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News ID: 60790
Publish Date : 14 December 2018 - 22:00
Middle East Eye:

MBS Plans Camp David-Style Meeting With Netanyahu

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is reported to be "seriously considering” setting up a "game-changing” Camp David-style summit meeting with Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu, with U.S. President Donald Trump playing host, Middle East Eye reported on Friday.
The crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, has asked the emergency task force he created to deal with the fallout from the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to look at the idea, sources in the kingdom with close knowledge of the discussions told the leading online news outlet.
The plan is to present the crown prince, who is widely accused of involvement in Khashoggi’s killing, as a breakthrough Arab peacemaker in the mould of the former Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat.
Sadat shook hands with Zionist PM Menachim Begin in 1978 in a meeting hosted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter at Camp David.
The meeting led to Egypt becoming the first Arab state to recognize Israel and a peace treaty between the two sides. Sadat was assassinated in 1981.
Muhammad bin Salman believes that the photo opportunity alone would be big enough to influence the incoming and inherently more hostile U.S. Congress in January.
The Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections, while several Republican senators said last week it was "clearer than ever” that the crown prince, commonly known as MBS, ordered Khashoggi’s murder, after they were briefed by CIA chief Gina Haspel.
The U.S. Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end U.S. military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder.
The measure is largely symbolic, however, and Trump has continued to defend the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia, indicating in an interview on Tuesday that he intended to "stand by” the crown prince.
"MBS asked his task force to study this proposal and he hinted that he liked the idea,” the Saudi source told MEE, referring to the suggested meeting between the crown prince and Netanyahu.
"The task force agreed that without a major stunt, there is a real danger of a series of decisions from Congress that would fundamentally set back the Saudi-U.S. relationship, which is key for the crown prince.”
The crown prince’s inner circle is acutely aware of the damage being done to his image in Washington by near-daily negative front page reports in the U.S. media.
All on the task force agree that the furor over Khashoggi’s murder is not a media bubble that will simply pop. They fear that the sense of anger and betrayal among Republicans on Capitol Hill, who had supported the crown prince as a reformer, is growing, the source said.
Nikki Haley, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is the latest person to break ranks with the White House. Haley said on Wednesday that bin Salman was "responsible” for the murder of Khashoggi.
Haley, who is expected to step down from her role by the end of the year, said the Saudi government should not get "a pass”.
"It was the Saudi government, and MBS is the head of the Saudi government," Haley told NBC News.
"So they are all responsible, and they don't get a pass, not an individual, not the government - they don't get a pass.”
The proposal to stage a handshake with Netanyahu divided the task force, which includes Saudi intelligence, army, media and foreign office officials and political advisers.
"Some voiced concern about the consequences of this on the Arab and Muslim world,” the source said.
The current formal position of the Arab League follows the Arab Peace Initiative announced by the late King Abdullah in 2002, which offers the occupying regime of Israel recognition and normalization from the Arab states only after a peace agreement is concluded between Israel and Palestine.
Others in the task force were more enthusiastic. "They thought that the Arab Spring is so divided, and that things are under control,” said the source, referring to the political forces connected to the Arab Spring movement, who would object strongly to the normalizing of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The task force noted the absence of any real reaction on the Arab street to the recent visits of Netanyahu and Zionist ministers and athletes to the Persian Gulf states of Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar.
They also thought they could control reaction inside the kingdom by "using the religious authorities to justify it”, the source said.
"MBS is keen on the idea. He comes from a new generation and does not feel the weight of history on his shoulders. He has shown this repeatedly. He has no particular sympathy with the Palestinian cause,” he said.