Saudi crown prince MBS 'fears for life' over Israel normalisation efforts: report

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman fears he will be assassinated over his attempts to normalise relations with Israel, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing three US sources.

The sources, who include one unnamed former US official and two individuals with knowledge of the talks, said the kingdom's de-facto ruler shared these fears with US lawmakers.

Prince Mohammed allegedly highlighted the US's alleged failure to protect slain Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in October 1981 after normalising with Israel.

The remarks were reportedly made while the prince discussed the proposed deal with Israel with US lawmakers. 

Saudi Arabia considered one of the most crucial Muslim nations and home to Islam's two holiest sites, has never recognised Israel and did not join the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords that saw its Gulf neighbours Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Morocco, establish formal ties with Israel.

However, the Biden administration has pushed hard for a deal to be forged between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

Prince Mohammed is believed to be demanding a wide-ranging security pact with the US, support for his civilian nuclear programme and economic investment in exchange for normalising with Israel.

The prince has reportedly been keen to emphasise the cost that such a deal would come to him, highlighting Saudi Arabia's position within the Arab and Muslim world, as well as how those two spheres view Israel.

Yet despite Israel's war on Gaza and the huge death toll - surpassing 40,000 on Thursday - Riyadh has not scrapped the possibility of normalisation, saying that it will happen once Palestinian statehood is on course.

"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'," said one of the people with knowledge of conversations MBS has had with regional and American leaders," Politico quoted one of the sources as saying.

However, Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have repeatedly rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood — a sentiment that has hardened amid Israel's war on Gaza.

A poll conducted by Pew in May also found that only a quarter of Israelis, which includes Palestinian citizens of the state, believe in peaceful coexistence with a Palestinian state.

Against this backdrop, the prince's comments have been interpreted as an attempt to squeeze concessions out of Israel.

"Before October 7th, the Saudi crown prince was hurtling towards normalisation and had given every indication to the US and Israel that a deal was imminent," political analyst Sami Hamdi told The New Arab.

"Since October 7th however, the crown prince believes Tel Aviv and Washington are not showing enough appreciation as to the difficulties in balancing between maintaining a process of normalisation with Israel during a genocide and managing sweeping public outrage at the mass slaughter and lack of action from Muslim rulers" he added, saying that the remarks about fearing for his life are "an appeal that Tel Aviv and Washington show greater consideration of the perils normalisation would bring in a Muslim World that would consider it an ultimate betrayal of Palestine".

While the Netanyahu government, which has resisted pressure from Washington over its war on Gaza, looks unlikely to concede any ground for a Saudi deal, the pursuit of a deal will likely continue under a Harris or Trump administration elected in November.