US President Donald Trump has compromised on an earlier demand that the Saudis normalize relations with Israel as a condition for civil nuclear cooperation talks between the US and Saudi Arabia.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took to social media to voice his concerns following the news that US President Donald Trump was considering waiving the requirement that Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel before a defense agreement.
“I have been working on and supportive of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel for years. This historic agreement would effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict and allow the region to march toward the light and away from darkness, building on the historic Abraham Accords,” Graham wrote on X.
He continued, “However, I would like to make it crystal clear that I will never support a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia or other elements of a proposed deal that does not include normalizing the relationship with Israel as a part of the package. Normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is an essential element.”
US President Donald Trump has compromised on an earlier demand that the Saudis normalize relations with Israel as a condition for civil nuclear cooperation talks between the US and Saudi Arabia.
Senator Graham, who has been staunchly pro-Israel, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October, before Trump’s electoral victory, that he believed a Saudi normalization agreement could be reached by the end of the year.
However, Graham has also been vocally critical of the notion of the Palestinian State, which Saudi Arabia says is a necessary precondition for any normalization agreement with Israel.
Backing Netanyahu’s demand in 2023 and since that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority should have a role in ruling Gaza after the war, Graham said he wouldn’t invest “15 cents” for a Palestinian State.
“I would not invest 15 cents in a future Palestine where Hamas is still standing,” Graham told ABC’s “This Week” interviewer Pierre Thomas in 2023. “Their leaders need to be killed and captured …So, when we get to the day after Israel has ceased military operations because Hamas has been destroyed, the new Palestine cannot have Hamas, and the PA cannot govern it.”