A recent visit to the Jewish state by Mohammed Saud received major publicity after he was attacked by Palestinians. But is this a condoned political strategy, or more of the same

By KSENIA SVETLOVA 22 August 2019, 7:01 pm

On May 29, a Saudi student pinned a video clip of himself to his Twitter profile, making a statement that to some may be nothing short of remarkable. “Hello everyone,” he says in the clip. “My name is Mohammed Saud. I’m from Saudi Arabia. I love Israel, and I wish there [to be] a diplomatic relationship between our country and Israel.” The 27-year-old Saud, who lives in Riyadh and goes by the Twitter handle @mohsaud08, retweets posts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the premier’s son, Yair, and other Israeli government-run Twitter accounts in Arabic and Hebrew. He also sends out regular “Shabbat shalom” greetings from Riyadh in Hebrew to his followers, shares links of famous Israeli songs, and, calling the Israeli prime minister by his local nickname, claims that “there is no one like Bibi Netanyahu.”

And Saud is far from alone.

@SULTAN20_30 is yet another Saudi citizen whose account is almost entirely dedicated to relations with Israel, the Jews, and US President Donald Trump. When sent a direct message on Twitter, Sultan, a 37-year-old clerk from Riyadh, immediately agreed to answer questions put to him by The Times of Israel. “There is no problem with Israel. It is important because of Jerusalem that is holy to Jews and Christians, while Islam’s holy places are Mecca and Medina,” Sultan said via the social media platform. “We, the young generation, aspire to have normal relations with all states. We also know that 70 years ago there was no Palestinian state, while the Jews have existed for 3,000 years. For us, Jerusalem has no significance; Islam’s holy places are in Mecca and Medina. We want peace and coexistence,” he said.

As of this week, Sultan’s active Twitter account had 2,068 followers — far short of qualifying him as a social media “influencer.”

Likewise, Saud had just 2,000 or so followers — at least, until his dramatic visit to Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque late last month. When video emerged of Saud getting spit on and attacked by Palestinians livid over his attitude towards Israel, over 16,000 people quickly started following his account.

Do bloggers such as Saud and Sultan act alone? Or are they being directly or indirectly supported by some element in the Saudi administration?

For now, there is no evidence to support any official government connection. However, the bloggers’ proliferation is significant: One Israeli security expert who deals with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states believes that the bloggers may be a means for Saudi authorities to gauge public opinion.

“There is a change that is taking place, and it’s real,” the former official in one of Israel’s national security branches told The Times of Israel, requesting not to be named publicly. “Also, nowadays, when the Crown Prince [Mohammed bin Salman] tries to change the image of his country, one of the ways to do that is through getting closer with Israel and the Jews.”

Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia have strategic depth and run much deeper than the blogosphere — but this unusual phenomenon is perhaps the most vivid recent sign of a change in attitude towards the Jewish state within the Saudi kingdom.

Historic roots of support

Some analysts tend to name the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman — also known by his initials, MBS — as a catalyst for the seemingly recent change. Bin Salman has cultivated close ties with Jared Kushner — Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, as well as architect of the administration’s Middle East peace plan — and has displayed a positive attitude towards Israel on many occasions. The truth is that the tide started turning almost two decades ago, and was hinged on the Saudi peace plan that would soon be adopted by the Arab League and dubbed the Arab Peace Initiative.

In March 2002, the now deceased Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz — then-heir to the Saudi throne — unveiled a new peace plan at the Arab League’s Beirut Summit aimed at ending the ongoing Middle East conflict and granting Israel unanimous recognition among Arab states.

At the time, say Israeli security officials, the Saudis were still contributing large sums of money to Hamas, the terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction and which now holds de-facto rule over the Gaza Strip. Vicious anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sermons were often heard in Saudi mosques.

Soon after the unveiling of the Arab Peace Initiative, however, the money transfers from Saudi charitable funds to Hamas stopped. The Second Intifada was still raging, but Saudi-controlled media began releasing content that indicated that the kingdom’s attitude towards Israel was slowly changing.

Days after the peace plan was released, Saudi journalist Abdul Karim al Nasser published an oped supporting Prince Abdullah’s initiative in the popular Saudi daily Al-Watan newspaper, which is considered to be liberal and pro-reform. In the article, translated by this reporter for the Middle East Media Research Institute, al Nasser virtually accused the Palestinian leadership of acting irrationally and dragging the rest of the Arab world into another war with Israel.

“No one will give the Palestinians and the Arabs their land and rights back if they don’t act rationally and seriously,” he wrote. “If they try to transform their conflict with Israel into a greater Arab conflict, it will just come to mutual accusations and arguments.”

At the time, even restrained support of Israel was quite rare. More common were the frequent blood libels and accusations of Israel being behind the 9/11 attacks, the war in Iraq, and other worldwide or regional cataclysms.

But in 2005, in order to facilitate its application to the World Trade Organization, Saudi Arabia announced the end of its ban on Israeli goods and services. In late 2008, Saudi authorities arrested Sheikh Awad al-Qarni, a radical cleric who vilified the West and encouraged violence against Israeli targets. The country also quelled anti-Israeli demonstrations as Saudi journalists and editors largely refrained from openly criticizing Israel, blaming the Palestinians — and more specifically, Hamas — for the continuing crisis in Gaza.

Other major regional events — the 2011 Arab Spring, the sweeping gains of the Islamic State, the olive branch extended by president Barack Obama’s administration to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the US nuclear deal with Iran — sped up the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Intelligence officials and politicians from both countries eagerly cooperated and often met in discreet locations. Relations with other Gulf states improved as well, including a rare official visit by Netanyahu to Oman last year (the only other Israeli prime minister to have visited the country was Yitzhak Rabin), and statements in favor of increased ties by leaders of Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.

Source: The Times of Israel