When the Middle East is in crisis, Saudi Arabia steps in with a diplomatic initiative.
It did so in 1981, when Crown Prince Fahd proposed a peace framework amid the shock of the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. It did so again in 2002, when Crown Prince Abdullah launched a peace initiative in the shadow of the second Palestinian Intifada and the 9/11 events, which was modified by the Arab League into the Arab Peace Initiative.
Today, the Middle East is once again undergoing an upheaval: Gaza has reshaped the political landscape; war with Iran has exposed new vulnerabilities across the Gulf; Lebanon and Syria are going through domestic changes; and the United States, while still central, is no longer the uncontested architect of regional order.
This is exactly the kind of moment that has historically produced a Saudi diplomatic move.
But if Saudi Arabia acts again, it will not simply revive the past. It will rewrite it.
The Arab Peace Initiative remains on the table – largely unchanged and frequently invoked in regional diplomatic discourse. It offered Israel something no Arab state had offered before: full normalization in exchange for full withdrawal and a Palestinian state. It remains the only framework that links normalization to a comprehensive political settlement.
Yet the region in which it was conceived has significantly changed.
In 2002, normalization was a distant prospect and a powerful bargaining chip. Today, normalization is already underway across the region – without Saudi Arabia. The “reward” that once made the initiative compelling has already been diluted.
At the same time, the political costs have risen.
The war in Gaza re-centered the Palestinian issue and reintroduced it – not as a diplomatic abstraction but as a visible, emotionally charged reality across the Arab world. For Saudi Arabia, whose leadership still depends on its standing in the Islamic world, this matters. Normalization is not just a strategic choice; it is a legitimacy test, intimately connected with the Palestinian issue.
The war with Iran complicates the picture further.
In theory, it strengthens the case for alignment. Iran has demonstrated both its reach and its willingness to escalate, primarily against Gulf targets. From a strategic perspective, coordination with Israel has never made more sense.
But war also raises the stakes. Alignment becomes more visible, more dangerous, and harder to control. Gulf states are thinking not only about deterrence but also about entanglement. The same developments that make cooperation more attractive also make public alignment riskier.
Saudi Arabia’s normalization dilemma
This is the paradox that currently defines Saudi policy: The incentives for normalization are stronger than ever, but the conditions for it are worse than before. This is precisely why Saudi Arabia has, for decades, avoided the kind of normalization embodied in the Abraham Accords. It prefers a different model: gradual, conditional, and often deliberately ambiguous. It cooperates without declaring. It engages without committing.
This is not hesitation; it is deliberate strategy.
If Saudi Arabia moves now, it will not abandon the Arab Peace Initiative. But it will not repeat it either.
The original formula – full withdrawal in exchange for full normalization – assumed a stable regional hierarchy and a clear sequence of steps. Neither exists today. A new Saudi initiative would likely be phased, conditional, and embedded in a broader regional framework that includes not only the Palestinian question but also security arrangements and deterrence vis-à-vis Iran.
In practice, rather than a single, comprehensive bargain, a renewed Saudi initiative would likely proceed in stages.
Initial steps could include limited, reversible forms of normalization, such as expanded public economic and technological cooperation, in exchange for concrete Israeli steps on the Palestinian front. These could involve commitment to halt settlement expansion or to strengthen Palestinian governance and economic infrastructure.
Such an approach would transform the Arab Peace Initiative from an all-or-nothing bargain into a phased process that links incremental normalization to incremental political progress. Over time, this would create a pathway in which limited cooperation evolves into broader normalization, contingent on sustained progress toward a political settlement.
A prevalent view, particularly in Washington, holds that normalization is inevitable and that Saudi Arabia is simply the next domino to fall. This view is simplistic and misleading. Saudi Arabia is not waiting to join a process designed elsewhere.
As the region’s most influential Arab and Muslim state, its choices will shape the trajectory of normalization far beyond its own borders. It operates according to its own logic – one that prioritizes flexibility, manages risk, and avoids irreversible commitments in conditions of uncertainty.
Moments of crisis have, in the past, produced Saudi diplomacy. This may be one of them. But any new initiative will not follow the logic of the Abraham Accords – it will redefine it.
Prof. Elie Podeh teaches in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is a board member of Mitvim, and is a member of the Coalition for Regional Security.
Dr. Elad Giladi teaches in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Haifa and is a research fellow at the Chaikin Institute for Geo-Strategy.