According to The Atlantic, Blinken enquired whether the Saudis could tolerate Israel periodically re-entering the territory to strike the besieged Gaza Strip.
“They can come back in six months, a year, but not on the back end of my signing something like this,” Mohammed bin Salman responded.
“Seventy percent of my population is younger than me,” the crown prince explained to Blinken.
“For most of them, they never really knew much about the Palestinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.”
Uh…no? He only stopped armed resistance when negotiations finally bore fruit and not a minute before that. This is exactly what Palestinians are doing, only Israel is more stubborn and better supported by the international community so they can last a lot longer than South Africa.