Right now, as I’m writing this, MBS is calling Donald Trump twice in one day asking for American airstrikes on the Houthis and getting told no. The Houthis took the port of Mocha on Thursday and every island in the Bab al-Mandab strait on Friday. Drones launched out of Iraq shut down the pipeline that carries Saudi oil to the Red Sea. And Netanyahu, according to a Jerusalem Post article, citing US sources, is offering to help the Saudis fight the Houthis.
Everybody is negotiating over Saudi Arabia this week. The Iranians. The Americans. The Israelis. Everybody except the people whose statehood is supposedly the price of the whole deal.
Where is the Palestinian leadership? Ramallah. Waiting. Same as always.
I’m going to explain why that’s a disaster, and I’m going to do it as somebody who is not a fan of the PA. I’m a Palestinian American with family in the West Bank village of Burin. The Yitzhar settlement that’s been terrorizing my family got its security head sanctioned because a team of lawyers and I pushed the State Department until it happened. Nobody in Ramallah did that for us. So don’t read this as me defending the PA. Read it as me telling them to do their damn job for once.
Riyadh needs one thing it can’t manufacture
Here’s the thing people miss about Saudi normalization. MBS wanted to sign in 2023. Three weeks before October 7 he told Fox News “every day we get closer” and called it the biggest deal since the end of the Cold War. What stopped him wasn’t principle. It was Gaza, and it was his own people. Only 16 percent of Saudis had a positive view of the Abraham Accords in 2021. By early 2023, that number was 20%. The custodian of the two holy mosques cannot sign a bare deal with Israel while Israel is doing what it’s doing. So in September 2024 MBS went out of his way to “eliminate any ambiguity” and stated there is no normalization without a Palestinian state.
This means Riyadh needs Palestinians to say the deal is acceptable. That cover is the single card the Palestinian leadership holds with Saudi Arabia. Palestine has little to no geopolitical leverage, but here is a card Riyadh has already come asking for once.
In September 2023, Hussein al-Sheikh, intelligence chief Majed Faraj and Abbas’s adviser Majdi Khaldi flew to Riyadh and met the Saudi foreign minister, the national security adviser, and Brett McGurk from the White House. Axios reported the reason Riyadh wanted them there because vehement PA objection would make it much harder for Saudi Arabia to get public support at home and across the Arab world. Saudi officials told them Riyadh “will not abandon” the Palestinian cause.
So what did the PA ask for? Some Area C land moved to Area B. A Saudi consulate in Jerusalem. Resumed funding. Talks on a timetable. That’s it. Not a state. And a source close to the leadership told Middle East Eye the honest truth- that Palestinian leadership believed normalization is happening with or without them, so they might as well benefit from it, politically and financially.
That’s the Palestinian leadership. Handed the one piece of leverage that actually moves Riyadh, and they used it to ask for a consulate and a check. Quietly. Through a leaked list. They missed out on the public pressure this could have created, like they do time and time again.
Why this time is worse
In 2023 Saudi Arabia was strong. High oil prices, a détente with Iran, a Biden administration desperate for a deal. Riyadh could afford to wait.
Look at Riyadh now. The Houthis hold the entire Yemeni coast opposite the strait Saudi oil has to pass through since Iran closed Hormuz. The East-West pipeline is shut. MBS asked Trump twice on Thursday for strikes and Trump refused. Pakistan, which signed a defense pact with Riyadh last month, says no military response is even being discussed.
And in the middle of all that, Trump keeps pressuring Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. On July 22 the US signed a nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia. Within 24 hours, after what Israeli Channel 12 described as a concerted effort in Israel to get it done, Trump posted that the deal is “totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.” Netanyahu’s office credited the Iran war for creating the climate. That deal is sitting in Congress right now and is set to expire within 90 days.
Make no mistake about what’s happening. Israel doesn’t want a collapsed Saudi Arabia. Israel wants a Saudi Arabia weak enough to need protection and intact enough to join the Abraham Accords. That is what is happening right now. The squeeze is coming from three directions at once: Iran through the Houthis and the Iraqi militias, Washington through the nuclear deal, and Israel through the offer of help.
Every drone on Jizan and every missile on Ras Tanura pushes Riyadh one step closer to signing whatever Washington puts in front of it out of desperation. Right now Palestine’s leverage is being spent in this war, and PA leadership is silent in advancing its interests.
What “publicly” actually means
This is what Palestine leadership should do this week, not after the pathway has already been drafted by Americans and Israelis.
Get on a plane. The 2023 delegation left through Allenby and flew from Amman. Do it again. But this time, do it in front of cameras.
Publish the list drafted to Riyadh. Not a leaked list, a published one. An immediate freeze on E1. A settlement freeze across Area C. Israeli acceptance, in writing, that the endpoint is a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines. A US commitment to a UN membership vote. Specifically dated milestones. And Saudi money to the Palestinian Authority tied to each milestone. This in turn, pushes the PA to act further in its own interests to recieve further funding.
However, this must be heavily publicized. Hold a press conference in Riyadh, not Ramallah. Make MBS’s own words the standard. He said no normalization without a state. This must be said back to him in Saudi Arabia’s capital, and known globally.
Egypt and Jordan should be pressured to attend as well. Cairo is losing Suez money to the Houthis and will lose the Sinai in Netanyahu’s Greater Israel map. Amman has the most to lose of anyone- its entire state is erased in the map of “Greater Israel”. Both have every reason to stand with a public statement that any Saudi deal gets measured against the Arab Peace Initiative and the New York Declaration that Saudi Arabia co-authored with France and that the UN passed 142 to 10 in 2025.
It’s very important this is public, because a private list can be discounted behind the scenes. A published one becomes the thing every Saudi and every Arab watches MBS either meet or walk away from. It gives Palestine leverage, and right now it has very little. One of the few forced that have ever constrained MBS on this is his own public.
“But the two-state solution is dead”
I’ve said this myself, and the reality on the ground unfortunately very much so supports this. Netanyahu approve 3,000 units in E1 the same week he says he’s “very attached” to Greater Israel. Yet, this is the only international pathway Palestinians have at their disposal, and it must be pushed regardless.
That’s exactly why the price has to be public and specific. A vague “pathway to a Palestinian state” written by Kushner is a fiction that lets everyone sign. A published list of irreversible steps forces Israel to say no out loud, and this gives the PA more political credibility in response in wanting to finding a negotiated settlement. Let Netanyahu be the one who kills the two-state solution on camera, with Saudi Arabia’s signature sitting on the table. Then the world can finally have the conversation about one state with equal rights, and Riyadh can’t pretend it didn’t hear it.
What we must not accept is the PA doing 2023 all over again with a quiet list. A quiet no. A signature. And then a press release from the PA “rejecting” a deal they helped manufacture.
Is this legitimizing normalization?
The reality on the ground is that the signature is coming. MBS was three weeks from it in 2023 with less than a state on offer. The PA must recognize this and make the most they can out of an unfavorable situation, otherwise it will be Kushner and the likes drafting it regardless.
Saudi Arabia invited the PA to Riyadh in 2023 for exactly this reason, not because of Sympathy, but for MBS to save legitimacy among his own public.
“The PA has no legitimacy.” Agreed. Which is why it has to be public. If the whole Arab world watches them come forward with these demands, the failure in its implementation will be put on MBS, and this in turn increases the PA’s diplomatic leverage.
If Israel refuses to let PA leadership travel to Riyadh, the PA must publicize this as well, and push Arab states to condemn the move publicly. Everything the PA attempts to do for Palestine’s interests must be well publicized, because global support for the Palestine cause is one of the few points of leverage it has.
Wally Rashid is a Palestinian American journalist with family in Burin, Nablus Governorate, and the founder of votelog.org, which tracks every US congressional vote on Israel and Palestine.
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DISCLAIMER:
This video examines public reporting, documents, and allegations as reported by established outlets and primary sources. No claims are presented as fact beyond what is documented. This content is not intended to promote hate, misinformation, or harassment. Independent verification is encouraged.
Sources
MBS “every day we get closer,” Fox News, Sept. 20, 2023: https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-leader-israel-and-saudi-arabia-moving-closer-to-normalization-every-day/
Saudi public opinion on the Accords (16 to 20 percent): https://www.hoover.org/research/chimera-saudi-israeli-normalization-moment
MBS restates statehood condition, Sept. 2024: https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2024/09/21/as-wider-war-looms-saudi-insists-on-palestine-state-before-normalising-ties-with-israel/151194
PA delegation to Riyadh, Sept. 2023: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-israel-normalisation-palestine-delegation-discuss-deal-officials-riyadh
PA list and Riyadh’s motive, Axios, Aug. 30, 2023: https://www.axios.com/2023/08/30/saudi-israel-megadeal-palestinians-biden-list
Saudi “will not abandon” assurance: https://www.timesofisrael.com/officials-saudis-assured-palestinians-they-wont-be-abandoned-in-normalization-talks/
Houthis take Yemen’s Red Sea coast, Sept. 11, 2026: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/11/houthis-take-control-of-yemens-red-sea-coast-key-shipping-route
East-West pipeline shut, Sept. 12, 2026: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/12/saudi-arabia-shuts-critical-oil-pipeline-after-drone-attack-what-happened
MBS pressed Trump for strikes, CBS, Sept. 11, 2026: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-arabia-mbs-trump-houthis-yemen/
Pakistan: no military response under discussion: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/pakistan-officials-say-no-plans-military-action-yemen-after-attacks-saudi-arabia
Trump conditions nuclear deal on the Accords, Channel 12 on Israeli effort: https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-says-saudi-civilian-nuclear-pact-is-conditioned-on-normalization-with-israel/
Nuclear deal sent to Congress, condition not in the text: https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/26/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-nuclear-deal
Netanyahu reportedly offers to join anti-Houthi campaign (Al Akhbar via JPost, unconfirmed): https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-908382
Houthi official “we do not need any other agendas,” CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/08/middleeast/houthis-attack-saudi-arabia-yemen-intl-hnk
Saudi condemnation of “Greater Israel” remarks: https://www.arabnews.com/node/2611741/saudi-arabia
E1 approval the same week as the Greater Israel interview: https://themedialine.org/headlines/arab-states-condemn-netanyahus-greater-israel-remarks-as-smotrich-advances-west-bank-expansion/
New York Declaration and G7 recognitions, Sept. 2025: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-france-palestine-un-09-22-25
US revoked visas of Abbas and 80 officials, Aug. 2025: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-revokes-visas-of-palestinian-president-other-officials-ahead-of-un-general-assembly
Wally you are doing a good job. Please continue enabling communications and promoting peace. You are going up against a lot of manipulation in Palestine. The jews have their hands over everything there and they bribe all the authorities in that region because they can starve them whenever they want. You are literally the only hope the Palestinians have. Ive not seen any other Palestinian do the job you are doing. You must continue
Remeber his name Jamal Khashoggi