Senior US official tells Axios message to MBS, expected at White House next week, is: ‘We did all the things you asked. Now there are things President Trump wants’
US President Donald Trump urged Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in a phone call last month to normalize relations with Israel following the October 9 Gaza ceasefire deal, Axios reported Thursday, citing two US officials.
According to Axios, the call took place after the October 13 Sharm El Sheikh Peace Conference, where Trump and his counterparts from fellow mediating countries, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt signed a declaration on a peace plan for Gaza.
During the call, Trump said he had succeeded in ending the war in Gaza and expected Saudi Arabia to move toward full diplomatic ties with Israel, according to a US official cited by Axios. The crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader and widely known as MBS, said he would be willing to work with the White House on the matter, the official said.
Normalization, which seemed to be in the cards before the war in Gaza, has more recently faltered on Riyadh’s insistence that Israel commit to Palestinian statehood, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes, and which the Israeli public is even less likely to accept in the wake of the past two years.
However, Trump’s comprehensive plan for a Gaza ceasefire, which Netanyahu endorsed during a joint September press conference, stipulates that once the Palestinian Authority undergoes a reform program and as reconstruction proceeds in a demilitarized Gaza Strip, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
A senior US official cited by Axios said: “Our message to the Saudis is: ‘We did all the things you asked for. Now, there are things President Trump wants, like normalization with Israel. So how are you guys going to move now in this direction?’”
Other sources cited by Axios said Saudi Arabia would likely require much firmer language and commitments from Israel on Palestinian statehood to make progress on normalization.
A former US official, whom Axios described as close to the Saudi monarchy, said MBS would need to see concrete action and solid commitments from Israel to sell a potential normalization deal to the Saudi public, whose attitude has become much more anti-Israeli amid the Gaza war.
News of the Trump-MBS call broke as the two leaders were set to meet at the White House next week. US officials cited by Axios said that, although US-Saudi talks on normalization were ongoing, it was unclear whether a breakthrough could be reached while MBS is in Washington.
Saudi officials are intent on steering the meeting toward defense cooperation and investment, wary that the politically charged issue of normalization with Israel could overshadow the agenda.
Trump has repeatedly expressed hope that Riyadh would join the Abraham Accords, which normalized ties between Israel and several Arab nations in 2020, during the president’s first term.
In 2023, under former US president Joe Biden, Israel and Saudi Arabia appeared to be progressing toward normalization, with two Israeli ministers making unprecedented visits to the desert kingdom in the weeks before October 7, when Hamas invaded Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.
The onslaught and soaring anti-Israel sentiment in the Arab and Muslim world amid the Gaza war put an abrupt end to the progress.
Reuters contributed to this report.
