Sources: U.S.-Saudi Military Pact Tied to Israel Deal, Palestinian Demands Put Aside

WASHINGTON (Reuters/Middle East Eye) – Saudi Arabia is determined to secure a military pact requiring the United States to defend the kingdom in return for opening ties with the Zionist regime and will not hold up a deal even if the occupying regime does not offer major concessions to Palestinians in their bid for statehood, three regional sources familiar with the talks said.

A pact might fall short of the cast-iron, NATO-style military guarantees the kingdom initially sought when the issue was first discussed between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Joe Biden during the U.S. president’s visit to Saudi Arabia in July 2022.
Instead, a U.S. source said it could look like treaties Washington has with Asian states or, if that would not win U.S. Congress approval, it could be similar to a U.S. agreement with Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet is based. Such an agreement would not need congressional backing.
Washington could also sweeten any deal by designating Saudi Arabia a Major Non-NATO Ally, a status already given to the Zionist regime, the U.S. source said.
But all the sources said Saudi Arabia would not settle for less than binding assurances of U.S. protection if it faced attack, such as the Sept. 14, 2019 missile strikes on its oil sites that rattled world markets.

‘Normalization ‘Impossible’ If Palestinian State Is Prerequisite’
In a relevant development, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ruled out the possibility of a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime if such an agreement required the creation of an independent Palestinian state with the occupied Al-Quds as its capital.
Pompeo made the comment in an interview with Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper on Wednesday after Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Palestine Nayef bin Bandar al-Sudairi made an official visit to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
During the visit, Sudairi underlined that creating a Palestinian state with the occupied Al-Quds as its capital would be the “central point” of any prospective agreement with the illegal entity.
“It is impossible to imagine a two-state solution with the current Palestinian leadership,” Pompeo said.
Stressing that every U.S. president, whether Democratic or Republican, would support a normalization agreement, Pompeo said it is in the U.S.’s interest to have security relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia and between the zionist regime and Saudi Arabia.
Sudairi, who is also the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, was appointed last month as the kingdom’s non-resident ambassador to Palestine and consul general in Al-Quds.