Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has announced a new investment deal with Goldman Sachs Asset Management—a company that has been directly linked to funding Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza and its brutal campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people.
The deal was revealed as a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the PIF and Goldman Sachs, establishing the Saudi sovereign wealth fund as a strategic investor in newly launched investment strategies. These will focus on private credit and public equity opportunities across the Kingdom and the GCC region.
The agreement is still subject to several conditions and performance benchmarks before final implementation. Goldman Sachs, which has been steadily expanding its operations in Saudi Arabia, recently inaugurated a new office in Riyadh—part of its growing footprint in the Kingdom.
However, Goldman Sachs is one of the firms that has financially backed the Israeli military, contributing capital flows that directly sustain the bombing campaigns and military occupation targeting Gaza.
Investing While Gaza Burns
According to the agreement, the partnership aims to attract global capital through Goldman Sachs, with a significant portion earmarked for investments inside Saudi Arabia.
Yet, the timing and nature of this investment raise serious moral and political questions.
Since the onset of the Israeli assault on Gaza, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has been notably absent from efforts to support Palestine. Instead of pressuring global actors or leveraging his kingdom’s influence to push for aid access or ceasefire negotiations, MBS’s silence has echoed complicity.
Reports and leaks have suggested that Saudi leadership has tacitly endorsed efforts to dismantle the Palestinian resistance, including private encouragement to eliminate Hamas.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia was also implicated in facilitating what many now call the “Shameful Land Bridge”—a logistical workaround used to bypass the naval blockade on Israel imposed by Yemen’s Ansar Allah (the Houthis), thereby restoring Israeli supply lines.
From Oil as Leverage to Oil as a Weapon Against Gaza
In past decades, particularly during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Saudi Arabia famously used oil as a weapon, leading a historic embargo that reshaped global geopolitics and pressured Israel’s allies. Today, under Mohammed bin Salman, that powerful legacy has been inverted.
Rather than defending Palestine or leveraging oil for justice, Saudi oil is now being used to fuel Israeli war machines.
International outlets, including The Guardian and Oil Change International, have reported that Saudi oil is being quietly delivered to Israel through the SUMED pipeline, which transits through Egypt. Since October 7, over 151 shipments have reportedly made their way to Israel.
Oil Change International further confirmed that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt are the only Arab countries supplying fuel to Israel, even as the Israeli military relentlessly bombs Gaza. This oil powers jets, tanks, and armoured vehicles—the very machines executing massacres of civilians across the besieged Strip.
Moral and Legal Complicity in War Crimes
Observers and legal analysts argue that this makes the governments of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt active participants in Israeli war crimes. By funding and fuelling the occupation, these regimes are not mere bystanders—they are stakeholders in the suffering of Gaza.
While the Palestinian people endure one of the most catastrophic humanitarian crises in modern history, and while the Muslim world mourns the dead and demands justice, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is expanding deals with companies linked to genocide financing.
The question facing the region now is not whether Gulf regimes are neutral—but how deeply they are entrenched in a betrayal of Palestine, and whether their silence and transactions will be remembered as complicity in the occupation’s bloodshed.
