Mohammed bin Salman has informed visiting US lawmakers that negotiating a normalization agreement with Israel puts him at risk.
According to Israeli media reports on Wednesday, the Saudi leader discussed the threats he faces to explain why any deal must include a clear and irreversible path to a future Palestinian state, according to Politico, citing a former US official familiar with the talks.
During one such discussion, he referenced previous Egyptian leader Anwar Sadar, who was slain by Egyptian fundamentalists in 1981 after reaching a peace agreement 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 individual familiar with the situation tells Politico. It is unclear how recent this talk of assassinations is, considering that the window for an Israel-Saudi normalization deal has nearly closed in recent months, according to congressional sources.
According to sources quoted by The Times of Israel, any chance of reaching a deal ended in June due to the ongoing war in Gaza and the shrinking amount of floor time remaining on the Senate calendar that would be required to ratify the US-Saudi bilateral component of a deal before the November presidential election. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to accede to a future Palestinian state, making such a compromise unlikely. – supernews.pk
Maria Ghanchi