Saudi Arabia launched a scary campaign of state media against Benjamin Netanyahu, pointing to the increasing frustration in the royal court of the Key Bay state with the Israeli Prime Minister and the Gaza war.
An unusually enemy barrage, which could only be published with the authorization of power, followed by Israeli officials discussed the prospects of Saudi Arabia Normalizing relations with Israel, despite Riad’s insistence that it will depend on the establishment of the Palestinian state.
The attack started Netanyahu A joke in an interview last week on the creation of the Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia.
After the head of the Israeli channel 14 wrongly said that there would be no progress in normalizing the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel without establishing a Saudi state, Netanyahu corrected him by saying: “[You mean] Palestinian state ”.
“If you don’t want the Palestinian state to be in Saudi Arabia,” he added. “They have a lot of territories.”
The state media responded furiously, reflecting the anger he wrote among senior officials and the public for months.
A report on the state channel of News Al Ekhbariya emphasized Netanyahu as “Zionists and son of the Zionist.. Who inherited extremism in his genes.” He added: “Occupation has no good face or ugly face. He has only one face and it’s Benjamin Netanyahu. “
The al Arabiya Saudi channel aired a talk show in which the presenter asked questions about Netanyahu’s mental state. “Maybe that was the case of hallucinations?” asked the anchor.
The columnist for Okaz Daily called the comments of the Israeli Prime Minister “Silver and Funny”, while Kovina’s experts on social networks called Netanyahu “rotten”, playing a word about his name in Arabic.
The Saudi anger is pushed out of the open because it is expected that Riyadh will face the pressure of US President Donald Trump to normalize relations with Israel. Like other Arab countries, Riyadh has scattered Trump’s insistence that Palestine should be forced from gauze.
Saudi Arabia closed to a three -way contract with a bidan administration before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. The kingdom would agree with formal diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for the US defense pact and assistance in the nuclear program.
The war in Gaza shook those plans. Riyadh never removed his normalization from the table, but escalated his condemnation of Israel’s guidance of the Gaza war and solidified his position, insisting that Israel must take irreversible steps according to a solution with two countries.
In September, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman went on, saying the Council of Shura that the Kingdom would not recognize Israel without establishing an independent Palestinian state, including Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as the capital.
Saudi officials have privately expressed an annoyance because of what they consider to be offensive and assumed comments by Netanyahu and his ultimate right -wing ally that suggest that the kingdom will not only take over the displaced Palestine, but would eventually accept the conditions for normalizing far weaker than their mentioned demand independent Palestinian state .
“It is a complete neglect of statements that Saudi officials give, [and this makes the Saudis appear as] Basically, they are not credible people, people who are double and very conspiratorial. That’s certainly anger, “said Aziz Alghashian, Saudi analyst and director of research and geopolitics in the ORF Middle East, Think-Tank based in Dubai.
“They [Riyadh] They try to take this opportunity to give Netanyahu your own medicine. “
Netanyahu claimed that Saudi Arabia would follow in the footsteps of neighboring united Arab emirates who, together with Bahrein, Sudan and Morocco, established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020.
These contracts, sealed during Trump’s first term and called Abraham’s agreements, brought negligible benefits to the Palestinians.
Trump said he would like to expand his agreements to Saudi Arabia, which is considered a key reward as the leader of the Sunni Muslim world.
Prince Mohammed enjoyed strong relationships with Trump during his first term, and there were some indications that Riyadh wanted to pick up where he left off. The Crown Prince told the President this month that the kingdom had planned Invest more than $ 600 billion In the US for more than four years.
But Trump shocked Arab states by saying last week not only that Gaza should be emptied from Palestiniansbut also that now they should take over the tape. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan delayed his scheduled trip to Washington last week after Trump announced his plan, said the person familiar with the issue.
The Kingdom also quickly rejected Trump’s plan in a strong statement published at 4am, saying: “To achieve permanent and righteous peace is impossible without Palestinian people acquire their legitimate rights in accordance with international resolution, as previously explained for both former and the current American administration. “
But Shihabi, a Saudi commentator close to the royal court, said that “the whole ship is now going in the wrong direction.”
“People expected Trump to come together, and we will progress the path with two countries, but Trump has embarked on it in a completely different direction and Netanyahu trying to use it,” he added.
“The Israelites have a powerful PR machine, and when they still say that behind the closed doors Saudis give us a different message, Riyadh realizes that it must be much more proactive in the dispute.”
The Saudi leadership is also anxious about the anger that encouraged the war in Gaza among the generation of young Arabs.
“Saudi officials certainly represent a growing public anger among the younger Saudi, but also among the younger Muslim population, globally,” said Elham Fakhro, a scientific associate at the Middle East initiative at Harvard Kennedy School. “This is another reason why Saudi officials doubled in Palestinian statehood.”
Additional James Shotter reporting in Jerusalem and Andrew England in London
