President Trump reportedly pushes for Saudi-Israel normalization ahead of meeting with Crown Prince MBS

U.S. President Donald Trump wants to show diplomatic progress on a Saudi–Israel normalization agreement ahead of the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to the White House next week, a senior Trump official told Israel’s Channel N12.

MBS, who has not made an official visit to the United States since the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is expected to discuss regional developments in the Middle East and the multibillion-dollar investments that Riyadh pledged during Trump’s visit to the Saudi Kingdom in May.

Saudi Arabia and Israel currently do not have official diplomatic relations. However, in recent years, the two countries developed covert ties, as both view Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions as a security threat to the region. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia reportedly played a central role in advancing the historic American-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020 between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.

Saudi Arabia has increasingly signaled openness to establishing diplomatic ties with Israel, but a key obstacle remains Riyadh’s position that normalization must be linked to the creation of a Palestinian state. The Netanyahu government opposes a two-state framework, and in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, public support within Israel for such an arrangement has declined due to concerns it could pose significant security risks.

Given the gap between the Saudi and Israeli positions on a two-state framework, U.S. officials have indicated it is uncertain whether meaningful diplomatic progress can be achieved before next week’s meeting between MBS and President Trump.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not specifically address the Saudi Israeli issue but articulated optimism ahead of next week's meeting, saying, “We have some good agreements to sign with them.”

Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of MBS, met with Rubio, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.

“We discussed ways to strengthen our strategic cooperation and addressed regional and international developments,” Prince Khalid wrote on 𝕏 following the meeting.

In late September 2023, the MBS told Fox News that diplomatic normalization with Israel was advancing.

However, a few weeks later, the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 ignited the Gaza War and two years of intense multifront fighting between Israel and the Iranian-led terror axis.

Like much of the Arab world, Saudi Arabia condemned Israeli military operations in Gaza, informing Washington that it would freeze the normalization process with Israel while keeping the option open at the end of the war.

At the beginning of this year, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said the IDF's degradation of Iran's terror proxies could speed up the normalization with Saudi Arabia.

“We’re closer to Saudi Arabia because we’ve degraded Hamas,” Leiter assessed. “The fall of [Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad] and the weakening of Iran’s influence have brought us to a moment of opportunity.”