Saudi source: We want peace, our Israel criticism isn’t antisemitic, Netanyahu doesn’t want normalization

Recent harsh criticism of Israel in Saudi media is not antisemitic, a source in the Saudi royal family tells the Kan public broadcaster.

“It is not antisemitism, but is opposition to moves by the Israeli government,” says the Saudi source, who is not named.

“There is no hostility toward religion or to a country here,” continues the source, “but to its policies.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the source says, “is the one who is not interested in normalization. We want peace, on the condition that Israel agrees to creating a Palestinian state that meets the minimum criteria.”

Saudi clerics have in fact launched into antisemitic sermons, as headlines in the kingdom attacked “the Zionist entity” and what they call its ostensible Emirati enablers.

The Anti-Defamation League released a statement saying that it is “alarmed by the increasing frequency and volume of prominent Saudi voices — analysts, journalists and preachers — using openly antisemitic dog whistles and aggressively pushing anti-Abraham Accords rhetoric, often while peddling conspiracy theories about ‘Zionist plots.'”