FACT CHECK: No Evidence Of Saudi Arabia Saying Normalization Talks With Israel Are Over

A video shared on Facebook claims Saudi Arabia is ending normalization talks with Israel.

Verdict: False

There is no evidence that Saudi Arabia has ended normalization talks with Israel.

Fact Check:

Social media users are spreading claims that Saudi Arabia ended negotiations with Israel over normalizing relations. These posts cite the Jerusalem Post, an Israeli news outlet, and claim that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was informed by Saudi Arabia of the development.

There is no evidence for this claim. If Saudi Arabia had ended normalization talks with Israel, media outlets would have covered it, yet none have. Check Your Fact also reviewed the Jerusalem Post website and did not find any reporting highlighting that Saudi Arabia had broken off the talks with Israel.

Check Your Fact also reviewed the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and verified X account. This search did not yield any results for any announcement that the country had ended normalization talks with Israel.

“I think there would be more coverage from mainstream Arab media if the Saudis had made such a definitive statement,” Gordon Gray, the Kuwait Professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Affairs at George Washington University, told USA Today.

Blinken said that Hamas attacks may have been partially motivated by the group’s want of derailing the talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to the Associated Press. The U.S. is continuing to push for Saudi-Israeli ties despite the Hamas conflict, the New York Times reported Oct. 8.

Check Your Fact reached out to the State Department, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Jerusalem Post for comment. Check Your Fact has debunked claims related to the recent events in Israel and Gaza. Read them here(RELATED: Fact Checking Videos, Images And Posts From The October Hamas Attack On Israel)

Note: Check Your Fact is working to debunk false and misleading claims from the recent event. Please send tips to [email protected]

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