Though President-elect Donald Trump promised the expansion of the Abraham Accords in the run-up to this month’s election, recent public signals coming from Israel and Saudi Arabia indicate that the long-anticipated peace will be even more challenging now than when he left office in 2021. 

Still, some officials and experts remained hopeful for the prospects of normalization.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said at an Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit in Riyadh this week that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people and called “to respect the sovereignty of the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran.” 

Bin Salman’s remarks are part of a long line of condemnations from Saudi Arabia of Israel in its multifront war against Iran and its proxies in the last year. In addition, there has been a cautious rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran since March 2023, when China brokered an agreement following years of strained relations between the two countries.

After Trump takes office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are planning to push for a policy that had to be scuttled in order to reach the initial normalization with the UAE. 

A source close to the prime minister confirmed reporting that the prime minister believes Trump’s “deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians to be back on the table. That 2020 plan, titled Peace to Prosperity, states that it would “incorporate the vast majority of Israeli settlements into contiguous Israeli territory.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posted on X this week: “2025 – a year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name used by Israel for the West Bank.  

In addition, Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar appears to be something of a rarity in Israeli political and foreign policy circles: an Abraham Accords skeptic.

Two weeks ago, before he was appointed foreign minister, Sa’ar pushed back against Netanyahu’s call for a NATO-like “Abraham Alliance” between Israel and moderate Arab states opposing Iran.

“When Israel acts against Iran and its proxies, it at the very least receives a bundle of condemnations from these countries,” Sa’ar said in comments resurfaced by Israeli public broadcaster Kan. “Realistically, Israel needs to limit its expectations for these relationships. The reliance on a so-called alliance with them can turn out, when tested, to be [very weak].”

In his address to the Middle East Summit, a conference held in Jerusalem last month opposing a Palestinian state, headlined by Religious Zionist Party MK Ohad Tal and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Sa’ar said he still supports normalization with the countries in question.

“But we need to free ourselves of the concept that they are allies,” Sa’ar added. “This is a wrong concept … which can be extremely damaging when tested.”

Sa’ar’s office declined to respond to questions as to the implications of his comments on his policies as foreign minister, including whether he believes countries such as the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia should be involved in administering or rebuilding Gaza, or if Jerusalem should make concessions for peace with Riyadh.

Despite all of these public signals that normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia may not be top of the agenda for those countries, officials and analysts are hopeful.

In conversations with Jewish Insider this week and in the last month, multiple sources close to Netanyahu still believed that Saudi Arabia wants to work with Israel to defend itself from Iranian threats and that Riyadh’s rhetoric should be viewed as a tactic. Despite the Saudis’ insistence on a two-state solution and the current Israeli government’s opposition to one, the officials said they believed that the sides can reach an agreement in the middle.

Faisal J. Abbas, editor-in-chief of the Saudi-based Arab News, wrote an analysis in Semafor this week saying that there is hope in the Gulf for an updated “deal of the century” in tandem with the expansion of the Abraham Accords to bring “lasting peace and stability.” 

As Abbas described it, bin Salman’s description of Israel’s actions as “genocide” does not mean he does not want to engage with Israel. Rather, he wrote “the expectation [is] that this time around, there will be no further expansion of the Abraham Accords without Palestinian recognition,” meaning a state. He noted that “the Palestinian Authority has limited options,” encouraging them to “accept a reasonable plan.”

Abbas also wrote that “Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition and battlefield successes are hindering compromise,” and called on Trump “to find the carrot to incentivize Netanyahu to reach a deal.” 

Dan Diker, President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JI that his think tank “has been in very close touch with countries that do not have formal relations with Israel and are interested in having relationships with Israel and the U.S … This is a watershed moment in which many Arab countries are saying the choice is binary – it’s either the Iranian regime, with its extreme terrorism and subversion of the Arab world, or it’s Israel, an anchor of security, stability, possibility and technology. This is what MBS [bin Salman] has understood.”

“I think we should be mindful of the majority of the observations and comments the crown prince has made over the last four years, as opposed to what he said after the Oct. 7 massacre,” he added.

Diker said that the crown prince’s speech “was harsh because he is facing challenges for his country’s leadership after his father [dies]. MBS is basically the leader of the Muslim world and the Muslim and Arab street are behind his very forward-looking vision for Saudi Arabia and the region … [but] he has to deal with an enervated, unstable street awash in disinformation and propaganda across social networks … He has to balance this very delicate situation. He has to deal with the jihadists who are as much of a danger to him as they are to us.”

As for Sa’ar’s misgivings about an “Abraham Alliance,” Diker said that Sa’ar is using the word “alliance” in accordance with the Western or Israeli understanding, while in Arab political culture, it’s a looser term. 

Diker expressed concern that “if the Arab world hears that Sa’ar says he’s skeptical of over-reliance on an Abraham Alliance, they might think that Israel is not interested in advancing relationships in the Abraham Accords context. They don’t understand ‘alliance’ the way Israel and America have a covenant between them. The word ‘alliance’ has so many different translations in Arabic. It can be an understanding. It can be what enemies like Saudi Arabia and Iran have in returning to diplomatic relations. They’re not hearing what Sa’ar is intending.”