page_title: Turki bin Faisal Al Saud
section_title: Israel and Palestine
hierarchical_section_title: Turki bin Faisal Al Saud / Views and opinions / Israel and Palestine
caption_attribution_description: English: HRH Prince Turki ibn Faisal Al Saud with Thomas Limberger- Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) 2014
context_page_description: Turki bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, known also as Turki al-Faisal, is a Saudi politician and diplomat. A member of the House of Saud, he currently serves as the chairman of King Faisal Foundation's Center for Research and Islamic Studies.
  From 1979 to 2001, Prince Turki was the director general of Al Mukhabarat Al 'Ammah, Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency, resigning the position on 1 September 2001, some ten days before the September 11 attacks in which 14 Saudi nationals hijacked commercial American airliners. Prince Turki subsequently served as ambassador to the Court of St. James's and the United States.
context_section_description: Prince Turki was the Kingdom's leading critic of American foreign policy. Prince Turki criticized Israel for not accepting the Arab Peace Initiative, which proposed normalizing relations in exchange for Israel's withdrawal to 1967 borders. He accused the Bush administration for undermining a Saudi-brokered power-sharing agreement between Fatah and Hamas and the Obama administration of pro-Israel bias and protecting Israel's nuclear program from international scrutiny. He called on U.S. President Barack Obama to support the two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis.
  In a Financial Times editorial in January 2009, he was critical of American foreign policy toward Palestinians and accused the U.S. of complicity in the deaths of Gazans. He opined that "neocon advisers, American conservatives and Zionist extremists promoted policies that harmed the peace process," describing both Democrats and Republicans as strong supporters of Israel.
  At the Munich Security Conference in February 2010, he initially refused to sit next to Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon because of Ayalon's "boorish" behavior toward the Turkish ambassador on Israeli television. In response to Ayalon's comment that Saudi Arabia had not "given a penny" to the Palestinian Authority, Prince Turki claimed that it had given more than $500 million over the past five years. Ayalon apologized and shook hands with Prince Turki as a reconciliation measure. The crowd applauded. Turki clarified that this gesture did not signal any change in official policy towards Israel.
  In the World Economic Forum at Davos in January 2011, he called for a Middle East without WMDs and stated "the elephant in the room is Israel. Israel with a nuclear weapon is dangerous."
  After attending the Munich Security Conference in January 2014, Faisal praised Israel's justice minister, Tzipi Livni and said he understood why she was chosen as Israel's negotiator.
caption: Prince Turki and Thomas Limberger at the Clinton Global Initiative, 2014
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot G16", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2014:09:22 12:10:48", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "264", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "5114", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "6132", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7546", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "250", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity and Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:09:22 12:10:48", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:09:22 12:10:48", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "189/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "27/16", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "27/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "61/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4000", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3000", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "5036", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4000000/291", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1000000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": ""}