Free Republic

There has been lots of breathless speculation for months now, in the American, Arab, and Israeli media, about what the U.S., and Israel, must offer Saudi Arabia for that country to join the Abraham Accords and normalize ties with Israel.More on the latest comments about a possible diplomatic breakthrough, during National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s visit to Riyadh to continue negotiations, can be found here: “Biden mulls Saudi deal forcing Netanyahu to abandon extremists – NYT,” by Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, July 27, 2023:US President Joe Biden is mulling a mutual security pact with Riyadh that would include an Israeli-Saudi...

Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee announced Tuesday they are launching an investigation into the Trump administration’s dealings with Saudi Arabia after several whistleblowers expressed concern about efforts to sell the kingdom nuclear technology. The announcement came in conjunction with the release of a report by committee staff that said senior White House officials pushed for the sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia despite warnings from ethics advisers and national security officials to stop. “Based on this snapshot of events, the committee is now launching an investigation to determine whether the actions being pursued by the Trump...

The Justice Department has charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia, The Washington Post reports. U.S. citizen Ahmad Abouammo on Tuesday was arrested for allegedly spying on the accounts of three users on behalf of the kingdom. Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, was charged on Wednesday with accessing the personal information of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Riyadh. One of the accounts Alzabarah allegedly hacked belonged to Omar Abdulaziz, a known critic of Saudi Arabia, who later became friends with Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post columnist that was killed by the Saudi...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is expected to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday for a three-day visit, will be the first Arab leader to be hosted by China this year. The visit is seen as a sign of China’s ongoing effort to increase its influence in the Middle East at a time when the US has refocused its attention on the Indo-Pacific region and Ukraine. It’s further seen as a sign of strengthened relations between the Palestinians and China, which has long been critical of Israeli policies and measures. Abbas’s visit to China comes shortly after Beijing helped broker...

Senior Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahar: The “Army of Jerusalem” Will Not Liberate Palestinian Land Only; the 512 Million Square Kilometers of Planet Earth Will Come Under a System with No Zionism, No Treacherous Christianity #Hamas #Palestinians.

Saudi Arabia, UAE announce successful mediation efforts in US-Russia prisoner swap According to a joint statement, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed led the efforts. Saudi Arabia and the UAE said their joint mediation efforts helped lead to a successful prisoner exchange between the US and Russia on Thursday. “The [two countries] said the success of the mediation efforts was a reflection of the mutual and solid friendship between their two countries and the United States of America and the Russian Federation,” a joint Saudi-UAE statement read. “They also highlighted the important role...

The Biden administration just won one for the president and his new, fist-bumping pal, the leader of Saudi Arabia. The Washington Times reported on Wednesday that U.S. District Judge John Bates tossed a wrongful-death lawsuit filed against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Biden administration has determined that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, should be granted immunity in a case brought against him by the fiancée of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom the administration has said was murdered at the prince’s direction. A court filing was made by Justice Department lawyers at the request of the State Department because bin Salman was recently made the Saudi prime minister and as a result, qualifies for immunity as a foreign head of government, the request said. It was filed late Thursday night, just before the court’s deadline for the Justice Department...

Saudi Arabia has executed 12 people in 10 days despite the Crown Prince's promise to cut down on such form of punishment, according to a human rights organisation. Reprieve said the defendants, all males, were sentenced to death after being imprisoned for non-violent drug offences. According to the non-profit organisation, which gathered data on this week's executions, most of the defendants were beheaded with a sword. Three of the men executed were Pakistani, four Syrian, two Jordanian and three Saudi, Reprieve said. Another man from Jordan was reportedly transferred to a prison wing and is due to be executed on...

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Sunday voiced agreement with the Biden administration’s decision to grant sovereign immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, shielding the autocrat from a lawsuit over the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. “What the administration has touted this week in granting sovereign immunity to Mohammed bin Salman is in keeping with the practice of custom of lawsuits involving foreign heads of state,” Cotton told “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream. “It would have been a major break if those customs did not grant that kind of immunity.”

The Biden administration told a U.S. court that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s status as a sitting head of government shields him from a civil lawsuit brought by the fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr. Khashoggi, a former royal insider who criticized Prince Mohammed’s policies in Washington Post columns, was killed in 2018 and his body dismembered by Saudi agents during a visit to the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate where he was seeking papers needed to marry Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen. In a filing Thursday, the State Department said “common law principles of immunity” informed its determination...

Outgoing PM at swearing-in of the 25th Knesset: "IDF soldiers will not be investigated by FBI or any foreign body or country' Prime Minister Yair Lapid slammed the US Administration's decision to launch an FBI investigation into the death of AL Jazeera Shireen Abu Aqleh during the swearing-in ceremony for the 25th Knesset Tuesday. "The IDF is a moral and ethical army. IDF soldiers and their commanders defend the State of Israel. The IDF thoroughly investigates any irregular event and is committed to the values and laws of democracy," Lapid said. "Our soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI...

Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince has embarked on a multi-stop Asian tour, shoring up the Gulf nation's ties with its biggest energy market and signalling growing independence from Washington amid a bitter row over oil supply. Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's 37-year-old de facto ruler, left Monday for the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. The official Saudi Press Agency said the trip would include "a number of Asian countries", though officials have not yet confirmed details of the itinerary. A likely stop is South Korea, where local media report the crown prince will meet business leaders. He is...

Move represents about-face by US, which had said it wouldn't open its own probe into death of reporter who Israel says was likely shot by IDF in error; Gantz: We won't cooperate The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is launching an investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, apparently by an Israeli soldier, officials said Monday, with Israel immediately rejecting cooperation with the probe. US officials updated their Israeli counterparts earlier this month about the decision, an official familiar with the matter tokld The Times Of Israel on Monday, confirming a Channel 14 news report....

The ex-CIA officer’s company also worked for the Democratic National Committee. FBI Contractor Spied on GOP Congressman to Protect Muslim Brotherhood NOV 10, 2022 2:00 PM BY DANIEL GREENFIELD 4 COMMENTS The ex-CIA officer’s company also worked for the Democratic National Committee. The death of Qatari operative Jamal Khashoggi has been the subject of front page headlines, press conferences, a documentary, and speeches by top figures including Joe Biden. Qatar employing an ex-CIA officer who set out to spy on a Republican congressman to help protect the Muslim Brotherhood has received virtually no coverage in the media. The Washington Post,...

The Biden Administration will be known to history for many things: an open border and its deadly consequences, the abandonment of Afghanistan, weakness that led to catastrophe in Europe, skyrocketing inflation, and the use of federal law enforcement to target political opponents. ... American people must deliver to Joe Biden an unequivocal message: that they refuse to be gaslit, that they are not buying what he is selling. .... Biden’s open border. The reversal of Trump-era border enforcement, and his effective encouragement of illegal border crossings, has led to widespread human suffering. ... Americans are dying, too, as toxic fentanyl...

An unwritten pact binding the U.S. and Saudi Arabia has survived 15 presidents and seven kings through an Arab oil embargo, two Persian Gulf wars and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Now, it is fracturing under two leaders who don’t like or trust each other. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s 37-year-old day-to-day ruler, mocks Biden in private, making fun of the 79-year-old’s gaffes and questioning his mental acuity... He has told advisers he hasn’t been impressed with Mr. Biden since his days as vice president, and much preferred former President Donald Trump ... Mr. Biden said on...

Hundreds of CEOs and finance moguls are expected in Riyadh from Tuesday for a Davos-style investment conference that analysts say will highlight Saudi Arabia's geopolitical muscle despite strained ties with the US. The Future Investment Initiative (FII) was launched in 2017 as an economic coming-out party for the world's largest crude exporter, which is trying to diversify away from oil under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The following year's edition, however, was largely overshadowed by the killing several weeks prior of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and many would-be delegates from outside the region stayed away. Attendance picked up in 2019, even...

Saudi Arabia shut down Biden officials’ pleadings to delay the crucial OPEC+ decision last week slashing oil production until after the upcoming midterm elections, with Riyadh viewing the demand as a political ploy, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. American officials cautioned the Saudi government that cutting oil production would weaken Washington’s already strained relationship with Riyadh, and that the US would interpret the move as the kingdom taking Russia’s side in its ongoing war on Ukraine, according to the newspaper, which cited unnamed sources. Saudi leaders rejected the White House’s request, “which they viewed as a political gambit by...

One British man’s death in Qatar reveals the dirty truth about the traitors within. In an annual propaganda ritual, the heads of foreign governments and media operatives marked the anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s death by tweeting condemnations of the killing of the old friend of Osama bin Laden who had been recruited by an Al Qaeda financier to promote Jihad. It is a testament to the unchallenged power of the Islamic tyranny of Qatar that everyone in Washington D.C. unquestioningly takes a knee and pays tribute to its martyred operative. “Jamal Khashoggi’s murder 4 years ago was also an attack...