Islamist media is reporting on a French newspaper article said to report that Saudi Arabia is trying to ‘normalise’ its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Middle East Online report:
August 28, 2015 French newspaper Le Monde has reported that Saudi Arabia is trying to ‘normalise’ its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in order to benefit from their sovereignty in Yemen, Syria and Palestine.
According to a report published yesterday by Almesryoon.com, Le Monde said that 72 hours after the announcement of the Iranian nuclear deal, Saudi King Salman received Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. It is a step that had suggested many things, it said.
The French newspaper described Meshaal’s visit to Saudi as a ‘seed of a large diplomatic change’ in the kingdom’s policy after the new king took power in January.
‘The Saudi policy is set based on two goals: achieving stability in the Middle East and curbing Iranian expansion in the region,’ Editor-in-Chief of Saudi’s Al-Watan newspaper Jamal Khashoggi told Le Monde.
‘Normalisation with the Muslim Brotherhood contributes to this strategy as the group has sovereignty in Syria, Yemen and Palestine,’ Khashoggi explained. ‘If we want to play an effective role in the region, we cannot ignore them. We have to be realists.’
‘Compared to his predecessor, the late King Abdullah, King Salman is not sensitive towards the moderate Islamic groups.’”
The GMBDW reported in July that a high-level Hamas delegation, including the group’s political leader, had visited Saudi Arabia where they met with the new Saudi King as well as other officials.
The GMBDW has been warning since March 2014 that the Saudi Arabia’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization was likely not what it seemed at first and that the Kingdom has been continuing its outreach and support of the Global Muslim Brotherhood. This seeming reconciliation between Hamas and The Kingdom only confirms the validity of those warnings since it is no secret that Hamas is essentially the Palestinian branch of the Global Muslim Brotherhood. (We believe that the GMBDW is able to more accurately analyze such developments since unlike most academics, and almost all political scientists, we follow what the Brotherhood networks are actually doing as opposed to constructing fanciful theories about what they are doing.).