DOHA — A senior Saudi diplomat says that while there is much focus in the international community on the need for the Palestinian Authority to engage in a comprehensive reform process, a reform of the Israeli government is what is most needed for peace in the region.
“The Palestinians have been reforming for the past 30 years. President Mahmoud Abbas had put [forward] a robust reform plan that he committed himself to, because this is good for the Palestinians,” says Manal Radwan, a minister in Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry, during an onstage panel discussion at the Doha forum.
“Saudi Arabia, of course, is committed, and we work on a daily basis with the PA to help in its reform plan, but what we need to really get a sustainable peace and security and an end to this conflict and to implement President Trump’s 20 peace plan and to implement the Security Council Resolution is a reformed Israeli government,” she says.
“We have an Israeli government that opposes the two-state solution. We have an Israeli government that has officials continuously inciting against Palestinians, against Arabs, against Muslims,” Radwan continues. “We don’t see that we have a partner for peace, not even a partner for a sustainable ceasefire. So that is the actual and the important reform that we are hoping to see.”
It is the latest biting criticism of Israel by a senior Saudi figure, coming just hours after the country’s former intelligence chief and Royal family member Prince Turki al-Faisal asserted that Israel is the most destabilizing country in the region, due to its ongoing military actions in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon.
Radwan’s defense of the PA and its ongoing reform process stands out, given that Riyadh has been one of the most aggressive stakeholders privately urging Abbas to engage in a comprehensive reform amid years of corruption and mismanagement allegations.
Saudi Arabia fumed upon learning last month that the PA’s then-finance minister had signed off on illicit payments to security prisoners under the old so-called “pay-for-slay” mechanism, a US official told The Times of Israel. Abbas fired the minister in a move that was convincing enough to Washington that it decided to shelve plans to personally sanction the PA president and other senior officials, and the response appeared to satisfy Riyadh as well, a Palestinian official said.
BY: The Times Union – TOI
