In a recent meeting with visiting US lawmakers, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly told them he’s worried over potential threats to his life due to his efforts to broker a normalization agreement with Israel, according to a Politico report.
Citing sources familiar with the discussions, the report revealed that the crown prince emphasized the dangers he faces if a deal with Israel is struck without addressing the Palestinian issue. He invoked the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 as a warning, noting that Sadat was killed by extremists after signing a peace treaty with Israel.
“The way he put it was, ‘Saudis care very deeply about this, and the street throughout the Middle East cares deeply about this, and my tenure as the keeper of the holy sites of Islam will not be secure if I don’t address what is the most pressing issue of justice in our region,’” one source told Politico.
Mohammed bin Salman’s stance has reportedly centered on the inclusion of a clear and irreversible path to a future Palestinian state as a key condition for any agreement with Israel. He has stressed that failure to do so would not only jeopardize his position as the leader of Saudi Arabia but also provoke significant backlash across the region.
However, despite these discussions, chances of reaching a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel have reportedly diminished in recent months. Congressional sources noted that the window for a deal effectively closed in June, due in part to the ongoing war in Gaza and the lack of time on the US Senate calendar to ratify any agreement before the upcoming presidential election.
Adding further complications, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently rejected the idea of a future Palestinian state, making the possibility of an agreement even more unlikely.
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6 Responses
The Saudis are both very smart & very shrewd negotiators.
They are the Zaidy of the Middle East. When they make peace with Israel it’s over. Any other countries after the Saudis that make peace is largely irrelevant.
At the same time they only care about themselves & have no love for the Palestinians (in fact they see the Palestinians as an annoying chain around their neck).
They will wisely use this leverage to extract as much as they can from America & others as they know once the deal is signed there’s no going back.
If I were them I’d also play this game by throwing up more roadblocks to force America (especially under this administration) to concede more security arrangements, military aid & economic deals.
@Kuvult,
Yes but they are still very much scared of Iran.
They have money and resources, but as the saying goes, money can’t buy everything….
That is why they both want to and do not want get close to the West, something akin to wanting to Jump in the deep end of a cool pool at the end of a hot day, but still being scared to because it is cold…..
That is what I was saying. The Middle East is not the West where we forgive & forget. This is one pi
That is what I was saying. The Middle East is not the West where we forgive & forget. This is one piece of a long essay from a great Rabbi/Historian explaining the Saudi & Iran/Persia conflict. It’s really all about revenge.
“The second Iranian Empire, the so-called Sassanian Persian Empire, was forged. Now the story gets interesting. This second Iranian Empire was destroyed by……the Arabs. During his lifetime, Mohammed, an Arab, militarily conquered the Arabian Peninsula (what is now Saudi Arabia) and converted the inhabitants to the religion he founded, Islam. After he died (in 632), his successors led the Arabs from Arabia on a series of successful wars in which they conquered a tremendous amount of territory. Since the Persian province of Iraq borders on Arabia, war almost immediately broke out between the Moslem Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula and the great Persian Empire. To the shock of the mighty Persians, these Arabs, whom the Persians looked-down on as barbarian camel-jockeys, inferior to Persians in every way, proceeded to defeat the Persian armies in a series of battles. Even though the Persians outnumbered them in men and weapons (the Persians used war-elephants), they stood in utter shock as the despised Arabs won every single battle, and soon conquered all of Iraq. At this point the Arabs were content to stop, but the Persians wouldn’t! So, the Arabs invaded Iran and over the course of a number of years, completely conquered it. The Arabs then destroyed most of the Iranian’s Zoroastrian religion and imposed (Sunni) Islam on them. The once-proud Persians were utterly defeated in every way and they couldn’t believe it. They revolted a number of times against the hated Arab conquerors and against the imposed Sunni religion, but the Arabs ruthlessly suppressed all revolts.”
If he really wanted to be helpful and solve his perceived problem, he would designate a portion of land in Saudi Arabia to be used to resettle the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.
Any deal that includes “a clear and irreversible path to a future Palestinian state” is not worth having. Plain and simple. It is better not to have peace, than to have it at that price.