An influential Saudi prince has launched a bitter attack on Israel at a regional conference, drawing retorts from the Jewish state’s Foreign Minister.
The row erupted months after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain broke decades of Arab consensus by normalising ties with Israel, a move condemned as a “stab in the back” by Palestinians.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, a Saudi former intelligence chief who is said to be close to the country’s leadership, reiterated strong support for the Palestinian cause in a fiery presentation to the Manama Dialogue security forum on Sunday (Monday AEDT).
In unusually blunt language, he 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.
Prince Turki 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.
Israeli authorities were “demolishing homes as they wish, and they assassinate whomever they want”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi addressed the meeting by videoconference soon after, expressing his “regret” over the comments, which come after years of covertly warming relations between the two Middle East powers.
Read the article in The Australian (AFP).