U.S. and Israel Weigh Whether Saudi Crown Prince Can Deliver on Mideast Peace and Iran by Anne Gearan and Souad Mekhennet – Washington Post
U.S. and Israeli officials have expressed concern that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have less leeway to pursue the gradual warming of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors amid the political fallout from the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The fate of the crown prince, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, has implications for the Arab-Israeli peace package developed by the Trump administration and for cooperation among opponents of Iran.
“We should not allow an action like that to go unanswered,” the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, told an audience last week, referring to Khashoggi’s killing. “But we also have to be careful about not throwing away a relationship that has strategic value.”
“I think the administration, when they know all the facts, are going to have to decide, how can they on the one hand make clear that this action is unacceptable, but also not throw out the prince with the bathwater, let’s put it that way.”
President Trump has called Saudi Arabia a key to regional stability and a valuable purchaser of American arms but has said little publicly about what a diminished role for the kingdom or Mohammed might mean for Israel or Arab-Israeli peace…