Report: Saudi Crown Prince Mulling Public Meeting With Netanyahu Amid Khashoggi Fallout

According to Arab media, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is seriously considering holding a public summit with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and United States President Donald Trump as a means to alleviating pressure being applied on Riyadh due to its involvement in the October killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The dissident journalist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood—which Saudi Arabia has designated a terrorist group—was murdered on October 2 by a 15-member hit squad in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The report claimed that the trilateral meeting would include a public handshake between the leaders of the Jewish state and Muslim kingdom modeled on the one between then-Israel premier Menachem Begin and former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat following the signing of the U.S.-brokered peace agreement at Camp David in 1978. The report comes days after the Republican-controlled Senate passed two anti-Saudi motions in what is being construed as a rebuke of President Trump’s relatively tame condemnation of bin Salman. One measure called for Washington to end assistance to the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni nations fighting Iranian-backed Houthis rebels in Yemen, whereas the other placed blame for Khashoggi’s death squarely on the shoulders of the young Saudi ruler.