11 July 2025
In the following article, reprinted from Arab Digest, and written by an unnamed author, it is argued that Ibn Saud, the founder and first King of Saudi Arabia (1932-1953) consistently prioritised relations with Britain and the United States of America over the Palestinian cause, influencing the end of the Great Arab Revolt and limiting Saudi military action in 1948 in exchange for financial aid. This long-standing betrayal of the Palestinian cause, the author writes, continued through subsequent reigns, marked by secret contacts, support for peace processes, and a shift away from using oil as a weapon, culminating in recent overt cooperation against shared regional threats like Iran.
In his memoirs, King Abdulaziz’s (Ibn Saud’s) close adviser, Harold St John Philby, a key intermediary in Saudi-British relations after the First-World War, relates how for decades Ibn Saud prioritised his close ties with Britain and America over the Palestinian cause.
In 1919, after Faisal bin Abdulaziz led a delegation to Britain to congratulate King George V on Britain’s victory in World War I and its colonial endeavours in Arab countries, Phiby wrote how Britain very nearly secured Arab connivance in its Palestine policy. The only problem was that Faisal wanted to be the sole beneficiary of the plan, which his father would not accept.
In 1936, when Palestine was under British mandate, the Palestinians engaged in a widespread 183-day general strike and revolt, commonly known as the Great Arab Revolt. Despite a massive military deployment and the use of brutal tactics, including torture and the use of Palestinians as human shields, the British colonial authorities failed to quell the uprising.
Britain turned to Arab rulers for assistance and, in October 1936, Ibn Saud, King Ghazi of Iraq, King Abdullah I of Transjordan and Imam Yahya of Yemen issued a joint appeal to the Palestinian leader urging them to end the revolt, writing in Palestinian newspapers: “We rely on the good intentions of our friend Great Britain, who has declared that she will do justice.” The move caused deep internal divisions among the Palestinians and ended the first phase of the Revolt. Many Palestinian leaders were subsequently exiled, imprisoned or killed by the British.
To end the Revolt completely, Ibn Saud then sent his sons Saud and Faisal to meet with Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem to encourage them to trust in British intentions to address Palestinian grievances, particularly through the Peel Commission. Their assurances initiated a series of concessions which significantly demoralised the Palestinian struggle, paving the way for the formation of Israel.
American money for Saudia in exchange for staying out of wars against Israel
In 1939, Faisal and Khalid (both later kings of Saudi Arabia) participated in the St. James’s Palace Conference in London as representatives of the House of Saud to discuss the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. The subsequent White Paper failed to end Jewish immigration and from the ashes of usurped Arab rights the outlines of the Zionist state began to emerge.
In 1947, Ibn Saud was facing a severe financial crisis due to declining Hajj revenues, his lavish spending and chaotic rule. President Truman secretly agreed to bail him out in exchange for Ibn Saud’s pledge that Saudi Arabia would never participate in any wars waged by Arabs against Israel to reclaim Palestine. As a result in 1948, in the face of the Nakba, Saudi Arabia sent only a symbolic military force of around 1000 troops, indirectly serving the interests of the emerging Israeli state.
After the Nakba, Saudi Arabia established a secret relationship with Israel. Researcher Alexander Bligh from the Truman Institute interviewed former Israeli Ambassador to London Aharon Remez (1965-1970), who said that “King Saud and King Faisal had a close relationship with Israel and were in close contact with it.”
In December 1966 King Faisal sent a secret letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson which identified Egypt as the primary adversary to both Saudi Arabia and the United States and urged the US to support Israel in a “swift surprise attack” to seize the Sinai Peninsula. The letter recommended the immediate seizure of the Gaza Strip (then under Egyptian control) and emphasised Jordanian control of the West Bank to “diminish any Palestinian aspirations in moving towards the liberation of Palestine” and “kill any hopes of a return for the Palestinians abroad.”
“The greatest treachery is that of the ruler, since he is responsible for managing the affairs of the people justly, so any betrayal is a betrayal of the whole people” [Hadith commentary, Muslim/Bukhari]
In May 1967, just days before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, King Faisal travelled to London on a state visit to discuss the situation in the Middle East. A few days later, when Israel seized the West Bank, Sinai and the Golan, Saudi Arabia again failed to provide the military support Arabs desperately needed. In his book My War With Israel (1969) King Hussein of Jordan wrote that Saudi military and financial aid to Jordan during the war was either insufficient, arrived too late or was not effectively deployed to make a difference in the conflict.
Clandestine contacts between the Saudis and Israel throughout the 70s and 80s
In 1973 Saudi Arabia used the “oil weapon”, imposing an embargo on the US and other countries for their support of Israel. However, this was a much more limited action than often portrayed. Saudi oil was not completely cut off. Rather, supplies to the Americans were only reduced by 25 per cent and the reduction was only on oil going directly to the United States, not Saudi oil coming through third countries. The Kingdom only took this step reluctantly after several other Arab countries had already completely cut off all oil to America. The Kingdom also ensured that US fleets, which relied on Saudi oil, would not be affected.
In the 1970s and 80s clandestine contact between the Saudis and Israel continued through intermediaries. King Fahd used arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, King Abdullah used diplomat Adel Al-Jubeir and King Salman used leading Saudi Zionists Othman Al-Omeir and Abdulrahman Al-Rashed.
After the first Gulf War in 1990, the Saudi regime became emboldened in its rhetoric on the Palestinian issue, preparing the ground for Mohammed bin Salman to openly declare his pro-Zionist leanings. The Kingdom prohibited any statements, fatwas or private donations to Palestine and suppressed all pro-Palestinian public displays of support, including among Muslim pilgrims on Hajj and Umrah.
Saudi Arabia made a categorical commitment not to employ the “oil weapon” or financial resources in any confrontation between Arabs or Palestinians and Israel. It leveraged its media and intelligence services to promote normalisation and instrumentalised its religious institutions for the same purpose, even extracting a fatwa from the late Sheikh Ibn Baz endorsing the Oslo Accords by likening them to the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the peace agreement signed in the year 628 CE between the Prophet in Mecca and the Quraysh tribe in Medina. After the siege of Gaza began in 2007 the Saudis consistently issued condemnations of the Palestinian resistance and placed their financial capabilities at the disposal of the Palestinian Authority, which they view as their client.
Saudi betrayal of Palestine and defence of Israel continues to the present day. A recent New York Times report revealed new details of a major new US military base in Saudi Arabia aimed at protecting Israel from Iran. The New York Times also revealed that despite public condemnations of Israeli strikes on Iran, leaders of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE expressed to visiting US House members their covert support for the elimination of Iran’s nuclear programme and openness to co-operation with Israel on the matter.
When Iran launched UAVs at Israel during the recent war, Saudi Arabia allowed the Israeli Air Force to intercept them over Saudi territory, according to Israel’s Channel 12. “Unofficially, Saudi Arabia is participating in the action against Iran,” confirmed Stefan Lukas, founder of the Germany-based consultancy, Middle East Minds. “Saudi Arabia provides radar data and tolerates [airspace] access by Israeli aircraft, especially in the northern part of the country where Iranian missiles primarily fly through. We’ve seen that Saudi Arabia is actually very accommodating to Israel.”
On Wednesday, Saudi journalist Abdulaziz Al-Khamis, who is close to the Royal Court, appeared in the Israeli Knesset where he called for normalisation and a demilitarised Palestinian state.
This is article has been reprinted from Arab Digest on 11 July 2025.