Near Eastern Realignment

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad ibn-Salman in Riyadh recently. 

Hamas is also reported to have sent representatives to meet with Saudi officials, among them Ismail Haniyeh, the one-time disputed Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. This would mark the first visit of Hamas leaders to the kingdom since 2015.

Abbas and the Fatah party lost control over the Gaza Strip to Hamas in 2007. The presence of both Abbas and Haniyeh in Saudi Arabia is therefore a possible signal that Riyadh is looking to mediate a mending of this divide, even apart from its own long-standing bad relations with Hamas which, according to Haniyeh, are improving.

One of the main impediments to this would have been the ties between Hamas and Iran, given the latter’s poor relations with Saudi Arabia, but this may not be an obstacle any longer, with the kingdom and Iran drawing together, agreeing to reopen their embassies in each other’s countries. This rapprochement has occurred under the auspices of China, indicating that a Pax Sinica may be behind some of the Near East’s recent pacification. 

Improving Hamas-Saudi relations would require that the Near Eastern kingdom make moves to free imprisoned members of Hamas, which include 69 Palestinians and Jordanians sentenced over their connections with the group in 2021. Indeed, in recent months, it has been doing just that, liberating, among others, the former Hamas representative in Saudi Arabia, Mohammad al-Khudari.

Saudi Arabia has also pledged earthquake relief and investment to Turkey, with whom its relations had not previously been good, depositing 5 billion USD in the Turkish Central Bank.

Hamas, for its part, has resumed diplomatic relations with the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad—who was recently invited to the United Arab Emirates, meeting with Sheikh Mohammed ibn-Zayed—with the UAE pledging 100 million USD to Syria following the recent earthquake affecting that country. Indeed, President Assad has also visited Oman.. Said geopolitical analyst Abdul-Khaleq Abdullah, as reported by Al-Jazeera: Abu Dhabi “is convinced, along with many Arab states, that the time has come to reconcile with Assad … and see Syria return to the Arab League and the Arab fold.” Years of civil war and diplomatic pariah status, then, seem to have given way, and Assad is being brought in as part of a general push to dissolve previous rivalries. 

Some of this drawing together may be motivated by (or may at least help to attenuate) the possible looming economic decline of Saudi Arabia and other future challenges over the Near Eastern horizon (labor market pressure on account of demographic trends, international pressure over energy transition, etc.) which will require regional geopolitical stability to properly navigate. 

All of this comes as Israel, which has likewise drawn closer to countries in its neighborhood through the Abraham Accords, faces political insatiability. It remains to be seen whether the government emerging from this convulsion will follow suit with its neighbors in finding ways to normalize its relationship with Syria and Iran or not.

Washington, for its part, may accept recent developments as closing a chapter in its geopolitical orientation, including the protracted attempt to overthrow Assad, even embracing a certain retreat from hegemon status as beneficial, harmonizing with the relative rise of Chinese protagonism, or, to the contrary, it may try to resist these changes.