Day 809 - Saudi prince tells ToI Israel needs to start being 'normal'
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
US bureau chief Jacob Magid joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.
Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, spoke with Magid on Sunday and said that Riyadh is currently not even entertaining the idea of normalizing relations with Israel and will only do so if Jerusalem begins acting like a “normal country.” We hear how Israel could behave more "normally" and what else the royal family member said.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held a rare meeting with Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh in Ramallah last Wednesday to discuss ongoing tensions in the West Bank. We speak about the fraught US-PA ties and how this meeting comes on the heels of increased cooperation surrounding ceasefire efforts in the Gaza Strip.
And finally, US Vice President JD Vance claimed in an interview on Sunday that almost no Americans are antisemitic and that concerns about antisemitic voices are raised as a way to avoid discussing “a real backlash to a consensus view in American foreign policy” on Israel. Magid delves into this thorny issue, even as attacks against Jews in the US continue to be at a high since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.
For further reading:
Ex-Saudi intel chief to ToI: Riyadh will consider normalization when Israel acts normally
Huckabee holds rare meeting with PA official to discuss West Bank tensions — officials
Huckabee: Iran ‘didn’t get the full message’ when US bombed its nuclear sites
Vance: Almost no Americans are antisemitic, real issue is ‘backlash’ to US policy on Israel
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IMAGE: Illustrative: Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal talks to the Associated Press in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, November 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing. |
| 0:06.7 | Today is Tuesday, December 23rd. |
| 0:09.4 | I'm Amanda Borchelle Dan here with our U.S. Bureau Chief Jacob Magid. |
| 0:13.9 | Jacob, thank you so much for joining me today. |
| 0:16.3 | Hi, Amanda. Always good to be with you. |
| 0:18.1 | Such a pleasure. |
| 0:19.1 | And yesterday, you published a really interesting interview, very rare interview, I should add, |
| 0:26.8 | with Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief, Prince Turkey Al-Fasil. |
| 0:33.3 | So we're going to hear all about that. |
| 0:35.4 | And we're also going to speak about an almost maybe equally rare meetup between U.S. ambassador Mike Huckabee and some Palestinian Authority officials. |
| 0:46.3 | To end off with, we'll discuss again a little bit about U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance's comments on anti-Semitism, but some fresh ones this time. |
| 0:56.6 | So all of this and more when we're back. |
| 1:06.9 | This episode is brought to you by the Jewish Communal Fund, the largest and most active Jewish donor-advised fund in the country. |
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