Saudi Arabia may accept normal relations with Israel

FOR YEARS Israel and Saudi Arabia have been partners in all but name. The leaders of the two countries confer in secret, share a rival in Iran, plan joint telecoms infrastructure, do quiet business deals and are members of American-led defence alliances. But while five other members of the Arab League already have agreed to full diplomatic relations with Israel, it has not been that simple for the Saudi kings to break 75 years of taboo against “normalisation” with the oft-reviled Jewish state.

The Saudis’ conservative 87-year-old king, Salman bin Abdelaziz, has been loth to make any public overture to Israel while the Palestinian people remain stateless. The Saudis have long backed the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which stipulates that normalisation can come only after Israel vacates the territories it conquered in the war of 1967 and allows a Palestinian state there to be born.