Arab foreign ministers condemned Israel on Saturday for blocking their planned visit to the occupied West Bank, where they were set to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
According to a statement from Jordan’s Foreign Ministry, the ministers denounced Israel’s decision to prevent Sunday’s delegation, which was to include top diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, along with the Arab League’s secretary-general.
Israel announced late Friday that it would not cooperate with the visit, effectively halting it due to its control over the West Bank’s borders and airspace.
An Israeli official defended the move, claiming Abbas had “intended to host in Ramallah a provocative meeting of foreign ministers from Arab countries to discuss the promotion of the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the Land of Israel. Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security,” the official said.
Had the visit gone ahead, the delegation’s head, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, would have become the first Saudi foreign minister to visit the West Bank.
This week, Israel announced the creation of 22 new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which the United Nations considers illegal under international law and one of the main obstacles to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
During a visit to one of the new settlement sites on Friday, Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the Palestinian territory.
Taking aim at foreign countries that would “recognize a Palestinian state on paper,” Katz added: “The paper will be thrown into the trash bin of history, and the State of Israel will flourish and prosper.”
In June, Saudi Arabia and France are set to co-chair an international conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York aimed at reviving the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Saudi Arabia was said to be close to recognizing Israel before the start of the Gaza war, and U.S. President Donald Trump, during a recent visit to Riyadh, called normalization between the two countries “my fervent hope and wish.”
However, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has repeatedly said Saudi Arabia will not recognize Israel without the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at Eurasia Group, said Israel’s rejection of the visit indicated “how far Saudi and Israel have moved from normalization to diplomatic confrontation.”
He added that the planned visit “underscores just how much the Saudi position has shifted away from creating a credible pathway towards a Palestinian state through conditional normalization with Israel, to one that aims to create such a path via an international coalition in support of Palestinian aspirations.”
International backlash has been growing since Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza in March, with a worsening humanitarian crisis and the United Nations warning of famine across the territory.
Saudi Arabia is co-hosting the upcoming conference with France in New York, aiming to revive the two-state solution.
French President Emmanuel Macron previously said he could recognize a Palestinian state at that meeting, drawing a sharp rebuke from Israel.
