October 12, 2023

Closed-door negotiations, seductive offers of weapons deals, requests for U.S. security guarantees, and even talk of supporting the Saudis with their own nuclear energy program: these were all on the table as the Biden administration worked toward clinching a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement in recent months. 

Achieving a diplomatic deal between two of America's most important allies in the Middle East – whose ties have never formally existed – was one of President Joe Biden's top foreign policy priorities, something he'd be able to highlight when running for re-election in 2024. 

Since Saturday Oct. 7, however, and as fighting rages between Israeli forces and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the likelihood for such a deal seems to have all but evaporated. The rapidly intensifying war is shaping up to become the worst violence of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades. 

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