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News ID: 70373
Publish Date : 13 September 2019 - 22:00

Saudi Crown Prince Meets With Zionist Christian Delegation in Jeddah



RIYADH (Dispatches) – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has met with an influential pro-Zionist delegation of American evangelical Christians in Jeddah.
Photos of the meeting, which was attended by leading American Christian Zionist leaders, including dual U.S.-Israeli national Joel Rosenberg, were published by the Saudi regime.
The nine-person delegation of the evangelical Christians also included the Rev. Johnnie Moore, a co-chairman of President Donald Trump's Evangelical Advisory Council; Larry Ross, a former longtime spokesman for one of America's most well-known evangelicals Billy Graham; and Pastor Skip Heitzig, whose Calvary Albuquerque church in New Mexico has more than 15,000 congregants.
A statement later released by the delegation said its members were grateful to have deepening relationships in Saudi Arabia "to talk openly, if sometimes privately, about what we believe must change in the kingdom even as we celebrate the kingdom's progress in so many other areas."
The talks are particularly significant since Riyadh is trying to forge closer ties with an influential electoral base in the U.S. that could be crucial to the 2020 U.S. presidential elections.
The meeting marked the second such visit by American evangelicals, known for their deep-rooted Islamophobia, to the kingdom. The same delegation met with bin Salman in Riyadh back in November 2018 in line with Saudi Arabia’s growing ties with the Zionist regime.
Many evangelicals in the U.S. support the occupying regime as a core part of their faith.
Bin Salman’s meeting with the Zionist delegation was held on the eve of the anniversary of the 2011 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people and caused about $10 billion worth of property and infrastructure damage.
U.S. officials assert that the attacks were carried out by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Lebanon, but many experts have raised questions about the official account.