Manama Dialogue: Saudi Arabia censures Israel at regional security summit

MANAMA: A heated exchange took place between representatives of Saudi Arabia and Israel at a regional security summit on Sunday.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a Saudi former intelligence chief who is said to be close to the country's top leadership, reiterated strong support for the Palestinian cause in a fiery presentation to the Manama Dialogue security forum.

His remarks were met with retorts from the Jewish state's foreign minister who addressed the gathering virtually. The row erupted months after the UAE and Bahrain broke decades of Arab consensus by normalising ties with Israel, a move condemned as a "stab in the back" by Palestinians.

In unusually blunt language, the Saudi prince accused Israel of depicting itself as a "small, existentially threatened country, surrounded by bloodthirsty killers who want to eradicate her from existence". "And yet they profess that they want to be friends with Saudi Arabia," he said.

He described the Jewish state as a "Western colonising power" and outlined a history of forcible eviction of Palestinians and destroyed villages. Palestinians were held "in concentration camps under the flimsiest of security accusations — young and old, women and men, who are rotting there without recourse to justice," he said.

He said the Israeli authorities are "demolishing homes as they wish, and they assassinate whomever they want." Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi addressed the meeting by videoconference shortly afterwards, expressing his "regret" over the comments, which come after years of covertly warming relations between the two Mideast powers.

"The false accusations of the Saudi representative at the Manama Conference do not reflect the facts or the spirit & changes the region is undergoing," he said in a tweet. "I rejected his remarks & emphasised that the 'blame game' era is over. We are at the dawn of a new era. An era of peace."

Prince Turki, who said his comments reflected his personal view, voiced scepticism over the US-brokered Abraham Accords, to which Washington has been urging the kingdom to sign up. "You cannot treat an open wound with palliatives and painkillers. The Abraham Accords are not divine writ," he said.

The agreements between the two Gulf states and Israel have undermined the Saudi-sponsored 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which maintained that Arab states would not establish relations with the Jewish state until it made peace with the Palestinians — a position Riyadh has reiterated in recent months.

However, Ashkenazi said the agreements were an opportunity for the Palestinians and offer a "window to solve this conflict". "The Abraham accords do not come at the expense of the Palestinians. Quite the opposite, they are an opportunity that should not be missed," he said, urging them to return to peace talks which were frozen in 2014.

Despite Prince Turki's blunt rhetoric, mutual concern over Iran has gradually brought Israel and Gulf nations closer, and Riyadh itself has quietly been building relations with the Jewish state for several years.

Reports last month that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had held secret talks in Saudi Arabia fuelled speculation that a normalisation accord with the Gulf´s top power could be in the making.

Riyadh, however, denied that the meeting had occurred. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has categorically mentioned that the creation of a sovereign state for Palestinians is a must before it normalises ties with Israel. These remarks were made by Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud during MED2020, an event in Italy where world leaders gather.

"What we need to make [normalisation of ties with Israel] happen is a peace deal that delivers a Palestinian state with dignity and with a workable sovereignty that Palestinians can accept,” he said.

The Saudi foreign minister's remarks came after speculation that Saudi Arabia is gearing to be the latest Arab country to normalise ties with Israel. Prince Faisal said ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel can be normalised in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borderlines.

“That deal would have to be negotiated, but what is important now is to bring back Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table to work towards a fair deal,” Prince Faisal said. In September, US President Donald Trump brokered a deal between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE according to which both countries recognised and normalised relations with Israel.

According to the deal, Israel halted its plans to annex Palestinian territory in exchange for the ties with Bahrain and the UAE. Palestinian officials condemned the normalisation as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people”.

Prince Faisal said normalisation of ties with Israel was a move that had been discussed previously by Saudi government officials. “It was first put on the table in Fez in 1982 by then Crown Prince Fahad,” he said.

“We still have that same vision, whereby Israel becomes a normal part of the region, where it has fully normal relations with the neighbours. What we need to make it happen is to deliver a [Palestinian] state.”

Riyadh's two-sate solution is a close reflection of the Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002 whereby it proposed Israel establishes normal relations with its Arab neighbours but only after vacating areas it occupied during the 1967 war.