Opinion: Israel Annexation Plan Diminishes Hope For Better Ties With Gulf Arab States
No Gulf Arab country will seriously contemplate normalizing ties with Israel unless Saudi Arabia does it first. The Saudis, who officially condemned the annexation plan, are nowhere close to doing so.
Bilal Y. Saab, a senior fellow and director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute, served from August 2018 to September 2019 in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as senior advisor for security cooperation in the Middle East. Charlotte Armistead is a research assistant at MEI's Defense and Security Program.
On July 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to commence the process to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank. This move, should it come to fruition, may kill
