On every occasion in which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia participates and at every international forum, it seeks to remind the international community of its responsibilities toward what is happening in Palestine.
Anyone who reviews its statements and observes the evolution of its language, from diplomacy to pressure and demands for practical steps to halt violations in Gaza and the West Bank, protect holy sites, support Palestinian resilience, reject hate speech, racism, and settler terrorism, will recognize the magnitude of the situation and its implications from the Kingdom’s perspective.
Since the first meeting between the founding King Abdulaziz (may God rest his soul) and Roosevelt, Saudi Arabia has consistently insisted on defending Palestinian rights.
A massive fireball is slowly forming in the region. Those who fail to look beyond the succession of events, the rapid pace of crises, and their details may not grasp its danger. What is alarming is that it could eventually explode, becoming difficult to contain and placing the international community before a major test of whether it is still capable of upholding the very rules it established, amid the region’s growing security disorder.
My generation lived through and closely followed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for many years. Younger Arab and Muslim generations now follow it even more closely due to the constant flow of content through digital platforms. Every phase of the conflict had its own vocabulary: occupation, uprising, negotiations, settlement, peace process, and the two-state solution.
Today, however, we are entering a different phase, one in which people are not merely debating the shape of a settlement, but questioning the very value of a settlement itself. Questions are increasingly being asked about the role of international institutions, why they have become ineffective, and why confidence in them has eroded.
What is happening in the West Bank offers a revealing and deeply troubling example. Israeli settler violence can no longer be described as a series of isolated incidents that fall under the label of “security tensions.” It has evolved from reactive behavior into an organized, preemptive campaign linked to a catastrophic idea: severing Palestinians’ connection to their land and driving them from it.
By mid-September of this year, the United Nations had documented more than 1,600 settler attacks resulting in Palestinian injuries, property damage, or both, averaging 6.7 incidents per day. The number of affected Palestinian communities has also expanded significantly.
What can be described as “political nihilism” is growing today, and in my view it is more dangerous than traditional extremism. An extremist may embrace a radical idea that can be challenged and disproven, but a nihilist begins with the belief that the international system and the world itself have become meaningless, that no law offers protection and no institution is capable of stopping Israeli arrogance.
Negotiations and the solutions proposed each time are seen merely as a prolonged management of tragedy. This poses a threat not only to Israel but to a world seeking peace, because many nihilists eventually become a frustrated bloc searching for alternatives outside institutions, the state, and the rule of law.
I do not believe that the frustration over what is happening in Palestine, in full view of the world, is confined to Arabs and Muslims. There are, in my view, more profound and rapidly growing shifts taking place within the Western world itself, particularly among younger generations, and opinion polls confirm this.
For example, a survey conducted in May 2026 by the highly respected Pew Research Center found that 58 percent of Americans under the age of 30 view Palestinian rights very positively, while favorable views of the actions of Israel’s far-right government did not exceed 18 percent.
These trends reflect the emergence of new generations increasingly affected by the daily reality of the Palestinian tragedy and by the powerful impact of real-time images showing destroyed homes, wounded civilians, settler assaults and intimidation, and the seizure of Palestinian land and crops under the watch, and often with the support, of occupation soldiers.
The paradox is that these societal shifts within the United States have not been matched by corresponding changes in official policy. Sanctions imposed in January 2025 on individuals and groups linked to settler violence in the West Bank were later lifted.
In September 2026, a broader American dispute with the International Criminal Court emerged, including discussions of extensive sanctions over several issues, among them investigations related to Israeli conduct, even as European positions underwent substantial change. While the European stance represents a significant development, it has not altered the harsh political reality on the ground.
Since the birth of the Palestinian cause, an opportunistic discourse has accompanied it, exploiting Palestine without serving it. The repercussions of what is happening in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to intensify security challenges across the region, particularly as states and militias continue to invest in the Palestinian issue, as they have for decades, in order to build influence, justify weapons outside state institutions, and legitimize intervention in Arab countries.
Yet none of these slogans has liberated a single inch of Palestinian land, because their true aim is to turn the Palestinian tragedy into a permanent source of political capital.
This is where the importance of the role led by Saudi Arabia and the region’s moderate states becomes evident. Continued political and diplomatic pressure, however slow it may appear, is beginning to influence European positions and return the Palestinian issue to the center of international debate.
In a turbulent world where trust in institutions is declining, this path remains the most rational course: preserving faith in politics itself and preventing nihilism from becoming the alternative.
