Saudi Arabia recently rejected America’s request that it reciprocate an Israeli freeze on settlement construction by beginning to normalise relations with the Jewish state. “Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach, has not and, we believe, will not lead to peace. Temporary security and confidence-building measures will also not bring peace,” Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said in Washington on July 31.

Yet more than seven years ago it was Saudi Arabia that first proposed rewarding Israel if it would meet the requirements of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. In mid-2002, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, now King Abdullah, offered a simple grand bargain: in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 lines the Arab states would be prepared to integrate it into the region. By the time the so-called Arab Peace Initiative was adopted by the Arab League summit in Beirut six weeks later, the simple Saudi formula had become a longer multi-item text.