Could Trump's plans derail Saudi-Israel normalization?

Polarizing propositions on the future of Palestinians from Gaza seem to be running at a clip since US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington last week.

On Monday, Trump clarified that the Palestinian population would not be allowed to return to the Gaza Strip if his plans to procure and rebuild the war-battered Gaza Strip come true.

"They're going to have much better housing … in communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is," Trump told the US broadcaster Fox News.

Trump would like to see regional neighbors such as Egypt and Jordan as the main host countries for around 2 million Palestinians from Gaza.

Legal experts however say that expelling Palestinians from Gaza violates international law, while the United Nations has warned of "ethnic cleansing."

Another controversial idea was put forward by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He recently told the Israeli broadcaster Channel 14 that "the Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia, they have a lot of land over there."

In turn, not only Egypt and Jordan, but also Saudi Arabia reiterated that taking in Palestinians from Gaza is not going to happen.

Unilateral Arab rejection

"The kingdom affirms that the Palestinian people have a right to their land, and they are not intruders or immigrants to it who can be expelled whenever the brutal Israeli occupation wishes," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry posted on X.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry also highlighted that "the right of the Palestinian People will remain firmly established and no one will be able to take it away from them no matter how long it takes."

Such sharply voiced comments mark a 180° turnaround from the diplomatic friendship between the US and Saudi Arabia's de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, during Trump's first term from 2017 and 2021. 

"In 2017, a lot of hope was placed in Trump, especially by MBS, who was still consolidating his power," Sebastian Sons, senior researcher for the Bonn-based think tank Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient (CARPO), told DW.

In the following years, political and economic ties between the two countries intensified.

However, while Trump successfully brokered diplomatic ties — dubbed Abraham Accords — between Israel and Sudan, Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, he didn't clinch the deal with Saudi Arabia before he was succeeded by US President Joe Biden.

US-negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia continued until the Hamas terror attack on October 7 which set off the war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, 15 months on and with Trump once more being in office, a lot has changed.

Saudi Arabia's leverage

"MBS is not only firmly established but has become very self-confident, which can be also seen by his reaction to the statements by Trump and Netanyahu on Palestinians from Gaza," Sebastian Sons said. 

In Sons' view, however, normalization with Israel remains a high priority for Washington and Jerusalem. 

"Higher than for Saudi Arabia at the moment," Sons told DW. 

"For Saudi Arabia, normalizing ties with Israel is currently, and the emphasis is on currently, an impossibility," he said, adding that "this would mean losing credibility and MBS doesn't see Netanyahu and Trump as reliable partners to establish a two-state solution".

Other observers agree. 

"Trump's Gaza plan is going to make Saudi-Israel normalization even more difficult," Anna Jacobs, Gulf researcher and non-resident Fellow at the Washington-based think tank Arab Gulf States Institute, told DW. 

"The Saudis have made their position very clear that the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land is a non-starter," she said.

Aziz Alghashian, senior fellow at the Dubai-based Observer research foundation, ORF Middle East, also observed that Saudi Arabia has changed its political focus from pragmatism to jostling.

"The Saudis are willing to go head-to-head and disagree with the US instead of being pragmatic like in the past," he told DW.

In his view, this confidence is underpinned by large-scale public support within Saudi Arabia and across Arab countries.

"MBS new stance is very popular on the Saudi streets," Alghashian said.

And yet, CARPO's Sebastian Sons wouldn't rule out that MBS and Donald Trump will eventually sit down and try to find common ground as both state leaders also need to focus on their countries' interests. 

"Saudi Arabia's economic overhaul project Vision 2030 needs to be secured," Sons said, adding that for this, US investments are key.

And also for the US, Saudi Arabia remains a key partner in the Middle East.

In turn, Sons expects Saudi Arabia to aim for de-escalation in the near future, which could complement Donald Trump's political calculus. 

"I could imagine that it is also Trump's intention that maximum demands are being made in order to achieve at least some concessions from Saudi Arabia," Sons told DW.

However, it remains to be seen if or insofar this will also address the fate of the Palestinian population in Gaza.

Their future remains in limbo again after Hamas called off the current ceasefire last weekend. As of now, the people's worst case scenario is a return to war.

Mohamed Farhan contributed to this report.

Edited by Jess Smee.