. We hope that it will reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians and get Israel as a player in the Middle East.”

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that any Middle East peace deal would have to include the Palestinians.

“Those who think that peace can prevail in the Middle East without the Palestinian people enjoying their full legitimate and national rights would be delusional,” Abbas said.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said in an interview with an Israeli broadcaster on Thursday that any concessions to the Palestinians would not be a roadblock to a deal with Saudi Arabia.

“The gaps can be bridged,” Cohen said. “It will take time. But there is progress … I think there is certainly a likelihood that in the first quarter of 2024, in four or five months, we could be at a point where the details are finalized.”

In addition to concessions for the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia is reportedly demanding permission from the Biden administration to enrich its own uranium for a civilian nuclear power program. But in his interview Wednesday, Bin Salman also said that Saudi Arabia would acquire a nuclear weapon if Iran did so first.

“If they get one, we have to get one,” Bin Salman said. “But we don’t want to see that.”

On Thursday, experts and former officials sent a letter to the Biden administration urging them to deny Saudi Arabia’s request for enrichment capacity. One of the letter’s co-signers — Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies — told The Algemeiner that Iran’s enrichment program was at the root of a potential “nuclear cascade” of proliferation throughout the region.

“I think the best solution for all of this is zero enrichment in the Middle East,” Schanzer said. “This way, you get Iran back to where it should have been. And that should be sufficient for the Saudis. The problem is that so long as Iran is engaging in this activity, it’s going to prompt other countries to want to do the same.”

In a statement posted on X/Twitter, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should reject any deal that allows for Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium.

“A normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia is a welcome thing. But not at the cost of allowing the Saudis to develop nuclear weapons, or of a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East,” Lapid said. “Strong democracies do not sacrifice their security interests for politics. It is dangerous and irresponsible. Israel must not agree to any type of uranium enrichment in Saudi Arabia.”

In his Fox interview, Bin Salman also discussed the possibility of a formal defensive pact between Saudi Arabia and the United States as part of a normalization deal.

“We have a lot of security, military ties that strengthen the position of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and strengthen the position of America globally, especially in the Middle East,” Bin Salman said. “You don’t want that to be shifted. You don’t want to see Saudi Arabia shifting their armament [purchases] from America to another place. So, that document will strengthen that, it will strengthen the interests of America — security interest, military interest, and also economical interest — and also it will save effort and headaches from the Saudi side of not switching to other places.”

According to Schanzer, short of the kind of mutual defense alliance guaranteed by NATO — an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all members — the US might declare Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO ally like Qatar and Pakistan, or a “major defense partner” like India.

“Some kind of [NATO] Article 5 treaty is not likely. The US public is not interested in guaranteeing the Saudis anything — the last thing they want to do is get embroiled in another war in the Middle East,” Schanzer said. “The bottom line with Saudi Arabia is that the relationship with the United States was always described, rather simply, as the Saudis providing a steady, affordable flow of oil in exchange for security from the United States. That contract appears to be up in the air right now … the Saudis have real questions about what the US will or won’t do in the face of Iranian-backed aggression and actual threats on oil infrastructure, which the Saudis assumed was an American interest.”