Saudi Researcher Saleh Bakr Al-Tayar: Charity Begins At Home; KSA, Gulf Countries Should Prefer Their Own Interest To Those Of The Palestinians

Saudi lawyer Saleh Bakr Al-Tayar, the President of the CEEA Research Center, said in a November 8, 2020 interview on Channel 2 (Egypt) that in his opinion, for countries like the UAE and Bahrain, normalization with Israel is a matter of internal affairs. He said that these countries are free to decide if they believe that this would best serve the Palestinian people, and he argued that were it not for Gulf and Saudi money, the Palestinians would not have had the infrastructure, schools, and hospitals that they have today. Al-Tayar also criticized Palestinian terror attacks, pointing out that such actions have not resulted in the establishment of the Palestinian state.

Saleh Bakr Al-Tayar: "Why are the international community, the Islamic community, or the Palestinians themselves angry that the UAE and Bahrain have established relations with Israel? Do you want to deprive me of my free will? If it wasn't for the billions [of dollars] that were spent by the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians would not have gotten to where they are. They would not have the infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and so on.

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"We at the [CEEA] Research Center, were in Casablanca in February 1999. [We attended a meeting] under the auspices of the late King Hassan. Arafat attended [this meeting], and all the Palestinian leaders you can imagine — communists, Pan-Arabists, all the names you can imagine. [Palestinian leaders] from all over the world — Tunisia, Jordan, Syria — came to Casablanca, and they were all hosted by King Hassan. We planned the future status of Arab Jerusalem after May 7 [1999]. If you want to declare [the establishment of the Palestinian] state [in May 1999], and the Israelis already agreed to it, how can you come on April 24 or 26... Who incited [the Palestinian] children to blow up [an Israeli] school bus? This simple explosion caused [Israeli] airplanes to strike all the Palestinian areas... At the end, there was no Palestinian state or any other kind of state for them. This is not a rumor, this is the truth. Today, in 2020, there are regional challenges and we have our [Vision 2030] development plan... I believe that charity begins at home. We are the ones who decide how to spend our money. We will do this as we see fit."