Manama, SAEDNEWS, Dec. 7: A prominent Saudi prince harshly criticised Israel at a Bahrain security summit that was remotely attended by Israel’s foreign minister, showing the challenges any further deals between Arab states and Israel face in the absence of an independent Palestinian state.
The fiery remarks by Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud at the Manama Dialogue appeared to catch Israel’s foreign minister off guard, particularly as Israelis receive warm welcomes from officials in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates following agreements to normalise ties.
Left unresolved by those deals, however, is the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians view those pacts as a stab in the back from their fellow Arabs and a betrayal of their cause.
Prince Turki bin Faisal opened his remarks by contrasting what he described as Israel’s perception of being “peace-loving upholders of high moral principles” versus what he described as a far-darker Palestinian reality of living under a “Western colonising” power.
Israel has “incarcerated [Palestinians] in concentration camps under the flimsiest of security accusations – young and old, women and men, who are rotting there without recourse to justice”, Prince Turki said.
“They are demolishing homes as they wish and they assassinate whomever they want.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, who spoke immediately after Prince Turki, said: “I would like to express my regret on the comments of the Saudi representative. I don’t believe that they reflect the spirit and the changes taking place in the Middle East.”
The confrontation and a later back-and-forth between Prince Turki and a confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the summit highlighted continued widespread opposition to Israel by many inside Saudi Arabia, despite some state-backed efforts to promote outreach with Jewish groups and supporters of Israel.
Ashkenazi, meanwhile, reiterated Israel’s position that it is the Palestinians who are to be blamed for not reaching a peace deal.
“We have a choice here with the Palestinians whether to solve it or not, or to go to this blame game,” said Ashkenazi, an ally of Netanyahu’s chief rival, Benny Gantz.
Dore Gold, a Netanyahu confidant and former UN ambassador in the audience, implied Prince Faisal’s remarks were “accusations of the past – many of which are false” (Source: AlJazeera).
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