Free Republic

No American or European on the face of this earth could force a Palestinian leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel that would be rejected by an overwhelming majority of his people. Trump's "ultimate solution" may result in some Arab countries signing peace treaties with Israel. These countries anyway have no real conflict with Israel. Why should there not be peace between Israel and Kuwait? Why should there not be peace between Israel and Oman? Do any of the Arab countries have a territorial dispute with Israel? The only "problem" the Arab countries have with Israel is the...

From TOI: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas traveled to Saudi Arabia unexpectedly on Monday to meet with King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman, with the Gulf kingdom at the height of a major crackdown on members of the royal family. Abbas had been in Egypt, where he was scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, when he was summoned to Riyadh to meet with the Saudi rulers, according to the official PA news site Wafa. The timing is very curious, as this sudden invitation came at the same time of the current upheaval in Saudi Arabia...

A couple of years ago I attended seminars with Chinese and Israeli counterterrorism experts in Beijing, in my capacity as a board member of a foundation that promotes Sino-Israel relations. A senior Chinese official complained that the Saudi royal family funds every radical madrassa in Xinjiang province, where Muslim Uyghurs of Turkish ethnicity form the majority. With a long and porous border stretching through sparsely-populated lands, Chinese security couldn’t prevent the funds from pouring in. I asked our Chinese hosts why they didn’t remonstrate with the Saudi government. The Chinese official said, “We talk to the Saudis all the time,...

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Saturday named Crown Prince Mohammed head of a corruption “supreme committee” in addition to a council that oversees Saudi Aramco, which in the past had been governed largely by technocrats. Salman said the move was because of “what we have noticed of exploitation by some of the weak souls who have put their own interests above the public interest, to, illicitly, accrue money.” Ibrahim Al-Assaf, a former finance minister and current director of Saudi Aramco, was among at least 17 princes, current and former government ministers and business executives taken into custody, according...

Yemen's Houthi movement fired a ballistic missile towards the Saudi capital Riyadh targeting a meeting of Saudi leaders at a royal palace on Tuesday, its spokesman said. Mohammed Abdussalam said on Twitter that a Volcano 2-H ballistic missile was fired towards al-Yamama royal palace.  Saudi air defences intercepted the missile, Saudi-owned channel al-Arabiya reported in a news flash quoting a Saudi-led military coalition.

“Dopey” Prince Alaweed Was Warned — Now He Sits In Prison In December 2015 Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal slammed Donald Trump for proposing a ban on Muslim immigrants in the US after the San Bernardino attacks. Donald Trump hit the “dopey prince” back twice as hard. "Detained members of Saudi elite have been hung by their feet and beaten by interrogates, source says. Among those hung upside down are Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor worth at least $7 billion who is being held at Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton. Saudi princes and billionaire businessmen arrested in a power grab earlier...

Speaking at a joint press conference with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir commended President Donald Trump for an international trip designed to unite people of different faiths to address a threat faced by all of humanity around the globe regardless of their religion. “The President deserves a lot of credit for taking this step, making his first visit outside the U.S. to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and land of the two holy Mosques, and then going to Israel and then going to the Vatican to deal...

Let’s play “One of these things is not like the other one.” Compare, if you will, Barack Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo to the Muslim world with Donald Trump’s speech today in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There was some overlap: both indulged heartily in the usual political boilerplate and délicatesse: honored to be here, working together, Islam’s great contribution to culture, how splendid is the Middle East, terrorism is not coterminous with Islam, etc., etc. But that’s where the similarity ended.  Trump’s speech was a forthright, America First, speech, Obama’s an accommodationist’s dream. {snip} Trump’s speech—and, again, his entire performance—struck me...

President Donald Trump has landed in Saudi Arabia as he begins his first foreign tour since taking office. Trump, the only president ever to make Saudi Arabia, or any majority Muslim country, his first stop overseas as president. Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, presentes Trump with the gold King Abdulaziz medal...

I believe Riyadh is 7 hours ahead of ET.

According to emerging reports from Yemen, a surface-to-surface missile fired by the Yemeni Army has hit the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The missile was launched on Sunday evening, and sources in Yemen have described the missile test as successful. It is unclear exactly what missile was used, and casualty figures, if any, are yet to be reported. Saudi Arabia intervened military in the Yemeni Conflict in 2015, leading a coalition of almost 10 Middle Eastern countries. In October 2016, a Yemeni activist warned that Riyadh was the next target for a Yemeni missile attack. Update: More information has emerged, suggesting that...

“Turki Bin Saud Bin Turki Bin Saud Al Kabir, a Saudi national, had shot Adel Bin Sulaiman Bin Abdul Kareem Al Muhaimeed, also a Saudi national, following a group dispute,” the Interior Ministry said.

CAIRO (AP)--Saudi police reportedly arrested the kingdom's most wanted terrorist on Thursday, according to pan-Arab satellite TV station Al-Arabiya. The Saudi-owned station reported late Thursday that police captured Faris Ahmed Jamaan Al Showeel al-Zahrani in Abha, a town 800 kilometers southwest of the capital, Riyadh. According to the Cable News Network, the Saudi Interior Ministry said an operation targeting the man was still going on. Saudi authorities released a list of 26 most wanted terrorists following a series of bombings in Riyadh on May 12, 2003, that killed 26 people. On Nov. 8, another suicide attack on a Riyadh...

President Obama vigorously defended his nuclear negotiations at the end of a summit of Persian Gulf state leaders and a rocky visit to Saudi Arabia aimed at reassuring the anxious ally and seeking more support for the fight against the Islamic State. While the president acknowledged Saudi concern that the United States should not be "naïve" when dealing with Iran, he cited previous presidents' willingness to engage in talks with Russia during the height of the Cold War as models to follow. "John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan still negotiated with the Soviet Union even when the Soviet Union was...

(CNN)President Barack Obama received a chilly reception from Saudi Arabia's leaders as he landed in Riyadh Wednesday, a clear sign of the cooling relations between once-close allies amid regional upheaval and dropping oil prices. When Obama touched down in Riyadh shortly after 1 p.m. local time, there were no kisses with the kingdom's ruler as President George W. Bush once exchanged. The Saudi government dispatched the governor of Riyadh rather than a senior-level royal to shake Obama's hand, a departure from the scene at the airport earlier in the day when King Salman was shown on state television greeting the...

Al-Qaeda's third-ranked leader and alleged mastermind of the Riyadh bombings has been seized in Iran, intelligence sources say. The United States has identified Saif al-Adel as the most senior al-Qaeda member linked to the attacks that killed 34 people, including one Australian, earlier this month. Intelligence sources said al-Adel, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguard, approved the bombing plans before his capture by Iranian security forces nine days before the attack. Iran is thought to want to handover al-Adel to Washington, in return for senior leaders in the anti-Iranian terrorist group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). He would probably be deported to...

Like father, like son, assert U.S., European and Arab intelligence agencies who believe one of Osama bin Laden's youngest children is beginning to call the shots at the Iranian branch of al-Qaida. Saad bin Laden is one of an estimated 400 operatives of the terror network recruited and protected by Tehran's hard-line clerics, according to the Washington Post. Tehran's elected government, headed by the reformist President Mohammed Khatami, does not appear to have control over this group, called the Jerusalem Force. The Post reports the 24-year-old bin Laden is computer savvy and fluent in English. His father groomed him for...

The Saudi man arrested by the Joint Terrorism Task Force yesterday in Idaho has ties to close associates of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and to four Arab men charged at the same time with channeling funds to Iraq. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen – a University of Idaho doctoral candidate supported by the Saudi government – was a terrorist bagman, according to a federal criminal justice source quoted by a Seattle newspaper. Saudi student Sami Omar al-Hussayen "He's in touch with people who could pick up the phone, call [bin Laden], and he would take the call," the source told the...

Saudi police have arrested a man wanted in connection with a 2011 protest movement organised by Shiite residents of the kingdom's restive Eastern Province ... Muntadher Ali Saleh al-Sabity .. is one of 23 Saudis wanted in connection with protests and violence in Eastern Province, home to more than two million Shiites in the Sunni-majority kingdom. The group, some of whom have been detained or killed, is accused of acting "on behalf of foreign parties" -- a reference to Iran, which authorities have blamed in the past for fomenting unrest among Saudi Shiites.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A Saudi woman arrested while attending a soccer game in the kingdom claims she did not know women were prohibited from going to the male-only stadiums, the state-linked Okaz newspaper reported on Monday. Saudi Arabia enforces a strict segregation of the sexes and has no designated areas for women at soccer stadiums ... Police spokesman Atti al-Qurashi said security spotted her at the stadium "deliberately disguised" in male attire to avoid detection, reported the state-linked news website Twasul. Okaz reported Sunday that police questioned the woman, who is in her twenties, for "impersonating" a man by...