Our doors and hearts are open to you, Mr. President
https://arab.news/gmxnp
Dear President Trump,
You have come among kin and may you tread an easy path. That is the traditional Arab greeting for visitors summarized by two words in Arabic: Ahlan Wa Sahlan.
You arrive at what has become a hackneyed adjective: a 'crucial' time. So many crucial times have come and gone without any finality for an egregious denial of the basic rights of the Palestinian people. Rectifying that situation would be a crowning achievement not only for you, Mr. President, as the man who would have brought peace to the holy land, but also for all the values that your country has promoted throughout its history. It would also stop the endemic killing of innocent people on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The killing of one innocent human being is like killing all of humankind. This is part of a Qur'anic verse.
Mr. President, the leadership and people of our country are committed to strong and strategic partnerships with you and the American people. This commitment is historic, as witnessed by the accord reached by King Abdulaziz and President Franklin Roosevelt 80 years ago. It has been reaffirmed by the mutual benefits of our economic and military cooperation. It is confirmed by the number of our students who have studied and continue to study in your universities. More than a million of them have done so over that time. It is clear from the permanent presence of an American community living and working in the Kingdom. Thousands have done that. Most importantly, that commitment has survived and thrived through the differences that we have had over the past eight decades. That is a measure of the strength of the relationship.
Your friend is he who tells you the truth, not he who tells you what you want to hear. These are words that you already heard from King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in your first term.
So, welcome, Mr. President. Our doors and hearts are open to you.
• Prince Turki Al-Faisal served as the chief of the General Intelligence Directorate — Saudi Arabia's main foreign intelligence service — from 1977 to 2001. He was appointed Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UK in October 2002. He served in that position until July 2005, when he was appointed Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US. He retired in February 2007. He is the founder and trustee of the King Faisal Foundation and chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.
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