TEL AVIV - Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has told visiting US lawmakers that he is risking assassination by pursuing a normalization agreement with Israel. According to reports published in Israeli media on Wednesday, the Saudi leader discussed the threats he faces to explain why he must ensure that any deal includes a clear and irreversible path to a future Palestinian state, according to Politico, citing a former US official familiar with the discussions.
In one such meeting, he invoked former Egyptian leader Anwar Sadar who was assassinated in 1981 by Egyptian fundamentalists after striking a peace deal 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 source familiar with the matter tells Politico. It is unclear how recent this talk of assassinations is, given that the window for an Israel-Saudi normalization deal has all but shut in recent months, according to congressional sources. The Times of Israel quoting sources said that any chance to reach a deal had ended in June amid the ongoing war in Gaza and the shrinking amount of floor time remaining in the Senate calendar that would be needed to ratify the US-Saudi bilateral component of a deal before the November presidential election. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected agreeing to a future Palestinian state, making any such deal a long shot.
