Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has urged Israelis to reject Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies, likening him to Nero, the Roman emperor accused of fiddling while ancient Rome burned.
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"The question that persists in this issue that is preoccupying the world today is: did today's Nero...read the history of his nation and the lessons it tells?" the official Saudi media quoted Prince Abdullah as saying in a speech delivered by his son Prince Met'eb at a seminar on Islam and cultural debate in Riyadh.
"What he is doing in Palestine is the (product) of dream-like thinking that will not achieve security for his people...it is a type of thinking that requires his people to ask themselves 'where is our prime minister leading us to?'"
Prince Abdullah expressed hope that the Middle East peace plan he floated recently will not stumble amid the battles of blood and destruction, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
"This (violence) is a thorny way. It will not give his people security. It plants hatred and shatters security," the prince said.
Prince Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler since his brother King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, has launched a peace plan that offers to normalise Arab ties with Israel in return for withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war.