US-Saudi diplomacy gives lifeline to Palestinian leadership, two-state solution

Week in Review

Sep 1, 2023

US President Joe Biden (L) and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) arrive for the family photo during the Jeddah Security and Development Summit (GCC+3) at a hotel in Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah on July 16, 2022. — MANDEL NGAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Saudi offer comes as Abbas shakes up Palestinian leadership

Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman has offered to resume financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, if the PA can crack down on militant groups in the West Bank.

The PA, for its part, is willing to support US-mediated diplomacy between Israel and Saudi Arabia, if Israel gives up some control over West Bank towns and dismantles Israeli settlements there, as Axios reported.

These potentially game-changing steps place the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back in the center of regional diplomacy, hooked to the next phase of normalization.