Report: Saudi crown prince says he fears assassination for pursuing normalization with Israel

“The Saudi royal has mentioned to members of Congress that he’s putting his life in danger by pursuing a grand bargain with the US and Israel that includes normalizing Saudi-Israeli ties,” the report said.

“On at least one occasion, he has invoked Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader slain after striking a peace deal with Israel, asking what the US did to protect Sadat,” it added.

The crown prince was said to have cited the risk of assassination in explaining why any normalization deal between Riyadh and Tel Aviv 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 added, 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 agreement 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.

Back in 2020, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco entered US-brokered rapprochement deals with the regime.

Washington has also reportedly been trying to add Riyadh to the list in a bid to bolster regional support for Tel Aviv, its most cherished ally.

Last July, the administration of US President Joe Biden announced that a deal for Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations might be on the horizon following National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s talks with Saudi officials in the kingdom’s port city of Jeddah.

In September, though, the kingdom was reported to have informed the United States of its decision to suspend all negotiations on the potential rapprochement due allegedly to the Israeli cabinet’s unwillingness to make any concessions to the Palestinians.

A month later, following the onset of the regime’s yet-ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, Reuters also reported that Riyadh was “putting US-backed plans to normalize ties with Israel on ice”.