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SvennoJ on 08 October 2024
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US Senator Graham urges Israel-Saudi normalisation before year ends

Republican Lindsey Graham has called for Saudi Arabia and Israel to establish diplomatic ties by the end of the year, warning that the next US administration is unlikely to be able to secure enough votes to support the deal.

The Biden administration is seeking to broker a normalisation accord between the two countries that would include US security guarantees for the Gulf state, among other bilateral deals between Washington and Riyadh.

“We can get you a treaty through the Senate between the United States and Saudi Arabia, a defence agreement like you have in Japan and Australia, if you do it on President Biden’s watch,” Graham, who is seen as close to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, told reporters in the West Jerusalem.

“The next president will have a very difficult time getting 67 votes,” he said in reference to the two-thirds majority needed in the US Senate for approving a defence treaty.

Democratic President Joe Biden’s term will end on January 20, 2025.

Saudi-Arabia has tied normalization to the creation of a Palestinian state and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. The population was always against the Abraham accords, sidelining the Palestine issue.


US NGO to Biden: Support Gaza ceasefire, end participation in regional war

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a nonprofit organisation based in Washington, DC, has urged President Biden’s administration to stop hindering a United Nations Security Council resolution mandating a ceasefire in the yearlong war on Gaza.

In a statement, Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director, said the Biden administration’s policies have not only failed to secure a ceasefire to protect civilians but have aided and abetted “Israel’s belligerence such that we now face the likely prospect of Israel dragging us into a war with Iran.”

The group said that the US should end its support for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza by suspending arms transfers to Israel and ending combat operations that “have made the US a party to Israel’s conflict, inviting retaliatory attacks on US forces and risking an even broader regional war with Iran.”

“The only way to prevent a full-scale war in the region is declaring an immediate arms embargo on Israel and imposing a ceasefire in Gaza, with sanctions for non-compliance,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director. “Without a ceasefire in Gaza, there won’t be a de-escalation with Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, or Iran.”