<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">A cash boost of hundreds of millions of dollars and more control of land in the occupied West Bank are among Palestinian demands in the event of a three-way deal involving the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the BBC has learned.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) held talks in Riyadh with Saudi counterparts on Wednesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They were also due to see US officials.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Americans are long thought to have been pushing for a landmark pact to normalise Israel-Saudi ties.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It would be underwritten by Washington and would include a major security deal the Saudis want to achieve with the US. But the prospects for such agreements face significant obstacles and remain distant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We don't expect any imminent announcements or breakthroughs in the period ahead," said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, given the scope for a historic realignment of ties in the Middle East, there is continuing speculation over the framework for any deal, with American shuttle diplomacy picking up again after trips by officials to Riyadh, Amman and Jerusalem this summer.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">US President Joe Biden is likely to see a Saudi-Israel deal as a breakthrough foreign policy prize he can present to voters ahead of next year's election.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Saudi Arabia is a leader of the Arab and Islamic world. It has never formally recognised Israel since the creation of the state in 1948.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked up the possibility last month, claiming: "We're about to witness a pivot of history."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Any deal, though, would be deeply controversial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In return for recognising Israel, Saudi Arabia is said to be demanding US guarantees for advanced American-made weapons and, most contentious of all, a civil nuclear programme including in-country uranium enrichment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israel for its part would benefit from trade and defence ties with the Gulf superpower and further historic integration it has always sought in the region, following on from other Arab state normalisation deals brokered in 2020.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"These are mostly security and trade agreements. Fast forward to the year 2023, and we now see that Saudi Arabia also wants to get involved in this," said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the official Palestinian negotiating team in the now-moribund peace talks with the Israelis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For a deal to succeed it would have to be seen to involve significant Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, needs to assuage his own public - historically opposed to Israel and deeply sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israeli forces close all entrances and exits to Burqa due to tensions between Palestinians and Jewish settlers in Burqa village of Ramallah, West Bank</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, President Biden will also need to prove he has won significant gains for the Palestinians to get support from his Democratic Party. Many in the party reject the idea of any defence sweeteners for the Saudis due to the country's human rights record and its role in the war in Yemen. They are also hostile to the idea of rewarding Israel's current extreme nationalist governing coalition, which they see as exacerbating tensions in the West Bank and which has sparked unprecedented instability within Israel itself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The team of top Palestinian officials in Riyadh - including the two men seen as closest to President Mahmoud Abbas, the PA's intelligence chief, Majed Faraj, and Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation - met Saudi national security adviser Musaed al-Aiban on Wednesday, according to a senior Palestinian official familiar with the discussions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Their list of demands in return for engaging with the American-backed process was set out during a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf last week in Amman. The Palestinian official told the BBC the demands include:</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A "complete cessation" of Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Resuming US-brokered negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians from where they stopped under then-Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Such concessions are very significant - reportedly already seen by the Americans as overreaching by the Palestinians. But they are a far cry from the official, publicly stated Palestinian position on Saudi-Israel normalisation - which is to reject it outright if it does not leave them with an independent state.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This follows the Arab Peace Initiative, a Saudi-led plan of 2002, which offered the Arab world's recognition of Israel in return for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The current approach reflects the deep "bind" the Palestinian leadership is in, according to Ms Buttu.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Palestinians by and large don't want to be part of any of these normalisation deals because [the Arab world's support] is the only tool that we have left," she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We've been told that we're not allowed to violently resist. We're told that we're not allowed to pursue legal measures to demand an end to the occupation. We're told that we're not allowed to pursue boycotts, divestment and sanction."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Palestinian Authority is now questioning: should we instead be trying to get our demands heard and realised, or should we do what we did in 2020 which was to ignore it? And again it's a bind - no matter what the Palestinian Authority does on this, it is doomed to fail," Ms Buttu told the BBC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>