What's going on between Israel and Saudi Arabia? The recent ups and downs in relations between these two regional powers are even more dizzying and surprising than President Donald Trump’s mood swings. On Oct. 6, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s veteran former ambassador to the United States, issued an unusual broadside against the Palestinians, perceived in Jerusalem as a further step in Riyadh’s gradual rapprochement with Israel.
“What I heard from Palestinian leadership in recent days was truly painful to hear,” Bandar told Saudi Al-Arabiya TV, referring to the Palestinian condemnation of Israel’s normalization agreements with the Emirates and Bahrain. “Their transgression against the Gulf states' leadership with this reprehensible discourse is entirely unacceptable. … It is not surprising to see how quick these leaders are to use terms like 'treason,' 'betrayal' and 'backstabbing,' because these are their ways in dealing with each other.” In the lengthy interview, as transcribed by Al-Arabiya, the royal went on to say that the Palestinian cause has been “robbed… both by Israel and Palestinian leaders equally. … The Palestinian cause is a just cause, but its advocates are failures. … Successive Palestinian leaders … always bet on the losing side, and that comes at a price.”
Israeli officials rubbed their hands in glee. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not have phrased it better. However, exactly two months later, another influential Saudi royal dumped ice water on the winds of normalization blowing between Jerusalem and Riyadh. In a Dec. 5 CNN interview, the former longtime head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal, denied widespread reports of Netanyahu’s secret meeting last month with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. "The Saudi foreign minister … completely denied the allegations. … I believe that the kingdom's credibility is highly estimated more than the allegations made by someone like Netanyahu, who is accused in his country of lying to the Israeli people, so how can they believe a liar?”
Asked about normalization with Israel, he said, "There is no preparation of such kind. … The Palestinian cause is the kingdom's priority and the kingdom is committed to the Arab Peace Initiative."
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