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The US Should Not Tie Israel-Saudi Normalization to a Palestinian State
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Saturday Oct. 14, 2023. Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters this week that Saudi Arabia still has a “clear interest” in normalizing relations with Israel, but that moving forward would require a “practical pathway” to Palestinian statehood. By tying Saudi-Israel normalization to Palestinian statehood, Blinken is once again handing Palestinians the ability to veto regional peace and security.
The prospects of an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord have been remote for almost two decades. With Hamas entrenching itself in Gaza and legitimacy slipping away from the corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA), led by an aged and ailing Mahmoud Abbas, there is no leader both willing and capable of hammering out peace with the Israelis.
Even before October 7, Israeli-Palestinians relations were getting worse, not better. Israelis were already experiencing a year of deadly terror attacks emanating from the West Bank, where the PA has increasingly lost its ability to maintain a modicum of law and order.
While the prospect of Palestinian statehood remains more elusive than ever, normalization between Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Arab world, and the Jewish state appears to be within reach. And the benefits of a Saudi-Israel normalization deal are myriad.
On the security front, normalization would facilitate increased military cooperation between Israel and the Arab Gulf states, who are seeking a credible deterrent to Iran, especially at a time when Washington is so hesitant to stand up to the regime in Tehran.
Saudi-Israel normalization would also help to realize the vision, shared by the United States and many others, of an economic corridor that would connect India to Europe through the Middle East, traversing both Israel and Saudi Arabia. The corridor would provide a potential alternative to China’s Belt & Road Initiative, which many of Beijing’s partners have begun to see as a recipe for debt and corruption. Building this corridor requires a stable, secure, and peaceful Gulf region, a goal advanced by improving Israeli relations with the Arab world.
While Riyadh and Jerusalem have been quietly drawing closer for years, this convergence represents a major reversal of long-held Saudi foreign policy. Saudi Arabia had previously been a patron of the Palestinian cause and financed Palestinian terror during the Second Intifada, which lasted from 2000-2005.
A major turning point came with the ascent of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), who has been running Saudi Arabia since 2015, even though his ailing father remains king.
One might describe MBS as an iron-fisted reformer, a combination that is uncomfortable for Western friends. He wants to move the Saudi economy beyond a reliance on fossil fuels, favors regional integration, and seeks to stamp out Islamic extremism. He considers the Arab conflict with Israel to be an inheritance holding his kingdom back.
In October 2020, former US president Donald Trump announced that Saudi Arabia would soon forge ties with Israel. Trump lost his election the following month, which some speculate delayed movement with the normalization agenda. However, progress did not totally stall. In September of 2023, MBS discussed the prospects of normalization with Israel during a Fox News television interview saying, “every day we get closer” to an agreement with Israel.
Importantly MBS did not condition peace with Israel on a Palestinian state, instead, he said that any agreement should “ease the life of the Palestinians.”
Even after the events of October 7 and the pervasive criticism of Israel’s response, Riyadh continues to signal it favors normalization, as Blinken reported. On a phone call with President Biden on October 24, MBS reportedly affirmed that Riyadh and Washington would continue to “build on the work that was already underway” between the US and Saudi Arabia in recent months, implying Saudi normalization with Israel. After Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman visited Washington in late October, White House spokesman John Kirby said he was “confident” that the Saudis were interested in pursuing normalization with Israel.
The Saudis’ weight as the custodians of Mecca and Medina means that normalization could embolden numerous other Arab and Muslim-majority countries to follow the Saudi example. There is even some hope that Riyadh, perhaps in concert with other Gulf and Arab states, will help to stabilize and rebuild Gaza after the war. Normalization with Israel would pave the way to a Saudi playing a central role when it is time to restore Gaza.
Saudi normalization with Israel would be a boon for peace and stability, even if the threat posed by Hamas’ Iranian patrons and their other proxies would remain acute.
Amid a devastating war, the dream of peace between Israelis and Palestinians may seem especially alluring. Yet if Biden and Blinken pause to consider what is realistic, then they should consolidate the emerging peace between Jerusalem and Riyadh, rather than undermine it in the name of an unachievable peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the FDD National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on X at @EKrivine
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‘Fine Scholar’: UC Berkeley Chancellor Praises Professor Who Expressed Solidarity With Oct. 7 Attacks

University of California, Berkeley chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons, testifies at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 15, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect.
The chancellor of University of California, Berkeley described a professor who cheered the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre across southern Israel a “fine scholar” during a congressional hearing held at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Richard K. Lyons, who assumed the chancellorship in July 2024 issued the unmitigated praise while being questioned by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, which summoned him and the chief administrators of two other major universities to interrogate their handling of the campus antisemitism crisis.
Lyons stumbled into the statement while being questioned by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), who asked Lyons to describe the extent of his relationship and correspondence with Professor Ussama Makdisi, who tweeted in Feb. 2024 that he “could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7.”
“What do you think the professor meant,” McClain asked Lyons, to which the chancellor responded, “I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on October 7.” McClain proceeded to ask if Lyons discussed the tweet with Makdisi or personally reprimanded him, prompting an exchange of remarks which concluded with Lyons’s saying, “He is a fine scholar.”
Lyon’s comment came after nearly three hours in which the group of university leaders — which included Dr. Robert Groves, president of Georgetown University, and Dr. Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY) — offered gaffe-free, deliberately worded answers to the members’ questions to avoid eliciting the kind of public relations ordeal which prematurely ended the tenures of two Ivy League presidents in 2024 following an education committee held in Dec. 2023.
Rep. McClain later criticized Lyons on social media, calling his comment “totally disgraceful.” She added, “Faculty must be held accountable and Jewish students deserve better.”
CUNY chancellor Rodriguez also triggered a rebuke from the committee members in which he was also described as a “disgrace.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUNY campuses have been lambasted by critics as some of the most antisemitic institutions of higher education in the United States. Last year, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved half a dozen investigations of antisemitism on CUNY campuses, one of which involved Jewish students who were pressured into saying that Jews are White people who should be excluded from discussions about social justice.
During Tuesday’s hearing Rodriguez acknowledged that antisemitic incidents continue to disrupt Jewish academic life, disclosing that 84 complaints of antisemitism have been formally reported to CUNY administrators since 2024. 15 were filed in 2025 alone, but CUNY, he said, has published only 18 students for antisemitic conduct. Rodriguez went on to denounce efforts to pressure CUNY into adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, saying, “I have repudiated BDS and I have said there’s no place for BDS at the City University of New York.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) remarked, however, that Rodriguez has allegedly done little to address antisemitism in the CUNY faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which has passed several resolutions endorsing BDS and whose members, according to 2021 ruling rendered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), discriminated against Professor Jeffrey Lax by holding meetings on Shabbat to prevent him and other Jews from attending them.
“The PSC does not speak for the City University of New York,” Rodriquez protested. “We’ve been clear on our commitment against antisemitism and against BDS.”
Later, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), whose grilling of higher education officials who appear before the committee has created several viral moments, rejected Rodriguez’s responses as disingenuous.
“It’s all words, no action. You have failed the people of New York,” she told the chancellor. “You have failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace.”
Following the hearing, The Lawfare Project, legal nonprofit which provides legal services free of charge to Jewish victims of civil rights violations, applauded the education committee for publicizing antisemitism at CUNY.
“I am thankful for the many members of Congress who worked with us to ensure that the deeply disturbing facts about antisemitism at CUNY were brought forward in this hearing,” Lawfare Project litigation director Zipora Reich said in a press release. “While it is deeply frustrating to hear more platitudes and vague promises from CUNY’s leadership, we are encouraged to see federal lawmakers demanding accountability.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Huckabee Calls for Israeli Investigation Into ‘Criminal and Terrorist’ Killing of Palestinian-American in West Bank
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Scandal-Plagued UN Commission Disbands Amid Increasing US Pressure Against Anti-Israel International Organizations

Miloon Kothari, member of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, briefs reporters on the first report of the Commission. UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré
The Commission of Inquiry (COI), a controversial United Nations commission investigating Israel for nearly five years, has collapsed after all three of its members abruptly resigned days after the United States sanctioned a senior UN official over antisemitism.
Commission chair Navi Pillay resigned on July 8, citing health concerns and scheduling conflicts. Her fellow commissioners, Chris Sidoti and Miloon Kothari, followed suit days later. While none of the commissioners directly linked their resignations to the U.S. sanctions, the timing suggests mounting American pressure played a decisive role.
The resignations came just one day before the Trump administration announced sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. Albanese was sanctioned over what the State Department called a “pattern of antisemitic and inflammatory rhetoric.” She had previously claimed that the U.S. was controlled by a “Jewish lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to self-defense. The sanctions bar her from entering the U.S. and freeze any assets under American jurisdiction.
The resignations mark a major victory for critics who have long viewed the inquiry as biased and politically motivated.
Watchdog groups, including Geneva-based UN Watch, celebrated the swift collapse of the Commission of Inquiry (COI), which they say had long operated with an open mandate to target Israel. “This is a watershed moment of accountability,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “The COI was built on bias and sustained by hatred. Its fall is a victory for human rights, not a defeat.”
The COI had faced heavy criticism since its formation in 2021. In July 2022, Commissioner Miloon Kothari, made comments about the undue influence of a so-called “Jewish lobby” on the media, said the COI would “have to look at issues of settler colonialism.”
“Apartheid itself is a very useful paradigm, so we have a slightly different approach, but we will definitely get to it,” he added.
The Commission was established in 2021 year following the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas group in May. COI is the first UN commission to ever be granted an indefinite period of investigation, which has drawn criticism from the US State Department, members of US Congress, and Jewish leaders across the world.
Following the resignations, Council President Jürg Lauber invited member states to nominate replacements by August 31. However, it is unclear whether the commission will be reconstituted or quietly shelved. UN Watch and other groups have urged the council to disband the COI entirely, calling it irreparably biased.
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