'Increasingly Optimistic' Schneider Returns From Trip To Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider this week returned from an official visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a special meeting of the World Economic Forum, where the 10th District congressman had been invited to speak on a panel about trade policy.

While in the kingdom, Schneider (D-Highland Park) discussed the situation in Gaza and diplomatic relationships with Israel with high-level Saudi government officials, according to his office.

In a statement following the trip, Schneider said he was "increasingly optimistic" about a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia and described the present moment as an "unprecedented opportunity" to change course.

"I believe the Saudis are committed to normalization with Israel, as well as supporting Palestinian aspirations for self-determination and ultimately a state," Schneider said. "I believe the states that have completed agreements with Israel — Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Bahrain and Morocco — remain committed to the same goal. And other state leaders are watching with hope and are open to a new paradigm for security, peace and prosperity for all in the region."

Speaking on a panel called "What Homeland Economics Means for Trade," Schneider said there are two competing strategies in international relations, including trade, which he defined as "partnerships" and "control."

The congressman said he favored the more cooperative, alliance-based strategy because it allows for better transfer of workers and technology to achieve the economic equilibrium that broke down during the coronavirus pandemic.

"When we came out of the pandemic, or started to come out, the world opened up in a very different way and those supply chains were broken. We're moving now today towards more of a need for not just resiliency but redundancy. And people learned you can't have a single source of supply. People learned that we need to have supplies, either onshore, or closer to shore — it became the phrase of friendshoring," he said.

"I remember the Zoom calls we had at the beginning of the pandemic with my colleagues, and they were talking, 'Bring everything home.' The worst thing we could do is bring everything home, because we just take a problem and relocate it."

Schneider cited U.S. birthrates and how the country's population would decline were it not for immigrants.

"We have to drive innovation, but Egypt, with 110 million, with so many people under the age of 40, we have an obvious partner to drive innovation and find a productive workforce," he said. "I think that's the future that we need to move towards."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also attended the World Economic Forum meeting, discussed negotiations for a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would lead to the release of some of the hostages the group has held captive for nearly seven months.

"Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel," Blinken said at the forum. "And in this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and cease-fire is Hamas."

The secretary of state also met with foreign ministers of other Gulf Arab nations in Riyadh before heading to Jordan on Tuesday and Israel on Wednesday.

Schneider said Hamas has rejected deals brokered by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt offering a pause in the fighting in exchange for the release of hostages.

The deal reportedly includes a 40-day ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the chairman of Hamas' political bureau reportedly said it views the negotiations in a "positive spirit" and would send representatives to Cairo for talks.

Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday, Schneider said Israeli officials had reduced their initial demand from the release of 40 hostages to 33.

"These are hostages who are living, as well as those who are dead, to bring their bodies and allow the families closure, and ultimately to set a course to make sure Hamas cannot control Gaza in the future and Israel and the Palestinians can find a path towards a new direction. Hamas has rejected all of those," Schneider said. "This is, in all likelihood, the last one on the table."

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Schneider also visited Israel in late March with eight other House Democrats for an eight-day trip sponsored by American Israel Education Foundation, a nonprofit affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

During the trip, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. The congressman said Israel was fighting an "existential war" with Hamas.

"Long term, Israel is looking for a strategy where it can have its security. What the United States is saying is that that security is dependent upon not just finding a resolution to the war in Gaza, but creating the opportunity for Israel's normalization of relationships beyond the Abraham Accords but also with Saudi Arabia and integration to the whole region," he said. "If we can get to that path, then the final ultimate defeat of Hamas will be when Israel and its neighbors are living in peace."

Signed in 2020, the Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements between Israel and four Arab states — the Kingdoms of Bahrain and Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and the Republic of Sudan. In an interview with the Washington Post, a member of the central committee of the Palestinian party Fatah — the largest rival of Hamas and the dominanent party in the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority — described the accords as "one of the reasons" for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.