PNN – The crown prince of Saudi Arabia introduced his country as the most influential actor in the Middle East; however, he still kept the ball in the court of real diplomacy and there is no tangible effect of him in the war between Israel and Hamas. Steven Cook, Senior Researcher of Middle East Studies at the American Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Policy columnist in this magazine writes: On October 23, when the world learned that Qatar and Egypt had succeeded in freeing two Israeli women from captivity, the image of Mohammed bin Salman on the footballer’s user account Famously seen on Instagram. Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo met the Saudi crown prince in a roundtable discussion on the future of e-sports, where the Saudis announced that they will host the first World Cup of video games.
Juxtaposing the efforts of Qatar and Egypt to free the hostages in Gaza and the short conversation between Ronaldo and Bin Salman in Riyadh shows that Saudi Arabia has a long way to prove its claim that it is the most important and influential country in the Middle East. In fact, since the war between Hamas and Israel began on October 7, the new Saudis have acted much like the old Saudis. There are movements in Riyadh, but we have not seen any real action from the Saudis. This is surprising; because Mohammad bin Salman and his advisors have pursued important and positive changes in Saudi Arabia despite all the criticism.
Just before the meeting of the Saudi Crown Prince with the US Secretary of State on October 15, the Saudi Foreign Ministry published a statement that in a part of it, it was stated that Riyadh rejects Israel’s request for the forced relocation of the people of Gaza and condemned Israel’s continued targeting of unarmed civilians. This is a principled position. However, if the Saudis are as they claim, they cannot sit in Riyadh and offer nothing but a strong protest to the terrible situation in Gaza. Of course, to be fair, the Saudis did something. On October 18, they organized a meeting of the executive committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
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However, the meeting was less of a genuine attempt by Riyadh at constructive diplomacy and more of a public relations exercise after months of negotiations with the United States over a possible Israeli-Saudi normalization deal. A day before that meeting, Turki bin Faisal, the prominent former security figure of Saudi Arabia, delivered a speech at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
During his speech, he criticized not only Israel and the West for the bloodshed in Gaza, but also Hamas for targeting Israeli civilians. It is true that Turki is now considered to be without a government position, but he is still a person who has made public statements that Saudi officials want to make but cannot make publicly.
The success of Mohammed bin Salman’s 2030 vision for growth and new investment opportunities depends to a large extent on the stability and integration of most major regional economies, including Israel. The agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March was supposed to reduce tensions in the region. But this agreement was caused by the weakness of the Saudis and only neutralized the confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Mohammed bin Salman does not want to act in the Gaza war in a way that will provoke the anger of Iran, so that Ansarullah will target the population centers of Saudi Arabia again. After the start of the civil war in Sudan in April, the relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia were at their best. Because the Saudis were able to show their effective role in dealing with this conflict through mediation and be useful to the United States.