Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman hold their first EVER phone call as Hamas attack upends Middle East rivalry

It’s been less than a month since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Joe Biden that the Middle East was on the brink of a massive reshuffle and a historic peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

But on Wednesday afternoon, in the wake of Hamas’s devastating terror attack, the Middle East looked like it could be on the verge of a very different alignment.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in an attempt to forge a common position of support for the Palestinian cause.

“This is what Hamas wanted,” said a senior European diplomat with knowledge of the region, who was not authorized to speak to the media.

“The Saudis and other Arab nations are proceeding to normalize (relations with Israel) as if the Palestinian cause no longer mattered.”

It reflects a remarkable development between leaders on either side of the historic divide between Sunni and Shiite Islam, a schism that is fueling conflict across the Middle East

The phone call was the first between the two key figures since Tehran and Riyadh restored relations seven months ago.

They discussed “the need to end war crimes against Palestine,” Iranian presidential political affairs aide Mohammad Jamshidi said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Islamic unity was emphasized and both believed that the regime’s crimes and the US green light would cause catastrophic insecurity for the regime and its supporters,” he said.

Simon Henderson, a Saudi expert at the Washington Institute, said: “It’s extremely interesting and extremely dangerous at the same time.”

He said this may reflect Washington’s efforts to use any diplomatic means possible to urge Iran not to escalate the conflict.

“The U.S. I think is concerned about the war or the fighting expanding,” he said.

“And they want to keep Hezbollah (an Iranian proxy) out of the fray. And the way to do that is to keep Iran out of the fray.’

A US official told the Wall Street Journal: “With the formalization of the Saudi and Iranian recession in March, I guess the crown prince thought this was an opportune time.

“We ask all our partners to work with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.”

At least 1,200 Israelis were killed when thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas fighters poured out of the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

Gaza authorities said Thursday that more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed and more than 6,000 wounded in retaliatory airstrikes. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Israeli troops are massing around the 140-square-mile area ahead of an expected ground invasion.

Any kind of Iran-Saudi rapprochement could undermine years of stable US diplomacy in the region.

Israel and Saudi Arabia share concerns about Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its support for terrorist groups.

And under President Donald Trump he began a normalization push, a country-by-country initiative to build ties between Arab states and Israel.

Known as the Abraham Accords, the push secured agreements in 2020 between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, states that had not recognized Israel since its founding in 1948 on Palestinian territory.

Biden continued the push, with the grand prize a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Last year he welcomed Saudi Arabia’s decision to open its airspace to all civilian planes, including those flying to and from Israel, flying from Tel Aviv to Jeddah.

In New York last month, Netanyahu and Biden underscored the historic nature of the moment.

Biden said: “If you and I were talking 10 years ago about normalization with Saudi Arabia, I think we would be looking at each other like ‘who’s drinking what?’

But it left the Palestinians feeling vulnerable, as if their decades-long conflict with Israel had been written into history. One by one their allies were picked without discussing their claims to sovereignty or a two-state solution, giving them their own nation, coming closer.

Immediately after the attacks, Saudi Arabia issued a statement that did not condemn Hamas and pointed out that it had repeatedly warned that Israel.the occupation, the deprivation of the legal rights of the Palestinian people and the repetition of systematic challenges have led to this moment.

“We’re going to see a pretty significant operation from the air, land and sea that costs many, many, many lives,” Stephen Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern and African Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Associated Press. .

“I think this normalization momentum will likely slow or stop, at least for some time.”