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    Haiti to Receive Another $130 Million From U.S. to Restore Order

    The U.S. secretary of state announced more aid for the multinational security mission planned to deploy to Haiti, as well as more humanitarian aid.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken announced Monday that the United States would provide an additional $100 million in aid toward a United Nations-backed multinational security mission planned to deploy to Haiti, which has been overrun by gang violence.He also pledged an additional $33 million in humanitarian aid, bringing the U.S. commitments to $333 million.“We can help. We can help restore a foundation of security,” Mr. Blinken said during a meeting of regional leaders held in Kingston, Jamaica. “Only the Haitian people can, and only the Haitian people should determine their own future, not anyone else.”The pledge of further U.S. aid was the highlight of a meeting that seemed to achieve little progress in reaching a political resolution as unrest in Haiti’s capital has surged in the last two weeks.Prime Minister Ariel Henry of Haiti departed for Kenya in early March to finalize an agreement for the multinational force, led by the east African nation, to deploy and take on the gangs. Since then, Mr. Henry has been stranded outside his country while gang members wreak havoc and demand his resignation.So far, the prime minister has refused to step down even as pressure grows both in his country and abroad for him to resign. Mr. Henry, who has been staying in Puerto Rico, did not attend Monday’s meeting and it was unclear if he had taken part remotely in the discussion. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Fears Russia Might Put a Nuclear Weapon in Space

    American spy agencies are divided on whether Moscow would go so far, but the concern is urgent enough that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has asked China and India to try to talk Russia down.When Russia conducted a series of secret military satellite launches around the time of its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, American intelligence officials began delving into the mystery of what, exactly, the Russians were doing.Later, spy agencies discovered Russia was working on a new kind of space-based weapon that could threaten the thousands of satellites that keep the world connected.In recent weeks, a new warning has circulated from America’s spy agencies: Another launch may be in the works, and the question is whether Russia plans to use it to put a real nuclear weapon into space — a violation of a half-century-old treaty. The agencies are divided on the likelihood that President Vladimir V. Putin would go so far, but nonetheless the intelligence is an urgent concern to the Biden administration.Even if Russia does place a nuclear weapon in orbit, U.S. officials are in agreement in their assessment that the weapon would not be detonated. Instead, it would lurk as a time bomb in low orbit, a reminder from Mr. Putin that if he was pressed too hard with sanctions, or military opposition to his ambitions in Ukraine or beyond, he could destroy economies without targeting humans on earth.Despite the uncertainties, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken raised the possibility of the Russian nuclear move with his Chinese and Indian counterparts on Friday and Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.Mr. Blinken’s message was blunt: Any nuclear detonation in space would take out not only American satellites but also those in Beijing and New Delhi.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Frozen U.S. Funding for UNRWA in Gaza Is Minimal, State Dept. Says

    Just $300,000 is on hold after Israeli claims that UNRWA employees joined the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, U.S. officials say.The State Department downplayed the significance on Tuesday of its decision to pause funding for the main U.N. aid agency in Gaza, explaining that it had already provided virtually all the money allocated by Congress for that purpose and that the Biden administration hoped the matter could be resolved quickly.More than 99 percent of American dollars approved by Congress for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, has been sent to the agency, the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said on Tuesday.The State Department paused the money “temporarily” on Friday after accusations by Israel that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, with some holding hostages within Gaza. At least 17 other donor nations have also suspended their funding to the agency, according to the group U.N. Watch.Human rights groups and progressive Democrats in Congress have denounced the move, saying that it will deprive innocent Palestinians of desperately needed aid. But Mr. Miller said the State Department had sent all but $300,000 of about $121 million budgeted for UNRWA to the agency, suggesting that the near-term effect of the U.S. action within Gaza will be minor.U.S. officials suggested that the real question is how much more money Congress will be willing to approve for an agency that many Republicans condemn for what they call anti-Israel bias and Hamas sympathies. Underscoring that uncertainty, witnesses at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday denounced UNRWA and called for its restructuring or replacement.Israel’s government says that at least 12 employees of the agency participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and that UNRWA employs as many as 1,300 Hamas members. Israel estimates that the attack left roughly 1,200 people dead; another 240 people were taken hostage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    State Dept. Tells Congress It Has Approved Sale of F-16 Jets to Turkey

    The department received documents on Friday signed by Turkey’s leader approving Sweden’s long-delayed entry into NATO. The alliance now awaits word from the lone holdout, Hungary.The State Department notified Congress on Friday that it had approved a $23 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets and related equipment to Turkey after the country’s leader signed documents to allow Sweden’s long-delayed entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, department officials and the Pentagon said.Although Congress could move to formally block the sale, four senior lawmakers told the State Department on Friday evening that they would not object, after their aides reviewed the documents signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, U.S. officials said.Congressional officials had demanded to see the documents before signaling their approval of the sale, so the State Department asked Turkey to fly the documents to New York on Friday. The department had someone pick up the documents in New York and bring them to Washington by Friday evening to show the lawmakers.The department’s subsequent formal notification to Congress means the sale will almost certainly occur, satisfying Mr. Erdogan’s main condition for supporting Sweden’s accession to NATO and potentially helping bring to a close an episode that has strained relations between the United States and Turkey.Turkey was, along with Hungary, one of two NATO members withholding approval of Sweden’s entry into the alliance. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had undertaken intense diplomacy since last year, including meeting with Mr. Erdogan in Istanbul this month, to try to change the Turkish leader’s mind.Mr. Blinken discussed the issue with Mr. Erdogan in a visit to Turkey in February 2023, and said three times that Turkey would not get the F-16s if it refused to approve Sweden’s accession, a U.S. official said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    EE. UU. prohíbe la entrada a Giammattei, expresidente de Guatemala

    El anuncio sugiere que Estados Unidos respalda la campaña contra la corrupción dirigida por el nuevo presidente de Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo.El Departamento de Estado estadounidense informó el miércoles que Alejandro Giammattei, quien fue presidente de Guatemala hasta el tumultuoso traspaso de poder efectuado esta semana, tenía prohibida la entrada en Estados Unidos debido a información que, según las autoridades, indicaba que había aceptado sobornos.El anuncio sugiere que Estados Unidos respalda la campaña contra la corrupción dirigida por el nuevo presidente de Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo. Hace poco, Guatemala se vio envuelta en protestas por los intentos de impedir que Arévalo tomara posesión de su cargo, y Giammattei se negó a participar en la juramentación de su sucesor celebrada el lunes.“Nadie, especialmente un funcionario público, está por encima de la ley”, declaró Brian Nichols, alto funcionario del Departamento de Estado para el Hemisferio Occidental.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    U.S. Moves to Bar Alejandro Giammattei, Ex-Guatemalan Leader

    The decision against Alejandro Giammattei, who is accused of accepting bribes, signaled U.S. support for a new anticorruption drive in Guatemala.The State Department said on Wednesday that Alejandro Giammattei, Guatemala’s president until a tumultuous transfer of power this week, was barred from entering the United States because of what officials said was information indicating that he had accepted bribes.The announcement signaled that the United States was moving quickly to support the anticorruption drive led by Guatemala’s new president, Bernardo Arévalo. Guatemala was recently engulfed in protests over attempts to prevent Mr. Arévalo from taking office, and Mr. Giammattei refused to appear at his successor’s inauguration on Monday.“No one, especially a public official, is above the law,” said Brian Nichols, the top State Department official for the Western Hemisphere.The Treasury Department also announced sanctions on Wednesday against Alberto Pimentel Mata, a former energy minister in Mr. Giammattei’s government, in connection to Mr. Pimentel Mata’s taking bribes and his involvement in numerous corruption schemes related to government contracts and licenses, officials said.Last weekend, U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied entry in Miami to one of Mr. Giammattei’s sons, and expelled him on Monday, according to Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and a supporter of Mr. Giammattei.Taken together, the moves reflect how the United States government is trying to stem corruption and impunity in Guatemala, Central America’s most populous country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    The War Between Israel and Hamas Is Splintering the Democratic Coalition

    The Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza are creating a fissure between Democratic constituencies crucial to President Biden’s campaign for a second term in the White House.The Nov. 2 Quinnipiac University Poll found that half of all voters approved of the way Israel is responding to the Oct. 7 attacks, while 35 percent disapproved. Among all voters, however, one key subgroup dissented — 18-to-34-years-olds — a constituency that provided Biden with enough votes in 2020 to put him over the top. These young voters faulted Israel’s response to the attacks, 52-32 percent.Exit poll data from 2020 shows that Donald Trump beat Biden by small margins among the 60 percent of the electorate that was 45 or older, that Biden won 52-46 among the 23 percent of voters aged 30 to 44 and that the one bloc decisively in favor of Biden was voters aged 18 to 29, who made up 17 percent of the electorate and backed the Democratic nominee 60-36.Perhaps equally significant, in March 2023, more than six months before Hamas’s attack on Israel, Gallup found that “sympathy toward the Palestinians among U.S. adults is at a new high of 31 percent, while the proportion not favoring either side is at a new low of 15 percent. The 54 percent of Americans sympathizing more with the Israelis is similar to last year’s 55 percent, but it is the lowest since 2005.”This shift in American public opinion toward Palestinians provides crucial insight into what my Times colleagues Jennifer Medina and Lisa Lerer wrote on Oct. 20:Progressive Jews who have spent years supporting racial equity, gay and transgender rights, abortion rights and other causes on the American left — including opposing Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank — are suddenly feeling abandoned by those who they long thought of as allies. This wartime shift represents a fundamental break within a liberal coalition that has long powered the Democratic Party.There is, Medina and Lerer add:a politically engaged swath of American Jewry who are reaching a breaking point. They have long sought an end to the Israeli government’s occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza, supported a two-state solution and protested the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu.But in the Hamas attacks, many saw an existential threat, evoking memories of the Holocaust and generations of antisemitism, and provoking anxiety about whether they could face attacks in the United States. And they were taken aback to discover that many of their ideological allies not only failed to perceive the same threats but also saw them as oppressors deserving of blame.Bruce Cain, a political scientist at Stanford, replied by email to my question on the domestic political consequences of the violence in the Middle East:For Democrats, the Gaza war exacerbates pre-existing coalitional tensions along age, racial, religious, and ideological lines. The pro-Hamas faction is younger, nonwhite, Muslim and secular, and more progressive. The pro-Israel faction is older, whiter, Jewish and Christian, and more centrist.Biden cannot afford to lose even thin slices of the Democratic electorate, Cain argued: “As the Siena/NYT poll indicates, small swings in turnout of the Democratic base can doom Biden. This is what happened to Hillary behind the blue curtain in 2016.”“The longer and bloodier the war,” Cain added, “the harder it will be for the Democratic coalition.”I asked Norman Ornstein, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “Do you see the conflict hurting Biden’s prospects or helping them?” He replied by email: “Right now, there is no question it is dividing the Democratic base and hurting Biden’s approval.” But, Ornstein quickly added, “the election is a year away, and, more important, all will be shaped by the outcome of the conflict.”Biden’s support of Israel has produced exceptional, if not unprecedented, dissent among party loyalists and government employees.On Nov. 3, Liz Skalka, Daniel Marans and Akbar Shahid Ahmed reported on the HuffPost website that more than 50 staff members of the Democratic National Committee had signed a letter calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.“As strategic partners to the administration … we feel it is the D.N.C.’s moral obligation to urge President Biden to publicly call for a cease-fire,” they wrote. “With the number of civilian deaths growing rapidly each day, we must be clear: the Israeli government’s unrelenting military bombardment and blockading of vital supplies entering Gaza must end.”Along similar lines, a Nov. 1 Foreign Policy article by Robbie Gramer disclosed that there was a “storm of dissent brewing in the State Department.”A group of State Department employees opposed to administration policies is gathering signatures for a “dissent cable,” Gramer wrote, a formal procedure created by the State Department “to allow its users the opportunity to bring dissenting or alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues.”Gramer reported that “many U.S. diplomats were privately angered, shocked and despondent by what they perceived as a de facto blank check from Washington for Israel to launch a massive military operation in Gaza at an immense humanitarian cost for the besieged Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”In a separate Nov. 3 Foreign Policy article, “More U.S. Officials Are Anonymously Calling for a Gaza Cease-Fire,” Amy Mackinnon and Gramer wrote:Hundreds of USAID (United States Agency for International Development) officials have reportedly signed a letter calling on the Biden administration to push for “an immediate cease-fire and cessation of hostilities” in the Israel-Hamas war, according to a copy of the petition obtained by Foreign Policy.On Nov. 3, 56 Democratic members of the House and two senators wrote to Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, demanding that the administration “make clear that Israel must conduct military operations within the scope of international law and minimize civilian harm.”“We must continue to hold ourselves and our closest allies to the highest standards of conduct,” the authors of the letter went on to say,even at times of great tragedy and violence. While we firmly believe in Israel’s right to defend itself, we are gravely concerned by Israel’s military operation and conduct that fails to limit harm to noncombatants and vulnerable populations. Nearly 9,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 3,600 children. Abiding by international law is not only morally imperative, but also legally required per international humanitarian law, and strategically important to prevent regional escalation and to preserve global support for Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack.One underlying reason the Israel versus Hamas conflict — including both the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent Israeli counterattack on Gaza — is particularly problematic for Democrats is that psychological research shows that liberals are more inclined to feel empathy than conservatives.In a May 2018 paper, “Are Liberals and Conservatives Equally Motivated to Feel Empathy Toward Others?” Yossi Hasson, Maya Tamir, Kea S. Brahms, J. Christopher Cohrs and Eran Halperin reported that “on average and across samples, liberals wanted to feel more empathy and experienced more empathy than conservatives did.”Their conclusion found support in a paper that was published in May, “Ideological Values Are Parametrically Associated With Empathy Neural Response to Vicarious Suffering,” by Niloufar Zebarjadi, Eliyahu Adler, Annika Kluge, Mikko Sams and Jonathan Levy of Aalto University in Finland. The five authors used neuroimaging “to reveal an asymmetry in the neural empathy response as a function of political ideology.”The research by Zebarjadi and her four colleagues “revealed a typical rhythmic alpha-band ‘empathy response’ in the temporal-parietal junction. This neural empathy response was significantly stronger in the leftist than in the rightist group” of those studied.Jeremy Konyndyk, who served as the director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance from 2013-17, gave voice to this empathy in an interview with Politico about the Israel/Hamas conflict:What the rest of the world sees is that when civilian apartment buildings are bombed by Russia in Ukraine, the U.S. government forcefully condemns this as illegitimate. And when they see similar tactics being used by the I.D.F. in Gaza, they see lock-step support from the U.S. government. This dramatically undermines the credibility of international humanitarian law.The fundamental foundation of international law is that certain things are wrong full stop because it happens to humans. That’s why it makes the attacks by Hamas wrong — deeply horrific and a grave violation of international humanitarian law. And that’s why it makes war crimes in response wrong.One of the striking findings in polling conducted in the aftermath of Oct. 7 is how much more supportive young voters are of Hamas and how much less supportive they are of Israel.The Oct. 19 Harvard-Harris poll asked 2,116 registered voters: “In general in this conflict do you side more with Israel or Hamas?”By 84 to 16 percent, voters chose Israel, with everyone 25 or older backing the Jewish state by three to one or better. The one exception was voters 18 to 25, with 52 percent saying they sided with Israel and 48 percent with Hamas.Asked “Do you think the Hamas killing of 1,200 Israeli civilians in Israel can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians or is it not justified?” an overwhelming majority of registered voters surveyed, 76 percent, said it could not be justified; 24 percent said it could be.Among the youngest voters, however, 51 percent of those 18 to 24 said the killing “can be justified by the grievance of Palestinians” and 49 percent said it cannot be. Voters 25 to 34 were split, 48 percent saying the killing of Israelis can be justified, 52 saying it cannot.In researching their March 2022 article, “The Young American Left and Attitudes About Israel,” Laura Royden and Eitan Hersh, political scientists at Harvard and Tufts, “surveyed 3,500 U.S. adults, including oversampling of 2,500 adults aged 18-30” to explore why “young people and the ideological far left have developed distinctly negative views toward Israel.”“In June 2021,” they write, “immediately following armed conflict in Israel and Palestine, liberal Democrats were three times more likely than conservative Republicans to say that the U.S.A. was too supportive of Israel. Three in five Republicans, but only one in five Democrats, agreed in May 2021 that it was very important for the U.S.A. to help protect Israel.”Among Democrats aged 18-35, however, they found that “respondents were three times more likely to say the U.S.A. should lean more toward Palestinians than Israel.”Digging deeper, Royden and Hersh found a clear ideological and age pattern:On both ideological extremes, more young adults than older adults hold an unfavorable view of Israel. Moderate young adult favorable attitudes toward Israel (58 percent) is indistinguishable from moderate older adults (at 62 percent). The difference is largest on the far left, where Israel favorability is 27 percentage points less among younger very liberal adults (at 33 percent) for young adults compared with older adults (at 60 percent). Young very conservative adults are supportive of Israel (66 percent), but substantially less so than older very conservative adults (82 percent). Clearly, the most left-leaning young adults have the lowest rating of Israel.If many young people are disaffected with the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, their discontent pales in comparison with that of Muslim and Arab Americans.The Arab American Institute commissioned John Zogby Strategies to conduct a survey of 500 Arab Americans between Oct. 23 and Oct. 27. For Biden, the results were striking: “Support for President Biden in the upcoming election has plummeted among Arab Americans voters, dropping from 59 percent in 2020 to 17 percent, a 42-point decrease.”Two-thirds of Arab Americans “have a negative view of President Biden’s response to the current violence in Palestine and Israel,” according to the poll. “A strong majority of Arab Americans believe the U.S. should call for a cease-fire on the current violence.”In terms of partisan identification, Zogby wrote in his summary, the surveymarks the first time in our 26 years of polling Arab American voters in which a majority did not claim to prefer the Democratic Party. In 2008 and 2016, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by two to one. In this poll, 32 percent of Arab Americans identified as Republican as opposed to just 23 percent who identified as Democrats.In 2020, Biden carried Michigan by 154,181 votes. Arab Americans played a significant role in his victory there.Farah Pandith, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, pointed out in an email that until recently, Muslim Americans had become a core Biden constituency:In 2020, American Muslims were involved in fund-raising and volunteering in the Biden campaign. They were mobilizing themselves to get Muslims out to vote, to educate and to — importantly — be publicly seen doing so. With so much hardship in the years post 9/11 and accusations that American Muslims could not be loyal Americans and practicing Muslims, this dedicated effort is compelling. These generations not only wanted to debunk that false narrative, but they wanted to see their candidate win — believing that Biden would understand their lived experience in America in a post 9/11 world and govern accordingly.Now, Pandith wrote, “it is clear that the hard-won trust and warm relationship Biden enjoyed with the vast number of American Muslims has been diminished. For many, their confidence in and loyalty to Biden has seemed to evaporate.”I asked a political operative closely tied to the Biden campaign — who insisted on anonymity in order to speak forthrightly — about the ramifications of the struggle between Israel and Hamas:There are open wounds and we are far from the war’s end. And there are hostages still out there. And Americans both tire and get bored with foreign conflicts after the messy part is done. But I do know one thing: Trump was the president of the Muslim ban and he called for a Muslim ban 2.0, so I don’t think a lot of Arab Americans are going his way. I think there is time for Biden to get them back. Not all of them.Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, argued by email that concern over Biden’s problems in dealing with the Mideast conflict may be overblown:Americans traditionally do not hold consistent or well-informed opinions on foreign policy. The further a foreign conflict or global issue is removed from people’s day to day lives, the less they are going to hold any meaningful opinion about it or use it to guide their political preferences.In addition, Wronski continued, “the role of negative partisanship may outweigh Muslim Americans’ criticisms of Biden’s foreign policy.” Some voters may defect to a third-party candidate or abstain from voting, but “a potential second Trump term can be more threatening to Muslim Americans domestically, given Trump’s record and rhetoric toward minority and marginalized groups, than Biden’s foreign policy agenda.”I asked Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard, for his perspective. He replied to my query by email:My sense right now from our data is that Biden is in a very complicated political situation. Jewish voters, while only 2 percent of the electorate, provided key support (and voted about 70 percent for Biden) in pivotal states, where every group counts. Biden did even better among Muslim voters, winning 90 percent of the vote. Muslims are only about one-half of one percent of the electorate. Both groups are small shares of the overall vote, but they both vote Democratic. Biden risks alienating one Democratic group or the other if this is not handled right.Above all though, the situation in the Middle East is terrible. It is a human tragedy. Every president in modern history has tried to find a resolution to the Israel-Palestine question. Biden now faces the task of containing this conflict so that it does not escalate into a broader Middle East war. There’s not much upside here, politically or morally, just avoiding potentially terrible outcomes.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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    Biden Administration Engages in Long-Shot Attempt for Saudi-Israel Deal

    The president and his aides are pressing an aggressive diplomatic effort as Riyadh makes significant demands in exchange for normalization, including a nuclear deal and a robust U.S. security pact.Shortly after his plane took off earlier this month from Riyadh, where he had held a lengthy meeting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken called a different Middle East leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.Over 40 minutes, Mr. Blinken gave the Israeli leader a briefing about the significant demands the young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was making for his nation to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. Mr. Netanyahu had an update on his own demands.The phone call — described by two American officials — was a turn in the Biden administration’s long-shot bid to broker a landmark diplomatic deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, two historical adversaries who in recent years have been engaged in a discreet courtship in part over their shared distrust of archrival Iran.The White House, which for more than two years has largely been content to sit out the poker game of Middle East diplomacy, has decided to make a bet and push some of its chips in. The United States is now in the midst of complex negotiations among three leaders who have their own reasons for a deal but are making demands that might prove to be too costly. And they simply do not much like or trust each other.Several senior American officials said the chances of a deal could be less than 50 percent, and Mr. Blinken said he had “no illusions” the path to a deal would be quick. Still, a normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel would be one of the most dramatic events in a continued realignment of the Middle East, and could reap benefits for leaders of both countries, as well as President Biden, who faces re-election next year.It would also make explicit what has been true for a long time: that the government of one of the Arab world’s most influential countries has effectively made its support for a Palestinian independent state a lower priority.For Mr. Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia’s recognition of Israel would be a significant political victory for the embattled leader, whose hard-right coalition government faces fierce domestic opposition.For his part, Prince Mohammed is seeking a strengthened security relationship with the United States, access to more American weapons and U.S. consent for the kingdom to enrich uranium as part of a civilian nuclear program — something that Washington has long resisted.For Mr. Biden, drawing closer to Saudi Arabia carries political risks — he once pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” — but a diplomatic pact in the Middle East could be a boon ahead of the 2024 election. American officials also see strategic importance in bolstering ties with Saudi Arabia: as a way to keep Riyadh from gravitating further toward China, two nations that have engaged in an increasingly warm embrace.Working against the prospects of a deal is the fact that all sides would have to reverse course on at least one long-held position: for Israel, that the country would never allow nuclear enrichment in the Saudi kingdom; for Saudi Arabia, that peace with Israel can only come after an established state for the Palestinian people; for Mr. Biden, cementing a closer alliance with Saudi Arabia would force him to make a public case for why he changed his position on Prince Mohammed.Several American officials described the current push by the Biden administration, and the chances for success, on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. They said they believe a confluence of factors have created a window of time — perhaps before next year when the American election cycle intensifies — to pull together a possible accord. One of the factors is that a Democratic president might have a better chance than a Republican president of selling the deal to party members and bringing some in the political opposition along.Quiet efforts to repair U.S.-Saudi relationsSecretary of State Antony J. Blinken meeting with Prince Mohammed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, this month. Mr. Blinken said he had “no illusions” the path to a deal would be quick.Pool photo by Amer HilabiIn recent weeks the Biden administration has accelerated the cadence of top officials traveling to Riyadh and Tel Aviv to meet with Prince Mohammed and Mr. Netanyahu. This week, just days after Mr. Blinken’s visit, Brett McGurk, the top White House official handling Middle East policy, led a delegation on an unpublicized trip to continue the negotiations, according to two American officials. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, traveled to Saudi Arabia in May.“Biden has decided to go for it, and everyone in the administration now understands that the president wants this,” said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, who adds that a committed American president has long been essential for diplomatic breakthroughs between Israel and Arab nations. “When you’re talking about Middle East peace, it takes three to tango.”A new defense pact or nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia would face another hurdle: getting approval from a sharply divided Congress in which some prominent members of Mr. Biden’s party would likely vote against it. But odd political alliances have also formed, with one prominent Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, quietly assisting the White House’s negotiations.The Saudi embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for the National Security Council said that the Biden administration’s Middle East policy “includes efforts to expand and strengthen the Abraham Accords,” as well as efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Mr. Netanyahu has made no secret of his hope to seal a deal with the Saudis.The prospect of a formal rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia has percolated for years, but both sides have seen too many obstacles to make the idea a reality. When President Trump in September 2020 presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords — diplomatic agreements between Israel and two Gulf Arab nations — the Saudis were not ready to join the pact.Though Mr. Biden took a frosty attitude toward Prince Mohammed, known as MBS, in part over the killing of the journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, he reluctantly visited the kingdom last July. Relations between the two countries hit a nadir in October, when the Saudis announced they were cutting oil production, a move that blindsided American officials.Saudi special forces performing during a military parade in Mecca last year. The Saudis are seeking fewer restrictions on U.S. arms sales to the kingdom.Amr Nabil/Associated PressThe two governments made quiet efforts to repair relations over the winter. Then in May, when Mr. Sullivan, the national security adviser, visited Riyadh, Prince Mohammed indicated a greater willingness to normalize relations with Israel. He agreed with Mr. Sullivan that this year might be the time to do it — but for the right price, said two people familiar with what transpired on the trip. This message, which Mr. Sullivan conveyed to Mr. Biden, seems to have swayed the president to make a push on a deal.This led to the visits to Riyadh this month of Mr. Blinken and Mr. McGurk.For Saudi Arabia, normalization with Israel is less about Israel and more about what it can get out of the United States, its historical security guarantor. Given how unpopular Israel remains among Saudi citizens, normalizing relations with the country would cost Prince Mohammed political capital with his own people, Saudi officials say. To justify that, they say, he would need to secure significant concessions from the United States, with an eye toward deterring Iran.But Prince Mohammed’s initial demands were steep: U.S. guarantees to defend Saudi Arabia from military attack, a Saudi-American partnership to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear program and fewer restrictions on U.S. arms sales to the kingdom.Richard Goldberg, a White House official during the Trump administration and now a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which advocates for greater security for Israel, met with senior Saudi officials last month. In an interview, he said officials talk about uranium mining and enrichment for export revenue, but he believes that glosses over the real purpose: to have the means to build up a nuclear arsenal if Iran does the same.“The open question — the big question mark — is this: Is the uranium enrichment a red line, as MBS says, or is it an opening position?” said Mr. Goldberg, who is opposed to Iranian enrichment and has “strong discomfort” over the prospect of Saudi enrichment. “Whether it’s a bargaining position or truly a red line is not really known.”A big Israeli hurdle: Saudi nuclear enrichmentPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel could still face strong opposition from Israel’s national security establishment if he agrees to a Saudi enrichment program.Ronen Zvulun/ReutersMr. Netanyahu is in the most serious political crisis of his years as prime minister: he is on trial for corruption and the legal reform he tried to pass was met with mass protests in the country. If new elections were held tomorrow, polls suggest Mr. Netanyahu would lose.A landmark diplomatic arrangement could help reverse his political fortunes, some close to him believe. But consenting to a Saudi nuclear enrichment program would also be a reversal of longstanding policy in Israel, which worries that a Saudi nuclear program could lead to a nuclear arms race across the Middle East.Mr. Netanyahu could still face strong opposition from Israel’s national security establishment if he agrees to a Saudi enrichment program. A small group of Israeli aides has been entrusted to handle negotiations over a possible Saudi deal, including Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs and a former ambassador to Washington, and Tzachi Hanegbi, the national security adviser. The group has visited Washington several times in recent months.With a hard-line government in Israel, there are no prospects for any deal that makes provisions for a Palestinian state. But for a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel to take place, the Saudis and the Biden administration have insisted that any deal includes some concrete gestures for the Palestinians, officials say.What those might be remains unclear.Muslim families at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The Saudis and the Biden administration have insisted that any deal includes some concrete gestures for the Palestinians.Afif Amireh for The New York Times“Bibi wants this so badly he can taste it,” said Mr. Indyk. But, he said, unless there were real accommodations made by Israel toward the Palestinians, the deal would be ephemeral and U.S. concessions to the Saudis would be wasted. “The Saudis are supposed to deliver the Muslim world, but if the U.S. lets MBS leave the Palestinians behind, the whole thing becomes unstable.”In public, Saudi officials have repeatedly said that they will not establish relations with Israel without a deal that includes the creation of a Palestinian state — a line they have maintained since the kingdom led the 2002 Arab peace initiative, which offered Israel diplomatic relations with Arab countries in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Prince Mohammed reiterated that message at an Arab League summit last month.“The Palestinian cause was, and still is, the pivotal issue for Arabs and Muslims,” Prince Mohammed said. “It comes at the top of the kingdom’s foreign policy priorities.”Among the largest barriers to Saudi Arabia expanding its ties with Israel is public opinion. Even as the Gulf’s authoritarian rulers and business elites lean toward deepening their relationships with Israel, most Gulf citizens are opposed to full normalization. In an April poll by the Washington Institute, 78 percent of Saudis said the Abraham Accords would have a negative impact on the region.A divided Congress on Saudi relationsSenator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, left, has placed a hold on the sale of certain weapons to Saudi Arabia. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, right, has been more favorable to the Saudis.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesAny new defense pact or nuclear deal with the Saudis would require congressional approval, a tall order given the ambivalent or outright hostile attitude of some prominent Democratic lawmakers toward the kingdom.Along with Republican colleagues, lawmakers have denounced Prince Mohammed for the murder of Mr. Khashoggi — in which he has vehemently denied playing any role — and the mass killing of civilians in the war in Yemen. A top Democrat in the Senate, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, has placed a hold on the sale of certain weapons to Saudi Arabia.Lawmakers have also expressed their concerns over any move by Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium in its territory, citing proliferation concerns. For years, the State Department has been trying to negotiate what it calls a 123 agreement with the Saudis, which would lay out tough nonproliferation criteria to allow for American cooperation on civilian nuclear energy, though Saudi officials have balked at the restrictions in part because of Iran’s program. The United States has such an agreement with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s neighbor, that bans in-country uranium enrichment.But Democratic and Republican lawmakers are generally supportive of promoting normalization between Israel and Arab nations, and they know that such accords can be a political gain to win over pro-Israel voters during election seasons.Aides working for the two top senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Menendez and Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, are drafting a bill that calls for the U.S. government to try to deepen the Abraham Accords and expand what they call “regional integration.”Among the Republicans, an unlikely figure has stepped forward offering to help: Mr. Graham. In an interview, he said he has been working with top Biden administration officials to help to broker Saudi-Israeli peace.“Ending the Arab-Israeli conflict would be a game changer for the world and further isolate Iran,” he said.Mr. Graham says he has spoken to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, and other top G.OP. lawmakers, and said there would potentially be “a lot of support on the Republican side.” He met with Prince Mohammed in Riyadh earlier this year, and has frequent discussions with senior Israeli officials.Although he was one of the most strident critics of Prince Mohammed after Mr. Khashoggi’s killing and once called the crown prince “a wrecking ball to the region jeopardizing our national security interests on multiple fronts,” Mr. Graham has now changed his tune.While “the Khashoggi thing is no small matter,” he said he made a decision to re-engage with Saudi Arabia because it is in the interests of the United States — isolating Iran and possibly blunting China’s influence over Saudi Arabia.Mr. Graham also said it would also bring credit to former President Trump and Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law, who brokered the diplomatic pacts between Israel and several Arab countries during the final months of his presidency.He also has parochial business interests: More arms deals with Saudi Arabia could bring economic benefits to his home state. In May, the senator praised Saudi Arabia’s decision to purchase more than $35 billion worth of Boeing Dreamliner jets, which are manufactured in South Carolina.During a celebratory event at Boeing’s South Carolina plant, he was ecstatic.“Let it be said that the journey to the future of the Middle East ran through Charleston, South Carolina!” he said.Eric Schmitt More