Normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia cannot happen while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power, a source familiar with the Saudi diplomatic agenda told Israel’s KAN News on Thursday.
“Saudi Arabia wants peace, negotiations, and for the Israeli-Palestinian issue to be closed via a two-state solution,” the source said. “But Netanyahu is not there.”
The source told KAN that the issue is policy-based rather than personal, saying that the Gulf nation “has no interest in the identity of the prime minister of Israel…Netanyahu, in our view, only wants to cause problems. He does not want peace; he wants escalation.”
“As long as Netanyahu is in power with the current government, normalization is not on the agenda,” the source concluded.
Saudi Arabia has said the same about normalization and Netanyahu before. In October 2025, a Saudi royal-family source told Israel’s Channel 12 that the country is willing to normalize relations with Israel when Jerusalem has a different government that will recognize a two-state solution, saying that this could happen once Israel elects a new government.
“Maybe it will happen before the end of October 2026, meaning more than a year from now, if a new government is formed that accepts the two-state principle and ends the Middle East crisis once and for all, God willing,” the source told Channel 12 at the time.
Saudi-signed statement blaming Israel for instability doesn’t rule out Abraham Accords, expert says
On October 25, two days before the Israeli elections, Saudi Arabia signed a joint statement with Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan declaring Israel to be “the fundamental source of instability in the region and beyond.” However, Gulf analyst Dr. Ahmed Alkhuzaie told The Jerusalem Post shortly after the signing that Saudi Arabia has not abandoned all future interest in joining the Abraham Accords.
“It suggests that the political and diplomatic conditions surrounding normalization have become considerably more demanding. The statement reinforces the message that Riyadh is unlikely to separate relations with Israel from meaningful progress on the Palestinian file,” he said.
“In effect, Saudi Arabia is signaling that normalization can no longer be advanced solely through strategic, economic, or security calculations while the Palestinian question remains unresolved.”
Danielle Greyman-Kennard and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.
