{"id":11575,"date":"2017-11-15T13:40:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T13:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=11575"},"modified":"2017-11-15T13:40:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T13:40:38","slug":"leaked-saudis-have-plans-for-official-ties-with-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/leaked-saudis-have-plans-for-official-ties-with-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaked: Saudis have \u2018plans for official ties with Israel\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (R) and Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

A Lebanese newspaper has published a secret undated letter from Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that puts forward a plan to normalize ties with Israel despite \u201crisks\u201d of a public backlash.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lebanon\u2019s\u00a0al-Akhbar<\/em>\u00a0daily released the correspondence on Tuesday\u00a0in the wake of reports that Riyadh and Tel Aviv are increasingly tilting toward one another in defiance of strong opposition among the Arabs to such rapprochement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the honor to submit to you the draft of the plan to establish relations between the kingdom and the State of Israel, based on the strategic partnership agreement with the United States of America, which was discussed with the secretary of state,\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n

Jubeir referred to Israel as a\u00a0\u201cstate\u201d while Saudi Arabia, along with other Arab League states, does not formally recognize the occupying entity.<\/p>\n

It, however, warned that the establishment of ties with Israel involves a risk to Saudi Arabia \u201cgiven the spiritual, historical, and religious status of the Palestinian issue\u201d in public opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kingdom will not take this risk unless it feels the United States\u2019 sincere approach to Iran, which is destabilizing the region,\u201d it went on to say.<\/p>\n

The letter also set out a number of conditions for the normalization of relations with Israel:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Saudi seeks \u2018military\u00a0equivalence\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The letter says any Riyadh-Tel Aviv rapprochement needs \u201cequivalence\u201d between the two sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the military level, Israel is considered the only country with nuclear weapons in the Middle East…. accordingly, the kingdom must acquire this deterrent or seek to remove Israel\u2019s,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Palestine refugees won\u2019t be back\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Saudis would contribute to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by proposing resettling Palestinian refugees in their host countries rather than returning to their homeland.<\/p>\n

The kingdom would also propose for Jerusalem al-Quds to be placed under international control administered by the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Iran \u2018common Israel-Saudi target\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the letter, Jubeir describes Iran as the \u201cmain threat\u201d to the region, saying a resolution of Israel-Palestine conflict would help Riyadh and Tel Aviv to focus on the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

When the conflict is settled, Jubeir writes, Saudi Arabia and Israel would pursue their \u201ccommon goals\u201d regarding Iran.<\/p>\n

The two regimes, according to the letter, want tougher US\u00a0and international sanctions against Iran over its missile program and human rights issues.<\/p>\n

Among other goals are lobbying the\u00a0six\u00a0parties to the\u00a02015 nuclear deal\u00a0with\u00a0Iran to ensure its strict implementation and capitalizing on Iran\u2019s economic problems to increase pressure on the country.<\/p>\n

The two sides are also concerned over Iran\u2019s influential role in the Middle East, which the letter says should be confronted.<\/p>\n

The letter was leaked amid numerous reports of\u00a0behind-the-scene contacts between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

In September, Israeli and Arab media reported that a Saudi prince had traveled to Israel and had\u00a0held consultations with senior Israeli officials over \u201cregional peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month later, an Israeli official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP Arabic that Mohammed bin Salman had in fact been the prince who visited Israel in September.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
PressTV-\u2018Israeli official confirms bin Salman visited Tel Aviv\u2019<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

An Israeli official reportedly confirms that a Saudi prince who was widely reported to have visited Israel in September was Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.<\/a><\/div>\n

An official source at the Saudi Foreign Ministry, however, dismissed the news about bin Salman’s trip.<\/p>\n

Back in June, The Times cited unnamed Arab and American sources as saying\u00a0that Tel Aviv and Riyadh were in clandestine talks to establish official economic ties for the first time since the entity was created.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Israel\u2019s Transportation\u00a0and\u00a0Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz called on Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud\u00a0to invite Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to Riyadh to establish full diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (R) and Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir A Lebanese newspaper has published a secret undated letter from Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that puts forward a plan to normalize ties with Israel despite \u201crisks\u201d of a public backlash. Lebanon\u2019s\u00a0al-Akhbar\u00a0daily released the correspondence on Tuesday\u00a0in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11577,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11575\/revisions\/11577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}