Despite long-running public reporting that Saudi Arabia has demanded a concrete pathway to a two-state solution as a condition of normalizing relations with Israel, Cotton, who is a potential contender for a top national security post in a second Trump administration, called the Biden administration’s push for two states unacceptable for Israel and unhelpful for the Arab world.

“It’s not a tenable situation for Israel to accept, and frankly, I’m not sure it’s one that Saudi Arabia would really insist upon itself,” Cotton said at the inaugural MEAD Summit in Washington, D.C. “They don’t view that — as far as I can tell — as the critical issue for them in the region. The critical issue, as it is for almost every nation, is Iran and Iran’s predatory behavior.”

He also said that providing any “irreversible timeline for a two-state solution,” as has been discussed, would only cause the leadership in Gaza and “Judea and Samaria,” whether it be Hamas, Fatah or another faction, “to be more intransigent, to make more demands and be more violent.”