WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday said a planned delegation to be led by national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Saudi Arabia to discuss normalization with Israel had been postponed.
The visit, which was to include the White House's top Middle East official, Brett McGurk, was originally set to discuss with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ways forward on a US plan to link Saudi normalization with Israel with US defense guarantees and support for the kingdom's nuclear energy program.
National Security Council coordinator John Kirby on Wednesday said the visit had been postponed, citing a "cracked rib" that Sullivan had suffered, affecting his ability to travel.
Why it matters: The scheduled delegation was to be the first since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggered the ongoing Gaza war.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, complicating Washington's plans to encourage more Arab states to normalize ties with Israel, part of a US effort to build a counterweight to Iran's influence in the Middle East.
Biden administration officials say Saudi Arabia remains interested in establishing formal ties with Israel, but talks have largely been on hold for months.
Riyadh is demanding an Israeli commitment to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state, a decadeslong aspiration of Palestinian and Arab leaders. Israel's current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has firmly opposed such a prospect.
What's next: Israeli leaders have been pressing for an invasion of Rafah, a small city in southern Gaza that now houses some 1.4 million displaced civilians — more than half the population of the entire Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, rights groups are warning that famine is setting in in the besieged territory.
US officials worry an Israeli incursion into Rafah without first evacuating its civilian inhabitants could have catastrophic effects for the prospect of additional Arab states establishing ties with Israel.
Top Netanyahu adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer are expected in Washington next week to hear out the Biden administration's proposals for an alternative to a full-scale ground invasion of the enclave.
Know more: As Washington tries to get a handle on Israel's war in Gaza, Israeli warplanes launched a brazen strike in Damascus earlier this week, killing the top commander for the Levant region of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), his deputy, and five other IRGC officers.
