Saudi Arabia offers to resume PA funding in new step toward normalization: Report

News Desk - The Cradle 

The highly unpopular PA leadership is reportedly considering backing Riyadh's bid to normalize ties with Israel

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meeting in Riyadh on 12 February, 2019. (Photo Credit: Wafa)

Saudi Arabia has offered to resume financial aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA) in a move intended to “build support” among Palestinian leaders in Ramallah for a possible normalization deal with Israel, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 29 August citing unnamed kingdom officials.

“Saudi officials say they are trying to secure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s support for open ties with Israel, providing more legitimacy to any eventual agreement and forestalling any accusations that the kingdom would sacrifice Palestinian efforts to establish an independent state to advance its own goals,” the report reads.

A senior delegation from Ramallah is set to visit the kingdom next week to discuss what Riyadh can do “to advance flickering hopes of creating a Palestinian state.”

In 2016, after decades of financially supporting the PA to the tune of $5 billion, Saudi Arabia began cutting back the funds, citing “incompetence and corruption” among PA leaders. Saudi financial aid for Ramallah finally reached zero in 2021.

But despite the new Saudi proposal, the officials that spoke with the WSJ clarified that the PA “won’t have any power to veto a Saudi-Israel deal.”

The US and Israel have been working in tandem to convince Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords in what would be a major coup for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and for US President Joe Biden ahead of the US electoral season.

Normalization by Saudi Arabia would be part of a so-called “mega-deal,” which also calls for a defense pact from Washington, access to more advanced weaponry for the Saudis, and US help in developing a civilian nuclear program that would include uranium enrichment on Saudi soil.

Saudi Arabia has also publicly declared that normalization hinges on the implementation of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for the creation of an autonomous Palestinian state.

However, even if the PA were to agree to the terms set by Saudi Arabia, their support for normalization would likely have little to no influence on the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank, as the PA has long worked alongside Israel to suppress resistance while brutally repressing critics.

Recent polls show that Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank increasingly support Gaza-based resistance factions like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). A new generation of Palestinian fighters has also cemented their positions outside of PA control by gaining heft in cities like Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, Jericho, and Hebron.

Furthermore, extremist ministers in the Israeli government recently made it clear that Israel would by no means make concessions to the Palestinians, ignoring Washington's demands.

“We will not make any concessions to the Palestinians. It’s a fiction,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the Jewish supremacist Religious Zionist party alongside Itamar Ben Gvir party, told Army Radio on Monday.

Netanyahu also recently declared that Tel Aviv will not accept a Saudi nuclear program.