Bin Salman to Palestinians: Accept US deal or ‘shut up’

Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman has rebuked Palestinians once again by telling a US-based Jewish group that “it is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.”

The remarks are said to have been made during a closed door meeting with heads of Jewish organisations in New York last month where Bin Salman is reported to have sharply criticised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, according to Israeli sources who cited an Israeli foreign ministry cable sent by a diplomat from the Israeli consulate in New York, as well three sources — Israeli and American — who were briefed about the meeting.

Bin Salman repeated a common narrative, usually used to justify ongoing colonisation of Palestine which places the blame for failed negotiations squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinian leadership as opposed to the continued occupation, settlement construction and the opposition to a Palestinian state by large sections of the current Israeli coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister himself is one of many rejectionists that staunchly oppose the international formula for peace based on international law.

In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining

Bin Salman is reported to have said by Axios.

According to the Israeli paper, Bin Salman made two other points on the Palestinian issue during the meeting. He made clear the Palestinian issue was not a top priority for the Saudi government or Saudi public opinion and secondly he said that for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to normalise relations with Israel there will have to be significant progress on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Read: Bin Salman is heading to the Saudi throne along an Israeli path

This isn’t the first time Bin Salman allowed his frustration over Palestine to boil over. Last November he gave Abbas an ultimatum telling the PA leader he had to back Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace deal or resign.

Saudi Arabia also proposed a peace initiative between Israelis and Palestinians by offering the village of Abu Dis as the future capital of Palestine instead of East Jerusalem.