Blinken meets resistance in courtship of Egypt and Saudi Arabia on Gaza war [View all]
CAIRO — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced stiff resistance from the Arab world’s most powerful strongmen on Sunday, trying to convince Egypt’s Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to embrace Washington’s view of the Israel-Hamas conflict, despite deep public sympathies for the Palestinian cause in the respective countries.
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In Riyadh, the Saudi ruler kept Blinken waiting several hours for a meeting presumed to happen in the evening but which the crown prince only showed up for the next morning.
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Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and home to its two holiest sites, is an influential voice in shaping Arab perceptions of the conflict. While Riyadh prizes its role as a defender of Palestinians, it views Hamas as a spoiler to greater regional integration, including the crown prince’s flirtations with normalizing relations with Israel.
But efforts to convince Riyadh to condemn Hamas have failed thus far, and the Saudi foreign ministry has denounced Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza, calling it an assault on “defenseless civilians.”
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