Former Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud wrote: open letter He called on President-elect Donald Trump to “finish what he started the last time he occupied the White House” on the Middle East.
Prince Turki is ambassador Trump, who was stationed in the United States from 2005 to 2007 and also served as Saudi Arabia's foreign intelligence director, began his letter by emphasizing Trump:
After you achieved a remarkable and outstanding victory in an election campaign marked by legal actions taken against you and a fear-mongering verbal attack warning Americans not to vote for you, you The American people have confidence in you and what you promised to give them, the confidence to lead them to a better America. You also flipped the Senate majority from your opponent's party to yours, bringing your party within reach of a House majority.
I am pleased that, unlike previous contentious electoral systems, America's electoral system worked very smoothly and decisively to determine winners and losers.
These facts give our friends and allies around the world confidence that your leadership is as decisive as the election results and will put an end to the claims of those who say America is in decline. Masu.
After laying the groundwork by checking off all the boxes on the “How to Get Invited to Mar-a-Lago” checklist, his comments about the “contentious” 2020 election were an especially nice touch. Prince Turki told President Trump that Saudi Arabia is a “hotspot” surrounding the Middle East. He noted that these spots were pretty cool before President Joe Biden took office.
“When you left in January 2021, there was no war in Gaza, Iran and Israel were not firing missiles at each other, the Houthis were not interfering with Bab al-Mandab shipping, There was also no civil war in Sudan,” Turki pointed out.
Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said the Saudi crown prince's tone got a little rough when discussing Israel's operations (war) against terrorists Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. condemned on Tuesday as a “massacre.”
“Israel has decapitated the leadership of both Hamas and Hezbollah, but the latter still has the ability to kill Israeli soldiers and launch projectiles and other ordinances towards Israel,” Turki said. Although he let his mouth slip, he treated the issue with a little more caution than the Crown Prince. He took a jab at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him a warmonger.
Turki added wars in Gaza and Lebanon to the “bloodbath” in Ukraine and claimed the world is “even more chaotic” than it was when Trump was last president.
“God spared your life not only to deal with the situation within the United States where you are facing great challenges that you must overcome, but because that is what America is, our friends in Saudi Arabia. “I believe that in order to work with the United States and our other friends in this region, we will pursue what we started earlier, which is to bring capital peace to the Middle East,” he told Trump.
Turki was a little vague about how Trump would defuse the chaos in the Biden-Harris world, but strongly suggested that Trump should renew his term as president. Abraham Accords This peace initiative seemed on the verge of uniting Israel and Saudi Arabia until October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israeli civilians. In fact, many analysts believe that one reason Hamas committed these atrocities was to prevent other Middle Eastern countries from joining the United Nations. United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords.
“Since before your first stay in the White House and until your return, the United States and other countries have talked about ending the bloodshed in the Middle East, but we never went down that path. . You now have the opportunity to do just that,” Prince Turki complained in a letter to Mr. Trump.
“Please take advantage of the next four years and work with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to open the door to peace for all of us,” he urged the president-elect.
The problem with the invitation is that Saudi officials and members of the royal family, including Prince Turki himself, insist that normalization with Israel is impossible until a Palestinian state is carved out of Israeli territory. Hamas's atrocities have made Israelis more reluctant than ever to take that gamble.
Prince Turki, September 2024 said Chatham House, a London-based think tank, claimed the October 7 attack derailed promising negotiations between Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US to “establish a Palestinian state”.
“Saudi's position has always been that they do not represent the Palestinians. They have to do it themselves. Of course, unfortunately, with the October 7 attacks, these negotiations “It’s over,” he said.
When Turki appeared at Chatham House in September, he took a much tougher stance on Israel than he did in his open letter to Trump. He criticized the United States and its allies for not applying more pressure on Israel than imposing an arms embargo.
“A lot of financial aid goes to Israel from the United States. For example, if we could strip Israeli lobbyists of some of the privileges that the Israel lobby enjoys in the United States, namely tax-free donations to Israel, “It's going to put a lot of pressure on us,” he suggested.
“America has a lot of tools available to it that go beyond just tough words. But is America ready to do that? As I said, I don't think “I'm not very optimistic about it,” he said less than two months after writing an optimistic letter to President-elect Trump.
BBC went on an adventure On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf states said they were “aware.” [Trump’s] But they view President Trump “much more favorably than Joe Biden” and are hopeful that Trump's “eagerness to get a deal” may finally bring an end to the Gaza conflict. There is.
