Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that it could be “impossible” to establish a Saudi Arabia-Israel peace deal if a prerequisite is a Palestinian state.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Pompeo said that “it is impossible to image a two-state solution with the current Palestinian leadership who is underwriting terrorism, taking money from Iran, paying citizens to kill Israelis.”
“It is very difficult to imagine how one would strike a deal with the very leaders that have rejected every reasonable offer with which they have been presented,” he added.
Pompeo said that every American President would support a normalization agreement – Democratic or Republican, adding it is in America’s interest to have security relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia and between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, he said peace would “be more easily attainable with a Republican president, meaning one that understands the greatest threat to peace in the region is Iran.”
“When we isolate Iran, the region becomes more peaceful and prosperous,” Pompeo told JPost.
His comments come as efforts to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia continue.
The deal is widely expected to include Israeli concessions towards the PA. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently said that the Palestinian Arab issue will be part of a normalization agreement.
As part of the process, The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia is offering to resume financial support to the Palestinian Authority which it had frozen in 2021.
Saudi officials have repeatedly stated that normalization with Israel is conditioned on the establishment of a Palestinian state.
On Tuesday, the Saudi envoy to the Palestinian Authority (PA) visited Ramallah for the first time and presented his credentials to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
During the visit, the envoy, Nayef al-Sudairi, stated that Saudi Arabia "is working towards establishing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital".