Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Palestinians Should ‘Shut Up’ Or Make Peace, Saudi Prince Told Jewish Groups

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia reportedly harshly criticized Palestinian leadership during a meeting with American Jewish organizations in New York last month, slamming Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for rejecting peace offers.

“In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given,” Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told the Jewish organizations, Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 10 reported Sunday for Axios. “It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.”

“People literally fell off their chairs,” said a source who was briefed on the meeting.

The prince, known as MBS, also reportedly said that the Palestinian issue was not a priority for the Saudi government, which “has much more urgent and important issues to deal with” like Iran.

But MBS also reportedly said that Israel and the Palestinians would have to make progress in peace negotiations before Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries could normalize relations with the Jewish state.

Among the groups present at the March 27th meeting were AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, B’nai B’rith, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have grown increasingly close in the past few years, as both governments are concerned about the threat of Iran and its allies in the region.

During his American tour, MBS told “60 Minutes” that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “very much like Hitler.” He also told The Atlantic that Israelis “have the right to their own land.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.