Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly told visiting US lawmakers that he fears being assassinated over his pursuit of normalization with Israel.
According to a Politico report published on Wednesday, citing three people briefed on the conversations, the crown prince indicated that he still intends to move ahead with forging ties with the Jewish state, though he fears it could cost him his life.
Bin Salman, commonly referred to as MBS, reportedly at least once referenced the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who was shot dead in 1981, two years after he signed a peace agreement with Israel. MBS asked his interlocutors what the US had done to protect Sadat after the landmark peace deal.
The crown prince was said to have cited the risk of assassination in explaining why any normalization deal between Riyadh and Jerusalem must include a “true path to a Palestinian state,” something the current Israeli government publicly opposes. “The way he put it was, ‘Saudis care very deeply about this, and the street throughout the Middle East cares deeply about this, and my tenure as the keeper of the holy sites of Islam will not be secure if I don’t address what is the most pressing issue of justice in our region,'” a source familiar with the conversations was quoted as saying by Politico.
Nevertheless, the report says, MBS “appears intent on striking the mega-deal with the US and Israel,” which he sees “as crucial to his country’s future.”
It was not clear how recently the crown prince had discussed his potential assassination. Sources in US Congress have said that the possibility of forging an Israel-Saudi normalization deal before November’s presidential election has been all but shut, with no time for the Senate to ratify the US-Saudi component of the deal before its recess.
Writing a column in Politico revealing the conversations, the news outlet’s senior foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi suggested that the crown prince was “saying his life is in danger to push US officials to raise pressure on Israel to bend to a deal he likes.”
“Even before the Gaza war, MBS was gambling by toying with the idea of establishing diplomatic ties with Israel,” wrote Toosi.
Now, she wrote, normalization could cost the crown prince the support of Saudi youth, which has been “galvanized by the first major conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that many of them have seen in their lives.”
Israeli-Saudi normalization is a long-coveted goal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, the premier has repeatedly rejected a future Palestinian state, making any such deal a complicated and difficult undertaking.
US President Joe Biden has said Saudi Arabia wants to “fully recognize Israel” in exchange for security guarantees from Washington and the establishment of a civilian nuclear facility.
On Monday, the White House confirmed it had resumed offensive weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, lifting a ban enacted in 2021 over human rights concerns. The resumption was seen as part of Washington’s efforts to enlist the help of Riyadh in securing a ceasefire in Gaza and countering a possible Iranian attack on Israel.
Before the war in Gaza, normalization seemed to be just around the corner. Two Israeli ministers made unprecedented public visits to the desert kingdom just days before the war was sparked on October 7, when thousands of Hamas stormed southern Israel to kill around 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.