It's MBS's World...

The Saudi Crown Prince's rise is aligned with Trump's

Arab leaders gathered for a summit in Riyadh

They say a picture can be worth a 1000 words, and so today I bring you two, which, together show the diametrically opposed world view which Donald Trump is going to have to adjudicate.

I am told by multiple well-placed sources, Trump already has “people” on the ground in the Middle East - never mind that’s not supposed to happen before he’s president. This isn’t that sort of government. Trump wants peace and he wants it sorted asap.

Above is the official AP photograph from today’s Arab summit in Riyadh, convened by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) to discuss Israel’s “continued aggression” towards the Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon. (The prince amped up his position, called on Israel to respect Iran’s sovereignty and accused Jerusalem of genocide.)

So, you want to look carefully at everyone’s positions to ascertain the new hierarchy in the region. It’s doubtful that MBS said to his guests, “Just find a mark and stand there…”

What jumps out is that MBS is standing between King Abdullah of Jordan and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.

But the UAE president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, MBS’s former mentor, is not present. (The UAE joined Israel in signing the Abraham accords.) Next to the Emir is the Turkish president Erdoğan and behind him, head down and white haired is the Iranian vice president Mohammad Reza Aref. To King Abdullah’s right is the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and to his right, the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

It’s a photograph that reflects how dramatically relationships have shifted in the Gulf. This photograph simply could not have existed just a few years back. When the Saudis held a major summit on cooperation in the region in 2017, Iran was most definitely not invited (and neither was Syria’s Assad, aligned with Iran).

In fact, back then, fear of Iran’s nuclear capability united the gulf states and Israel. Iran’s neighbors, the Qataris, were mistrusted. Only weeks later the Saudis and Emiratis led a blockade of Qatar.

MBS was a very new crown prince and looked to the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed, for guidance. And, months later in 2018 MBS would turn into a global pariah because he sanctioned the murder of the Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

That was then.

Now, Qatar and Saudi are friends. Iran is at the table. So, too is Syria. Israel is the perceived aggressor in the region. The relationship between MBS and MBZ has cooled and turned into a rivalry.

And when it comes to massaging global PR, of the two leaders, MBS is unquestionably the winner, having turned his post Khashoggi “narrative” around with dramatic speed. (He’s been so successful, that the wags in Palm Beach, are speculating that the UAE’s gregarious and charming ambassador to the US, Yousef Al Otaiba, who is known for hosting lavish parties, may have made a mistake spending tens of millions of dollars on a home close to Mar-a-Lago.)

The photograph is also a reminder that we may be re-entering Donald Trump’s America, but we are simultaneously entering the era of MBS, who, arguably has more leverage over Trump than any other foreign leader for reasons I have laboriously pointed out here.

Following up on my reporting Friday about MBS’s impending visit to the US, I am told that the Crown Prince has made plans so far to visit DC, New York, and Miami….the home of Jared Kushner…

And speaking of Kushner, I am wondering about his divided loyalties, given his long-time friendship with Israeli prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu.

Saturday evening, I attended a fascinating conversation in New York at the 92nd street Y between an old friend I hadn’t seen for a decade, the French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy, known as BHL, and an intense New York billionaire activist, philanthropist and polyglot I had not met before: Thomas Kaplan.

The two were discussing BHL’s new book Israel Alone - which is about exactly what it sounds like. BHL rushed to Israel on October 8th last year. Among the horrors that he saw were anonymous body parts piled up in a warehouse, just waiting for someone to give them a decent human burial. He is in the middle of a brave one-man tour of US college campuses trying to relate what he saw and stem the tide of antisemitism.

I was lucky enough to be invited backstage ahead of the talk. Kaplan was wearing a pin in his lapel and he explained that it wasn’t the French Legion d’honeur (which he has) but the Dutch legion of honor. (He’s the world’s largest collector of the Dutch painter, Rembrandt, which means he’s a rather important ambassador of Dutch culture.)

Knowing that the event was being recorded, Kaplan was mulling whether to bring up the recent atrocities in the streets of Amsterdam, which, for my money, has been underreported, at least in the US.

Ultimately, he did, citing the Dutch King Willem-Alexander, who stated last Friday: “We failed the Jewish community in World War II and we failed them again last night.”

Kaplan said

Next spring, my family slated to hold an exhibition in Amsterdam, one of the largest art exhibitions that will take place in this very important year, the 750th anniversary of Amsterdam. The reason why I'm wearing this is to send two messages. Number one, I do have a huge appreciation for the Dutch culture and I do believe that events in the Netherlands will probably do a lot to focus their minds on whether or not that culture… is worth preserving, but I for one will be watching very, very intently to see that the words which have been incredibly strong and supportive of the Jewish community will be matched by deeds and I am heartened by the fact that the king himself didn't make a mealy mouthed assertion calling for peace and tranquility and deescalation and he said very simply, we failed the Jewish community in World War II and we failed them again this week.

Those are strong words and I believe that the Dutch will follow that with action. I can certainly say if they don't then I'm sure a lot of people to whom they owe a lot of gratitude will express their displeasure. I'm not saying that as a threat because I really do have confidence that the Dutch will do the right thing….

It was a stark reminder of how high passions are running not just in the Middle East but around the world - and it was spoken on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

One of my sources in the Middle East talked to me on the phone today about the wheeling and dealing already going on, on Trump’s behalf: “Trump doesn’t give a shit about rules saying you can’t start negotiations ahead of your term…he’s transactional…but in this instance… if he pulls this off, do we care how he got there?”

It’s certainly something to chew on.