Palestine, Israel ‘have a right’ to homeland
SAUDI CROWN PRINCE
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has said he believes Israelis have a right to a homeland alongside Palestinians.
When asked if he believed Israeli people had a right to a nation-state, Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old heir to the Saudi throne, said: “I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their own land. But we have to have a peace agreement to assure the stability for everyone and to have normal relations.”
The comments by the crown prince in an interview published Monday reflected the distinctly warmer tone toward Israel adopted recently by the de facto ruler of a country that once opposed Israel’s right to exist.
Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel and has maintained for years that establishing any diplomatic relations hinges on Israel’s withdrawal from Arab lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war, territory that Palestinians seek for a future state.
The crown prince also said that, while the ultraconservative country has “religious concerns” about the holy mosque in Jerusalem and the rights of Palestinians, it has no objection “against any other people.”
“There are a lot of interests we share with Israel and, if there is peace, there would be a lot of interest between Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries,” Prince Mohammed told The Atlantic magazine as he toured the United States.
The countries have grown closer under the crown prince, bonding over a mutual distrust of Iran, which they see as the greatest threat to their security.
Prince Mohammed described Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, as an “evil guy” who “makes Hitler look good.”
“He is the Hitler of the Middle East,” the prince told The Atlantic. “In the 1920s and 1930s, no one saw Hitler as a danger. Only a few people. Until it happened.”
In a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump after the comments made by Prince Mohammed, King Salman of Saudi Arabia reiterated the country’s support for a Palestinian state.
Crown Prince Mohammed has a close relationship with the Trump administration, and especially with the president’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, whom the president has deputized to try to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The details of Kushner’s peace plan have yet to be released, but it is widely believed that they are being coordinated with Crown Prince Mohammed to try to get buyin from the wider Arab world.