\n\t\t\t\u201cThe Palestinians must decide for themselves, and we must support \nthem. I believe that things will become clear after the US elections \n(slated for November 3, 2020),\u201d Jubeir said<\/a> at a press conference on the sidelines of his visit to the Romanian capital Bucharest on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tThe top Saudi official went on to say that there are some positive \nelements in Trump\u2019s proposed deal, which could facilitate negotiations \nbetween Israeli and Palestinian officials, Presstv Reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tOn January 28, Trump unveiled his so-called deal of the century, negotiated with Israel but without the Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tPalestinian leaders, who severed all ties with Washington in late \n2017 after Trump controversially recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the \ncapital<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tPalestinian leaders, who severed all ties with Washington in late \n2017 after Trump controversially recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the \ncapital of the Israeli regime, immediately rejected the plan, \nwith President Mahmoud Abbas saying it \u201cbelongs to the dustbin of \nhistory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tPalestinian leaders say the deal is a colonial plan to unilaterally \ncontrol historic Palestine in its entirety and remove Palestinians from \ntheir homeland, adding that it heavily favors Israel and would deny them\n a viable independent state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tThe Saudi foreign ministry said on January 29 it “appreciates” \nTrump’s efforts and called for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\t\u201cThe kingdom appreciates the efforts of President Trump’s \nAdministration to develop a comprehensive peace plan between the \nPalestinian and the Israeli sides,\u201d it said in a statement carried \non the state-run SPA state news agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tLast week, senior Arab diplomatic sources said Saudi Crown Prince \nMohammad bin Salman might meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\n on the sidelines of a potential summit in Cairo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tThe Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) quoted the Arab sources as saying \nthat US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his team have been mediating \nbetween representatives from Israel and Saudi Arabia over the past few \nmonths to set up the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\t\u201cIn recent days, there have been very intensive discussions between \nWashington, Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to arrange a summit meeting \nin Cairo as early as the coming weeks, even before the election in \nIsrael,\u201d one of the Arab sources told JNS. Israel is scheduled to hold a\n general election on March 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tSaudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, however, asserted on\n Thursday that there are no plans for a meeting between Mohammed bin \nSalman and Netanyahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tSpeaking to al-Arabiya English, he also claimed that Saudi Arabia’s policy toward Palestine remained “firm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tLast month, senior Saudi cleric and former justice minister, Sheikh \nMuhammad bin Abdul Karim bin Abdulaziz al-Issa, paid an official visit \nto the former Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, in Poland. A \ndelegation of American Jewish Committee (AJC) officials was in the \ncompany as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tThe CEO of the AJC, David Harris, described Issa\u2019s visit to the site \nas highly significant, claiming that the trip represented \u201cthe most \nsenior delegation” of Muslim scholars to visit Auschwitz ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tBack on July 22, 2019, angry Palestinians jeered and cursed a Saudi \nblogger known to be a huge fan of establishing formal ties between \nIsrael and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tOne video clip posted on Twitter at the time showed Mohammed Saud \nbeing cursed and jeered as he was visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque compound \nin the Old City of Jerusalem al-Quds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tHe was part of a six-person media delegation from the Arab world, \nincluding representatives from Jordan, who were in the occupied \nPalestinian territories at the invitation of the Israeli foreign \nministry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tPalestinians protesting his visit called him a \u201ctraitor,\u201d \u201canimal\u201d \nand \u201cZionist trash,\u201d and also told him to \u201cgo to a synagogue\u201d instead of\n praying at a mosque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tAnother video clip showed plastic chairs and sticks being thrown at him as he walked in the market in the Old City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tLast May, Lebanese daily Arabic-language newspaper al-Akhbar<\/em> said the Saudi crown prince had offered Abbas 10 billion dollars in return for accepting Trump\u2019s controversial proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tAkhbar <\/em>noted that Abbas had turned down the offer, saying supporting the deal would be \u201cthe end of his political life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\t\t\tEarlier last year, delegates from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab \nEmirates and Egypt at a meeting of Arab states reportedly opposed bids \ncondemning the normalization of relations with the Israeli regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia’s RT Arabic television news network\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0in March 2019\u00a0that Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash-Sheikh, the speaker of Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Assembly, together with his Emirati and Egyptian counterparts had opposed a paragraph in the final communiqu\u00e9 of the\u00a029th Conference of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union<\/a>\u00a0in the Jordanian capital city of Amman, which demanded an end to efforts aimed at normalizing ties with Israel and condemned all forms of rapprochement with the occupying regime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir has hailed US President Donald Trump’s so-called deal of the century on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict as positive, saying the initiative can provide the basis for negotiations between the Palestinians and the Tel Aviv regime. \u201cThe Palestinians must decide for themselves, and we must support them. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,1],"tags":[631,1066,642,1067],"yoast_head":"\n