Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman exchanges files with U.S. President Donald Trump during a bilateral meeting in Riyadh on May 13, 2025. (Credit: AFP archive photo)
BEIRUT — U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had a “tense” closed-door exchange in Washington on Nov. 18 over Saudi normalization with Israel, Axios reports, citing U.S. officials and a well-informed source.
While Trump pressed for normalization, the latter responded that "Saudi society isn't ready for such a move now" the three sources told Axios.
"The president [Trump] really wants them [Saudi] to join the Abraham Accord. He tried very hard to talk him. It was an honest discussion. But MBS is a strong man. He stood his ground," a source told Axios.
The "well-informed source," said both men "remained courteous but the exchange was difficult." The source described "disappointment and irritation" on both sides.
In response to Trump's "insistence," MBS explained that, MBS explained to Trump that "although he wants to do move forward with normalization with Israel, he can't do so now because Saudi public opinion is highly anti-Israel in the aftermath of the Gaza war." Axios reports.
The war waged by Israel in Gaza following the bloody Hamas attack of Oct. 7 was described as "genocide" in mid-September by an international U.N. commission of inquiry.
In 2020, under the impetus of Trump, then serving his first term, several Arab countries — the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed by Sudan and Morocco — established official diplomatic relations with Israel, without waiting for a prior resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thereby breaking with the traditional Arab consensus on the Palestinian issue.
These accords are regularly touted as a victory by Trump, who is determined to extend them to other Arab countries.
MBS never said no to normalization
"Now that Iran's nuclear program has been totally obliterated and the war in Gaza has ended, it is very important to President Trump that all Middle Eastern countries join the Abraham Accords, which will advance peace in the region," a White House official also told Axios.
"MBS never said no to normalization. The door remains open for the future. But the two-state solution [Palestinian and Israeli] remains the sticking point," an American official, speaking anonymously, told the outlet.
At the end of September 2023, two weeks before the outbreak of the Gaza war, MBS publicly discussed the issue of negotiations around normalization with Israel for the first time, during an interview with Fox News. "For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve it," he had already said.
During the Nov. 18 meeting, MBS demanded that, in exchange for a peace deal with Saudi Arabia, Israel accept "an irreversible, credible, and time-bound path" toward a Palestinian state, the American outlet reports. He expressed this position publicly at a press conference following the meeting, Axios notes.
Israel strongly opposes any prospect of establishing a Palestinian state. "Our opposition to a Palestinian state on any territory whatsoever has not changed," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ten days ago.
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