Admirers are calling it a "masterclass in diplomacy" that offers a true chance for peace in the Middle East. Critics say it is a selfish move, a "publicity stunt" to help burnish a country's international image more often in the headlines for human rights abuses.

So why is Saudi Arabia leading the charge for international recognition of a Palestinian state?

The current Saudi push for more countries to recognize Palestinian statehood actually began around a year ago. In September 2024, Saudi Arabia, together with Norway, announced the launch of a "Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution" and held the first two meetings in Riyadh. 

In December, the United Nations General Assembly voted to confirm again that most countries in the world believe the answer to problems between Israel and the Palestinian territories is a two-state solution. 

Last week, Saudi Arabia and France chaired a conference on the topic. During and after the meeting, multiple countries — France, Canada, Malta, the UK and Australia — announced they would definitely be, or were very seriously thinking about, recognizing a Palestinian state.

The meeting also resulted in a seven-page document, the "New York Declaration," signed by all member states of the Arab League, as well as the EU and around 17 other countries.

The declaration outlines a phased path toward a two-state solution. It calls on Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that led the incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to disarm, release remaining Israeli hostages and give up leadership in Gaza. "We also condemn the attacks by Israel against civilians in Gaza and civilian infrastructure, siege and starvation, which have resulted in a devastating humanitarian catastrophe," the signatories said.

The fact that all 22 members of the Arab League signed the declaration was seen as a diplomatic breakthrough. It is the first time many have censured Hamas so publicly.

And Saudi Arabia, together with France, has been credited with helping to make it all happen.

"Given Saudi Arabia's position within the Arab and Islamic world, and the kingdom's stewardship of [sacred religious sites] Mecca and Medina, anything Saudi Arabia does carries weight," Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, explained.

Why are the Saudis doing this now?

Before the October 2023 Hamas attacks and the ensuing Israeli military campaign, there was much talk of Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel. But if it did, it would do so without any regard to the cause of Palestinian statehood, long a serious obstacle between Israel and good relations with its neighbors.

As a result, Saudi Arabia was often seen by locals in other Arab nations as a "traitor" to the Palestinian cause. This is why some critics have suggested Saudi Arabia's recent moves at the UN are simply a way of combating that negative image in the Arab and Islamic world. 

But in fact, as Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst with Washington-based think tank, the Gulf International Forum, wrote in The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, "one of the enduring misconceptions on this topic is the idea that Saudi willingness to normalize ties with Israel is something new — when it actually dates back to the late 1960s."

Saudi plans for a two-state solution also go back decades, Coates Ulrichsen pointed out.

In 2002, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (who was crown prince at the time) proposed what is now known as the Arab Peace Initiative. At an Arab League summit in Beirut that same year, all the member states agreed to support the proposal, which among other things, said they would all recognize and normalize relations with Israel if Israel ended its occupation and agreed to establish a Palestinian state.

Over time, the initiative was derailed for a number of reasons, among them disagreements about Palestinians' right to return to land taken from them by Israel, the Arab Spring which changed the focus of regional politics and then the Abraham Accords, which saw several Arab states normalize with Israel in their own interests.

"But for many years, the Arab Peace Initiative was the default Saudi position," said Coates Ulrichsen, a position that was reaffirmed as recently as 2020.

"Now, the urgency of the situation in Gaza and the worsening violence in the West Bank likely means that the Saudis have calculated that they cannot stay silent in the face of such destruction and humanitarian suffering," he continued. In fact, last week's "New York Declaration" has already been described as a reboot of the 2002 Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative.

Push for peace in Saudis' own interest

Experts say there are also other reasons why leading a push toward Palestinian statehood benefits Saudi Arabia.

One obvious one is regional stability, crucial for Saudi Arabia to realize grand plans to diversify its economy away from oil.

Saudi diplomacy also advances other foreign policy objectives. "Riyadh's leadership is part of a calculated Saudi repositioning," Arab-language media outlet Raseef22 argued in an op-ed last week. "Saudi Arabia has transformed the Arab Peace Initiative into a political lever with international relevance, forming an Arab-Islamic voting bloc, [giving it] influence in energy and maritime security negotiations with the West and, perhaps most importantly, consolidating its position in the post-[Gaza]-war architecture."

Will the Saudi-French initiative succeed?

It's too early to tell, said Coates Ulrichsen. "But the fact that the UK and Canada have both come out with statements of conditional recognition of Palestine suggests the Saudi-French approach is moving the needle."

After last week's meeting in New York, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan called on more UN member states to support the "New York Declaration" before the next UN General Assembly in early September.

There is a good chance many might because it offers a way out, Faisal J. Abbas, a regular commentator on Saudi topics and the editor-in-chief of the English language daily Arab News, wrote for US website, Semafor, last week. "For Washington, the Saudi-French diplomatic initiative fits within American strategic interests and offers a route out of perpetual conflict. It could help stabilize the region, reducing the need for US military involvement," he argued. "And it offers Israel long-term security guarantees, if it's willing to abandon demands from its far right to annex the West Bank, alongside other maximalist positions."

The Saudi-French initiative still faces considerable opposition from Israel and its ally, the US.

Neither Israel nor the US participated in the meeting and both have criticized it. The Trump administration called it a "publicity stunt," and Israel's ambassador to the UN complained that "conference organizers are engaging in discussions and plenaries that are disconnected from reality."

Edited by: Andreas Illmer