A Saudi prince has condemned the United States for not fulfilling its commitments in direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and for its unconditional support for Israel, Press TV reported.
Washington "has failed to curb the brutal Israeli policy of collective punishment, arbitrary arrests and killings," the Jerusalem Post quoted Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud as telling the National Council on US-Arab Relations on Saturday.
The former Saudi ambassador to the US, who was also once the director of Saudi intelligence, also criticized US officials "who rationalize, excuse, and condone Israeli intransigence while seeking to put more pressure on the Palestinians to concede even more."
"It is these officials who propose that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's government should be rewarded, rather than sanctioned, for its intransigence."
The leading figure in the Saudi royal family also recalled how Washington had given assurances ahead of the negotiations that it would press Israel to halt its West Bank settlement construction, but failed to get Tel Aviv to renew its partial, temporary moratorium after it expired on September 26.
"The United States failed to stick to its assurances, and to add insult to injury, offered the Netanyahu government more money, arms, protection from UN sanctions and, shamefully, the stationing of Israeli troops on Palestinian territory as if the territory were part of American sovereign lands," Turki said.
In his speech to the National Council on US-Arab Relations, the prince also accused some US journalists of manipulating media reports and distorting them on behalf of Israel.
"There are journalists whose view is so distorted by the neoconservative mantle... To these media pundits who want Saudi Arabia to do more, I say we have done more to further the cause of peace than any other country."
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