Saudi Arabia contradicts Prime Minister Israel Meeting With Crown Prince

Saudi Arabia has contradicted that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.

Numerous Israeli media reported that the prime minister spent several hours in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to speak with Bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited Saudi Arabia. Members of the Israeli government have confirmed these reports.

A top Saudi official also confirmed the meeting to The Wall Street Journal, but Pompeo’s Saudi colleague Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud tweeted Monday that this is not true. Bin Salman, he says, has not met an Israeli official, only Americans.

Israeli media say Netanyahu spoke with Bin Salman in the far northwest of Saudi Arabia on Sunday. According to flight data from a government aircraft, the prime minister could have been in the Arab kingdom for several hours. The northwest of that country is only 20 kilometres away from the Israeli port of Eilat. Netanyahu is said to have also taken his Mossad intelligence chief, Yossi Cohen.

The secret summit would have been in the construction project of the future megacity of Neom. Main topics of conversation have reportedly been a possible normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and issues related to Iran.

Two Arab Gulf states, Bahrain and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) have recently established relations with Israel based on US diplomacy. The Saudis have always said they are willing to recognize Israel if that country returns the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. There would then be an independent Palestinian state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.

The international community has supported this solution for decades, but Israel is occupying and annexing more and more territory. Under President Trump’s administration, Washington has successfully tried to convince Arabs to recognize Israel and distance themselves from the Palestinian issue.