Saudi Arabia Is in No Rush to Recognize Israel - Bloomberg
Weeks of fevered speculation that Saudi Arabia would soon begin the “normalization” of relations with Israel, in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, were doused over the weekend, when a senior Saudi prince lit into the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “the last of the Western colonizing powers in the Middle East.”
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the kingdom’s former intelligence chief, waved off the other Israeli-Arab diplomatic breakthroughs: “You cannot treat an open wound with palliatives and painkillers,” he said at a security conference in neighboring Bahrain. He was referring to the condition of Palestinians, who were being “incarcerated in concentration camps under the flimsiest of security accusations — young and old, women and men, who are rotting there without recourse to justice.” Turki accused Israel of “demolishing [Palestinian] homes as they wish and they assassinate whomever they want.”
His language was a blunt contrast with the softer tone that Saudi Arabia has adopted toward Israel in recent months, and it caught off guard the Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, who was participating in the conference via video link. Ashkenazi expressed “regret” at Turki’s comments. “I don’t believe that they reflect the spirit and the changes taking place in the Middle East,” he said.
Perhaps. Israelis may take reassurance from Turki’s assertion that he was speaking in his personal capacity, rather than as an official representative of the kingdom. But when the official representative, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, had his turn to speak, he did not walk back Turki’s argument that the Saudis would only normalize relations with Israel after Palestinian aspirations were met. “We think Israel will take its place in the region,” said Prince Faisal. “But in order for that to happen and for that to be sustainable, we do need the Palestinians to get their state and we do need to settle that situation.”
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