SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
saudi arabia
Postponing the UN 2-State Solution Conference Could Lead to a Better Outcome
This extended window of opportunity gives Palestinian civil society at home and in exile, along with their allies, necessary time to reassert and gain support for their demands.
Jun 17, 2025
At the United Nations 77th Commemoration of the Nakba convened May 15 and 16 in New York, nothing was said about the upcoming Two-State Solution Conference planned at the U.N. from June 17-20, until, at the very end of the event, Riyad Mansour, the beleaguered permanent representative of the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine lifted the shroud of avoidance by expressing support for the conference based on the framework laid out in France and Saudi Arabia's Two-State Solution Concept Note, intended to define the outcome of the conference. Nick Mottern, of the Weaponized Drone Ban Treaty Campaign, hearing his response, expressed apprehension that France and Saudi Arabia, the conveners of the conference, along with the Palestine Authority, were setting the Palestinian people up for "an ambush."
Also concerned that the Two-State Solution Conference would result in further concessions by the Fatah Party-led Palestinian leadership, 43 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a "Unified Call to Action" on June 13 demanding that the conference focus on 77 years of international law pertaining to the status and borders of Palestine, rather than a vague gathering at which the State of Palestine would not be even recognized.
Given the disastrous outcome of the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, after which nearly half a million settlers flooded into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there is trepidation that the Palestine Authority will walk away from the negotiations hoodwinked and empty-handed, with no resolution pertaining to the status of Jerusalem, right of return of refugees, or progress made in the payment of reparations as provided for by U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions 181 (1947) and 194 (1948).
Moreover, what should be discerned is the viability of a Two-State Solution, given that Israel's settler colonial enterprise has rendered that possibility dead in the water.
On June 12, ahead of the conference planned for June 17-20—now postponed following Israel's unprovoked military attack on Iran—the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy in Ramallah issued the clarion call reaffirming demands for a just and lawful resolution grounded in the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. French President Emmanuel Macron said that the conference was postponed due to the inability of the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to travel given the military escalation in the region. This extended window of opportunity gives Palestinian civil society at home and in exile, along with their allies, necessary time to reassert and gain support for their demands.
According to the Unified Call to Action:
The upcoming conference could serve as a turning point—but only if it is re-centered on its legal foundation: U.N. General Assembly Resolution ES-10/24, built on decades of existing international law obligations. This resolution welcomed the July 2024 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion, which called on Israel to comply with international law, including ending its unlawful occupation, realizing the Palestinian people's rights to self-determination and return, and requiring third states to adopt concrete sanctions and accountability measures to uphold international law.
The Unified Call to Action implores all states, institution, and actors engaging with the Two-State Solution Conference to ground all solutions in the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
Within this context, the language of France and Saudi Arabia's Concept Note falls short in meeting Palestinian civil society demands. It refers to the conference as geared to implement "the" Two-State Solution, while actually framing negotiations as "a" Two-State Solution. This represents an unauthorized manipulation and flouting of international law pertaining to the established borders of the Occupied Palestinian Territories including East Jerusalem as enshrined in U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), and 2334 (2016).
Moreover, what should be discerned is the viability of a Two-State Solution, given that Israel's settler colonial enterprise has rendered that possibility dead in the water. Israel has usurped more than 80% of the historic land of Palestine; 21% of Israel is Palestinian; and thorny issues and U.N. Resolutions pertaining to the status of Jerusalem, the right of return of refugees, and reparations remain flouted by Israel and unaddressed for 77 years. In accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whether a two-state, one-state, or other configuration, the government(s) of the land between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea must provide for the full human rights and dignity of all.
Further, the Concept Note is flawed pertaining to implementation, putting the onus of the conference's success or failure equally on the Palestinian Authority and Israel, where it states: "It is clear that the primary responsibility for solving the conflict lies with the parties." It continues, "The events of the last few years prove that without strong international resolve and involvement in ensuring they move towards the internationally recognized endgame, the conflict will escalate further and peace will be more elusive than ever." (Note: the words "conflict" and "endgame" are inappropriate in this context.) To state that the primary responsibility for solving the conflict lies with the parties, is to equate a battered woman as having the same power and agency as her brutal husband and his gang of weaponized thugs. If there is no peace in the home, she cannot be held responsible for that.
What is needed now, according to the Palestinian civil society organizations, is to "demand that the UNGA suspend Israel's membership for violating its membership conditions, including non-compliance with Resolution 194" of 1948. Israel is in flagrant violation of hundreds of U.N. General Assembly, Security Council, and Human Rights Council Resolutions, and the time has come for the GA to "support the mandate of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, including by pressuring Israel to grant access to Palestine for independent investigations."
As stated in the demands of the Unified Call to Action, the conference should be based on UNGA Res. ES-10/23 of May 2024 pertaining to International Court of Justice advisory rulings, and UNGA Res. ES-10/24 of September 2024 calling for Israel to, within 12 months, completely withdraw its occupying forces from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Res. ES-10/24 also opens the door for the possible invocation of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter against Israel, which could lead to sanctions, suspension from the U.N., the creation of a U.N. peacekeeping mission to protect the Palestinians and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid, etc.
Furthermore, France and Saudi Arabia's Concept Note does not reference the genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, crimes against humanity, starvation, etc. being suffered by the Palestinian people. It uses only generalized language such as, on Page 2: "Since the initial moments of the current wave of violence..." Also, on Page 2, Egypt and Qatar, along with the United States, are erroneously credited with having "a major role in negotiating a cease-fire in Gaza." Yet, on June 4, the U.S. used its veto power at the U.N. Security Council to block, for the fifth time, a resolution calling for a cease-fire.
At an emergency session of the U.N. General Assembly on June 12th, a resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional, and lasting cease-fire in Gaza was overwhelmingly adopted. Only 12 countries including the U.S. voted against it. Moreover, the few cease-fires that have occurred ended when the release of the designated number of hostages was secured. On June 11th, President Donald Trump slammed the Two-State Solution Conference warning of consequences for countries "that take anti-Israel actions."
Most concerning is that the conference does not set out to address the dire need to stop the imminent perishing by starvation of 2 million Gazans, nor the ongoing forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of the people of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In addition, it could potentially generate new U.N. resolutions that shrink Palestine's internationally recognized borders, effectively negating and overriding Security Council Res. 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) borders as well as General Assembly Res. 181 (1947) and 194 (1948) establishing Jerusalem as an international city and enshrining the Palestinian right of return and compensation.
In its press release of May 27, 2025, UNICEF addressed the elephant in the room:
Since the end of the cease-fire on 18 March, 1,309 children have reportedly been killed and 3,738 injured. In total, more than 50,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured since October 2023. How many more dead girls and boys will it take? What level of horror must be livestreamed before the international community fully steps up, uses its influence, and takes bold, decisive action to force the end of this ruthless killing of children?
In the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha on X, "Only an international military intervention should stop this mass killing of starved people."
According to Leo Gabriel of the World Social Forum and representative of the Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine Coalition, "What is needed now is for the U.N. Security Council to invoke Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter to send an emergency Blue Helmets peacekeeping mission to Gaza, as it has done in other parts of the world 72 times since 1948. As the Security Council will be deadlocked by the U.S. veto, it is incumbent upon the General Assembly to invoke GA Resolution 377, also known as the 'Uniting for Peace' option, to establish peace in in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and stop the genocide in Gaza." (The Uniting for Peace option was used by the General Assembly with the deployment of peacekeeping forces to the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip to end the1956 Suez Canal crisis.) "Stopping the imminent starvation to death of 2 million besieged Gazans by operationalizing 'Uniting for Peace' is the last gasp of life and hope in the utility of the U.N. to fulfill its mission," he added.
In addition to foundational problems with the U.N. Two-State Solution Conference, now touted as the "International Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine," France and Saudi Arabia have been criticized as lacking the credentials to convene the high-level negotiations. Saudi Arabia is well-known for its abysmal human rights record, decimating Yemen militarily and bringing it to the brink of famine, and violent suppression of dissent such as the assassination and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. France, with its extensive legacy as a colonial and neocolonial power, is not an impartial arbiter. It has not recognized Palestine as a state, has implemented sweeping bans on pro-Palestinian protests, sells weapons to Israel, and continuously enables the delivery of military equipment to Israel by air and by sea.
Given the circumstances, postponement of the so-called U.N. Two-State Conference may be best, certainly in the eyes of Palestinian civil society.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump’s Middle East Focus: From the Axis of Evil to the Axis of Plutocrats
Trump’s foreign policy trip marked a stark pivot away from what had long been a neoconservative version of Middle Eastern policymaking in Washington. Will the result be peace or just profit?
May 30, 2025
Colorful career criminal Willie Sutton once may (or may not) have been asked why he robbed banks. “Because that is where the money is,” he supposedly replied. A similar principle may explain the first foreign trip of President Donald J. Trump’s second term, which was not to a traditional U.S. ally in Europe. Rather, he set off to visit the capitals of the Gulf hydrocarbon potentates Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. In royal palaces there, he feasted and was offered hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in American companies and opportunities for the Trump Organization, too. Qatar even courted controversy by giving him a $400 million Boeing 747-8 plane to serve as a future Air Force One.
And the publicity was regal. Strikingly missing, however, was a side trip to Israel or any evident consultations with the extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If Israel gets in the way of deal-making with the Gulf plutocrats, it could become an annoyance that Trump might feel he can’t afford.
Instead, Israel was frozen out and blindsided by Trump’s pronouncements. On the eve of his trip, the president took the Israelis by surprise when he abruptly announced that he would halt his (costly and fruitless) bombing campaign against the Houthis of Yemen. Israeli leaders then had to listen to Trump proclaim that the U.S. “has no stronger partner” than Saudi Arabia, with which he brokered a $142 billion deal for American arms. The United Arab Emirates has a sovereign wealth fund of $2.2 trillion, while Saudi Arabia’s is $1.1 trillion and that country’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, has already deposited $2 billion of it in the investment firm of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has $526 billion. And such sums don’t even include those countries’ vast currency reserves, earned by selling petroleum and fossil gas.
And in that single, several-day trip, President Trump managed to realign U.S. Middle Eastern policy to center on—and yes, it should be capitalized!—an Axis of the Plutocrats, Gulf sheikhs who are using their galactic fortunes to reshape the region from Libya to Sudan, Egypt to Syria, and who are hungrily eyeing new investment opportunities in areas like the emerging artificial intelligence industry.
Syria: A Very Strong Background
Oh, and while he was traveling Trump revealed that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Arabia’s bin Salman had indeed convinced him to lift American sanctions on Syria, a step distinctly opposed by the Israelis. While in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he even held a surprise meeting with fundamentalist Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara, who had once led an al Qaeda affiliate. Asked about whether the Israelis opposed the step, Trump replied, “I don’t know. I didn’t ask them about that.” In fact, The Associated Press reported that, in an April meeting with Trump, Netanyahu had specifically pleaded with him not to lift those sanctions on Syria, since he claimed he feared that the new fundamentalist government there might eventually stage an attack on Israel.
Trump appears to have been entirely unmoved by Netanyahu’s plea. After meeting al-Shara in Riyadh, the president summed up his view of the former guerrilla and supporter of hardline Salafi Islam this way: “Young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.” On recognizing Damascus’s new government and issuing a waiver on those congressionally mandated sanctions, Trump observed, “Now it’s their time to shine… So, I say, ‘Good luck, Syria.’ Show us something very special.” It’s worth noting that al-Shara claims he wants good relations with all his country’s neighbors and is open to peace with Israel.
You wouldn’t know it from Netanyahu’s heated rhetoric, but during the Syrian civil war of the last decade, Israel did give medical help to the Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) that al-Shara founded and led when it was fighting against Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime. Since al-Shara’s group sometimes persecuted the heterodox Druze minority in Syria, this step outraged Israel’s own Druze minority, some of whom at one point attacked an ambulance taking a wounded Syrian rebel to an Israeli hospital, while the group’s leaders lobbied Netanyahu to cease aiding the al Qaeda-linked outfit.
Netanyahu’s recent suggestions to Trump that al-Shara, now in control of much of Syria, poses a threat to Israel, were therefore wholly disingenuous. Moreover, the jackboot is entirely on the other foot. As soon as the revolution in Damascus succeeded, Netanyahu ordered an orgy of destruction, bombing naval ships in the Syrian port of Latakia and military installations across the country, leaving Syria virtually helpless. Israeli troops then marched into Syria, occupying swathes of its territory and taking control of a dam that supplies 40% of its water. Israeli far-right cabinet member Bezalel Smotrich then pledged that Israel’s multi-front war of expansion there would only end when Syria was—you couldn’t put it more bluntly than this—“dismantled.”
Now, Israeli analysts not only fear a resurgent Syria but also worry that since Erdogan has Trump’s ear on Syrian policy, he will be emboldened. Turkey, after all, backed the rebel group that has now taken power and is their main international sponsor. Turkish fighter jets are already operating in northern Syrian air space, and Israel’s attempt to establish hegemony over its southern regions is endangered by Turkish claims that, going back to Ottoman times, Syria has always been in its sphere of influence.
Iran: No Nuclear Dust
Trump also sidelined Netanyahu during his trip by continuing to press for a new nuclear deal with Iran. His Gulf Arab hosts showed a collective enthusiasm for the ongoing talks, and Trump revealed that Qatar’s ruler, Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, had indeed lobbied him to begin direct discussions with Iran. The Gulf Arab monarchies fear being caught in the crossfire of any future American-Israeli war with Iran. The leaders of Qatar and the other Gulf states are anxious that the (all too literal) fallout from any aerial strikes on enriched nuclear materials in Iran could drift onto their populations, affecting their water supplies. Trump tried to reassure his hosts that “we’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran,” adding that he wanted to try negotiations first in hopes of forestalling any such outcome.
During both the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, Washington’s pitch to the Gulf Arab states was that they should recognize Israel, do business with it, and form a military alliance with it against Iran. Jared Kushner succeeded in making this argument to the postage-stamp Gulf countries of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which signed the Abraham Accords with Israel on September 15, 2020.
Trump appears to have developed the same fascination that possessed Barack Obama when it comes to “opening” Iran the way Richard Nixon once opened China.
However, Kushner and then-President Biden failed to bring Saudi Arabia aboard. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman resisted going on a war footing with Iran, especially after the devastating 2019 attack by that country or one of its proxies on the Kingdom’s Abqaiq refinery, which underlined Riyadh’s vulnerability. Not surprisingly, then, in March 2023, the Saudi foreign minister joined his Iranian counterpart in Beijing, where the two countries restored diplomatic relations and began deconfliction talks.
Once Israel launched its total war on the Gazan population in October 2023, bin Salman could hardly sign on to the Abraham Accords. In the region, it would have looked as if he were helping to destroy the Palestinian Arabs while putting a target on Iran, one of the Palestinians’ few remaining state champions. Unlike Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia has a substantial citizen population—some 19 million people—whose opinions the government has to be at least a little bit anxious about, especially since the blood of the average Saudi is indeed boiling at the daily atrocities being committed by Israel in Gaza. Last year, bin Salman’s office leaked to Politico that he feared he would be assassinated if he recognized Israel under such grim circumstances and he insisted on the need for an independent Palestinian state (which seemed to get Washington off his back on the issue).
In addition, Trump appears to have developed the same fascination that possessed Barack Obama when it comes to “opening” Iran the way Richard Nixon once opened China. Nothing, of course, could be more unwelcome in Tel Aviv. Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment facilities (though Western intelligence agencies do not believe that country actually has a nuclear weapons program). In an April meeting, Trump informed Netanyahu that he wanted to try negotiations before anybody attacked Iran and pointedly gave the prime minister a copy of his book The Art of the Deal.
Qatar: A Fundamental Role
If Qatar did convince Trump to try negotiating with Iran, then Sheikh Tamim won a major round in the contest for influence with the American president. It was a victory in keeping with Doha’s longstanding regional role as a mediator and seeker of peaceful solutions to conflict. And the rise of Qatari influence is another blow to Netanyahu, who has attempted to sideline the Gulf gas giant even though he was happy to make use of its services.
Since Hamas’ bloodthirsty October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, elements of the Israeli government and its supporters have attempted to blame Qatar for supposedly supporting and bankrolling Hamas. The allegations are breathtakingly false and serve as a smokescreen for Hamas’ actual patron (in a manner of speaking), Netanyahu himself. They were aimed, however, precisely at turning Qatar into a distrusted regional pariah, a ploy that has so far failed spectacularly.
That the fundamentalist Hamas movement came to power at the ballot box in Gaza in 2006 and could not be dislodged struck Netanyahu as a potential blessing. The bad blood between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) on the West Bank left Palestinians politically divided. Netanyahu made that very rivalry a pretext for preventing the establishment of a state for the 5 million stateless Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He put severe import-export restrictions on Gaza but otherwise allowed Hamas to run it as its own fiefdom. Hamas rocket fire from time to time (which seldom did any real damage) was a price Netanyahu was then willing to pay. He had a close associate act as a go-between regarding transfers of money from Qatar and Egypt into Gaza for civilian aid and administration. From 2021 on, Egypt and Qatar deposited aid money for Gaza civilian reconstruction in an Israeli bank account, and then Israel transferred it to the Gazans.
That’s right: Bibi Netanyahu was once functionally Gaza’s comptroller. Moreover, in 2011-2012, the Obama administration asked Qatar to host members of the Hamas civilian politbureau so that they could take part in indirect negotiations with both the U.S. and Israel. The favor Qatar did for Washington and Tel Aviv, however, would prove burdensome to its diplomacy. In 2018, the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim, grew so frustrated with Hamas that he decided to kick its officials out and cease sending aid to Gaza. Terrified that his divide-and-rule approach to the Palestinians might be jeopardized, Netanyahu frantically dispatched the head of the Israeli intelligence outfit Mossad to Qatar to plead with the emir to continue the arrangement.
In 2020, The Times of Israel revealed that Mossad head Yossi Cohen had written a letter to Tamim about the Gaza money transfers, saying: “This aid has undoubtedly played a fundamental role in achieving the continued improvement of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and ensuring stability and security in the region.” As late as 2023, other Israeli government officials were still sending similar messages, according to that paper. The subsequent attempt of the Netanyahu government to shift blame for its disgraceful Gaza policy onto Qatar has struck few seasoned observers as plausible.
Regarding Trump’s recent visit, the Israeli genocide in Gaza was the one outstanding issue on which Gulf leaders appear to have made little headway. After a roundtable with Qatari business leaders, the president said of Gaza, “Let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone.” These remarks, wholly detached from reality, did not clarify whether he still agreed with Netanyahu on a plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, which no one in the Arab Gulf could accept. In any case, insiders say Trump is frustrated that Netanyahu doesn’t “wrap up” the war, but that the president has not exerted the pressure necessary to stop it.
A Stark Pivot
Trump’s foreign policy trip marked a stark pivot away from what had long been a neoconservative version of Middle Eastern policymaking in Washington. In the era of President George W. Bush, some officials typically argued that Israel was Washington’s only reliable democratic partner in the Middle East and that all policy in the region should be organized around that reality. In the process, of course, they downplayed the plight of the Palestinians, claiming in 2002 that peace would only come in the region when the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein was overthrown. They gradually developed a rhetoric for stuffing Washington’s version of democracy down the gullets of Middle Eastern regimes—at the point of a gun, if necessary. They either marginalized Arab regimes or sought to scare them into an alliance with Israel. Their ultimate goal then was a war on Iran that would overthrow the government there. “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran,” they used to proclaim in a creepy combination of male chauvinism and juvenile jingoism.
Trump’s own regime is, of course, not free of either toxic masculinity or a jejune hyper-nationalism. However, unlike Bush and the neocons, the 47th president seems uninterested in kicking off long, debilitating foreign wars, which his base has come to hate. Still, think of him, at least in part, as Trump of Arabia. Of course, he’s mainly interested in making money for himself and his wealthy backers there. If Israel gets in the way of deal-making with the Gulf plutocrats, it could become an annoyance that Trump might feel he can’t afford. So far, however, the president seems unwilling to make the hard choices necessary to end the genocide and position the Middle East and the U.S. for prosperity, leaving us all in limbo with only a new Trump Tower in Dubai to show for it.
Keep ReadingShow Less
In Bonanza for Arms Industry, Trump Announces Record $142 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis
"I like him a lot," Trump said of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a prolific human rights violator. "I like him too much."
May 13, 2025
In what the White House described as "the largest defense sales agreement in history," U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a deal for prolific human rights violator Saudi Arabia to purchase $142 billion worth of arms from a dozen different American companies.
The White House unveiled the sale as Trump visited Saudi leaders including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the kingdom's capital city of Riyadh on the first leg of a Mideast tour, with stops also scheduled in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A fact sheet published by the executive office said the arms sale involves "air force advancement and space capabilities, air and missile defense, maritime and coastal security, border security and land forces modernization, and information and communication systems upgrades."
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince."
Reuters reported that military-industrial complex titans including Lockheed Martin, RTX—formerly Raytheon—Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Atomics are involved in the deal. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia reportedly discussed the potential sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom, but it remains unclear if the Trump administration will allow the transfer of the highly advanced warplanes.
The agreement is part of a broader Saudi commitment to invest $600 billion in the United States, which the White House said will "strengthen our energy security, defense industry, technology leadership, and access to global infrastructure and critical minerals."
Trump and his relatives, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, enjoy close personal and financial relations with the Saudi royal family, which has poured billions of dollars into their business ventures.
During a signing ceremony, Trump—who apparently fell asleep during the proceedings—joked that the Saudis should invest $1 trillion.
Business leaders including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—who is also the de facto Department of Government Efficiency chief—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, CitiGroup CEO Jane Fraser, and the heads of investment firms including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Blackstone Group also traveled to Saudi Arabia.
Critics including congressional progressives and anti-war groups have long opposed U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which stands accused of a litany of human rights violations including bombing and starving civilians in Yemen, massacring African migrants, and the 2018 murder of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
In 2019, during Trump's first term, Congress passed three bipartisan bills aimed at blocking an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partner in the U.S.-backed war on Yemen, the United Arab Emirates. Trump vetoed the legislation. His successor, former President Joe Biden, paused U.S. arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE but subsequently lifted the freeze despite pleas from human rights defenders.
The record arms sale comes amid Trump's effort to broker a diplomatic normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The president is no longer demanding that the Saudis normalize relations with Israel as a precondition for a civilian nuclear cooperation deal, a move that reportedly alarmed Israel's far-right government.
Trump lavished praise on the Saudi monarchy in a rambling speech in Riyadh on Tuesday, hailing bin Salman as an "incredible man."
Trump gushes over MBS: "We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger and nobody like the gentleman right before me. He's your greatest representative. And if I didn't like him, I'd get out of here so fast. He knows me well. I do. I like him a lot. I like him too much."
[image or embed]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 13, 2025 at 9:01 AM
"We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger, and nobody like the gentleman that's right before me, he's your greatest representative, your greatest representative," Trump said. "And if I didn't like him, I would get out of here so fast. You know that don't you? He knows me well."
"I do, I like him a lot. I like him too much, that's why we give so much, you know?" the president continued. "Too much. I like you too much!"
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince," he added.
Trump also announced that the U.S. would lift sanctions on Syria and restore relations with the country's new government, a move the peace group CodePink called "good news."
"The bad news is he's making new arms deals with Saudi Arabia, jeopardizing diplomacy with Iran, and continuing to ignore the U.S. and Israel's genocide in Gaza as they drop bombs on hospitals," the group added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular