🏛️ Oct-7 derails Israel-Saudi normalization and reprices regional risk

“The big news that has been going on in the last few months is that supposedly Israel and Saudi Arabia were close to working out some sort of normalization. And I think that process has been put on hold until I think this has been dealt with. ... I don't think we're going to get to a larger deal in the Middle East. We're not going to resolve all these problems until this long festering problem of the treatment of the Palestinians is dealt with.”

“And so I worry that the progress that was made in the Abraham Accords, all the normalization goes off the rails.”

“But I'm an optimist, and I actually think that in some ways, this is going to create a climate where people are going to really fight to try to resolve this situation, or at least contain the situation. Two-State Solution, the Abraham Accords. And I think this is going to renew people's commitment to peace in the region.”

“there was a process of normalization happening between Israel and a number of these Arab states, and we talked about it last week, that Jared Kushner set this in motion. There were three or four deals that were signed between Israel and the Gulf Arab states, bringing about normal relations. And Saudi Arabia was on the table as being the next one. There was a effort underway to negotiate a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia that is now completely on ice.”

“And at risk of the other agreements maybe being ripped up because if Israel goes in and has a massive ground invasion and there's more suffering and death, that that will maybe blow all those accords up.”

“I think the positive take on this is that it actually puts the Middle East in a position to resolve all of these things. ... I suspect that both of these two hot wars get resolved quickly because the larger multi-decade implications for the Middle East are too big to let it be subsumed by the Houthi rebels or Hamas.”

“The problem they have is that the Houthis aren't going to stop doing what they're doing until Israel's war in Gaza stops. And Netanyahu, just in the last 24 hours, made it clear that Israel won't stop fighting.”

“There are a group of people with an agenda, which is to modernize the economies there, to move off-petro and to move into technology and to move into hospitality with the Neon Project ... And that's not going to get derailed. And those are the most powerful, deep-pocketed influential forces there.”

“I don't think this is going to have any impact other than to escalate the conflict in the Middle East and put us on a path to war with Iran ... I think that's where this is all headed, is a larger war in the Middle East that features the US and Israel going to war with Iran.”

“you've got to think that Iran will think very carefully about how close they want to get to the Houthis in the middle of all of this”

“I mean, Israel went into Gaza, basically leveled the place, and has alienated practically the entire world. The only country that's solidly with Israel anymore is the United States. And even within the United States, roughly half the people are now against Israel.”