Riyadh’s Two-state Solution Conf. Serves Normalization in the Name of Palestinian State

The decision to hold the meeting was taken during the 9th EU-Arab summit in June in Brussels. 

The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in his speech to the conference that the international alliance is "an umbrella for the participation of international partners in the implementation of the two-state solution." According to this European official, the results of the Riyadh meeting will be followed up by holding several meetings of the coalition committee in Brussels, Cairo, Amman, Istanbul and Oslo. 

After that, in September, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia Faisal bin Farhan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, announced the formation of an international coalition for a two-state solution with the participation of Arab and Islamic countries in addition to the EU.

The time has come and the conference was held. Representatives of many countries were invited to the event and Saudi Arabia that over the past 13 months has not made any effort to end the genocidal war on Gaza all of a sudden decided to take the political initiative, indeed with covert aims.

In fact, this meeting more than an initiative in response to the current crisis in Palestine should be seen in line with Riyadh's effort to find a solution to untie the twist its normalization with Israel is facing.

As a part of the US regional strategy under Biden, Saudi Arabia had initiated secret negotiations months before the Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm last October about the way and conditions of accepting the normalization of relations with the Israeli regime. However, Hamas’s attack and then the Israeli war in Gaza shattered the equations expected by the Saudis all at once.

During this period, various Saudi officials, by announcing that the prerequisite for any normalization agreement with Israel is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Eastern Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital, showed their desire to advance normalization even in the midst of the Israeli massacare of Palestinians and the occupation of Gaza, the same thing they are discussing now. 

In his annual meeting at the ceremonial Consultative Assembly, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said "the kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not stop its diligent efforts to form an independent Palestinian state with Eastern Al-Quds as its capital. 

Where did two-state solution come from? 

In 1947, UN resolution 181 proposed the creation of two separate states in Palestine, a Jewish one and an Arab one", paving the way for the establishment of the Israeli regime in next year. 

The Palestinians and the Arabs rejected the plan to divide Palestine and form the state of Israel, which led to the beginning of the 1948 war, and after that, in the day that the Palestinians call Nakba, thousands of Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes. 

The Israelis took control of new and wider lands than what was foreseen in the division plan proposed by the UN. 

After that, Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt took over the administration of the Gaza Strip until 1967.

During this period, the Palestine Liberation Organization was established in 1964 with the aim of recapturing all of Palestine, but the 1967 war allowed Israel to occupy the West Bank, especially Eastern Al-Quds and the Gaza Strip.

According to international law, these lands are still considered occupied and the Israeli settlements built there are illegal.

Successive governments of the Israeli regime continued to build settlements in the West Bank and Eastern Al-Quds and gradually usurped further Palestinian lands.

At this time, the clashes between the Israeli occupiers and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) reached their height, with their major part taking place in 1982 in Lebanon, which was the main headquarters of the PLO before transfer to Tunisia. 

Shortly thereafter, the PLO began to change its strategy and adopted the two-state idea, as well as the declaration of independence and the establishment of a Palestinian state in exile in 1988.

In October 1991, the Madrid Peace Conference was held, with the joint support of the US and the Soviet Union at the time.

On September 13, 1993, when Yasser Arafat, the then Palestinian leader, shook hands with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the White House garden, the world was shocked by the announcement of the Oslo Accords in Washington.

Ostensibly with the ultimate goal of creating a Palestinian state where its people would live in freedom and peace alongside Israel, the Oslo Accords were signed by the two parties and created a limited Palestinian autonomy under the name of the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah.

But it did not take long before it became clear that the Israelis are not honest in fulfilling their commitments and that the occupation plans are being pursued with further seriousness under Arafat's recognition of the regime, and the Oslo Accords only served the security of the occupiers. 

Golden opportunity to justify normalization 

While now the Israeli government under PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects any talk about formation of a Palestinian state and even some cabinet ministers raise the idea of forced or voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza, Riyadh raises normalization in return for two-state solution. 

Even if we close eyes to the dark prospects of failed two-state solution given the historical evidence and behaviorial pattern of Israel, we should doubt the Saudi promise of commitment to the two-state solution and formation of an independent Palestinian state with 1968 borders. 

Last month, the Atlantic revealed that bin Salman told US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who traveled in September to Riyadh to advance normalization talks, that he personally does not care about what is called the Palestinian cause. 

The American website added that bin Salman told Blinken that pursuing a normalization agreement with Israel would cost him a lot personally. He pointed to the example of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981, a few years after signing the peace agreement with Israel. 

"Half of my advisors say this deal is not worth the risk. I might get killed for this deal," the Atlantic claimed bin Salman told the top American diplomat. 

Even the Saudis know that the American strategy is not set for formation of a Palestinian state and that these American stances are only taken to save the image of US in the public opinion of the world and to bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table to legitimize the gradual Israeli occupation. When Spain, Ireland and Norway decided to recognize the state of Palestine, hoping to revive diplomatic discourse in support of a two-state solution, the White House announced its opposition to the move, saying that US President Joe Biden believed that the creation of a Palestinian state should be done through negotiation and not unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by other countries. 

Possibly driven by a misevaluation of the course of war in Gaza and thinking that Hamas is weakend and the Palestinians are exhausted by war and tend to negotiate with the Israeli occupation to secure minimum rights, the Saudis are rushing to seize the opportunity and take the diplomatic initiative to normalize with Israel with the least cost and without losing their salvatory role among the Palestinians and their political credit among the Muslim world's public opinion.