Former Saudi Official Minces No Words in Rebuke of Palestinians

Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan on Monday served up one of the harshest pieces of criticism leveled against the Palestinian Authority by a prominent official of the Gulf state since the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain last month. In an interview with state-owned Al Arabiya network, Bandar slammed the Palestinian leadership for condemning his neighbors’ decision to normalize ties with the Jewish state, calling out the PA’s “reprehensible discourse.” The prince, whose daughter serves as the current ambassador in Washington, summed up the Israeli-Palestinian relationship in blunt terms: “The Palestinian cause is a just cause but its advocates are failures, and the Israeli cause is unjust but its advocates have proven to be successful,” he said, lamenting that the Palestinian leaders have “historically … bet on the losing side.” While Saudi Arabia has indicated that it will not follow the UAE and Bahrain in signing historic pacts with Israel any time soon and reiterated its commitment to the Palestinian cause of an independent state, it has noticeably refrained from formally condemning the deals. The Arab world, in general, has remained generally mum on the normalization moves in the Middle East, much to the chagrin of the PA, which last month implored Arab leaders to speak out against them.