On Sunday, during a regional security forum held due to Us brokered normalization deals between Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors, tensions seemingly escalated between the Jewish state and Saudi leadership. The blunt exchanges over longstanding issues come just two weeks after the two countries’ leaders met in a secret meeting that sought to reaffirm the probability of a normalization deal. Suadi Arabia has denied that the meeting took place, although Israel has been vocal in saying that it did.
The address at the meeting, the Manama Dialogue held in Bahrain, was described as “fiery” when Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal condemned Israel as the last Western colonizer of the Middle East, adding claims of human rights violations and crime committed against Palestine. Prince Turki also criticized the legitimacy of Israel’s democracy.