Drawing on the Jewish musical traditions of the Mediterranean and Middle East, Israel’s Yamma Ensemble scored its runaway hit with a performance of Psalm 104 that has garnered some 5.8 million views on YouTube, bringing in listeners from around the world. Talya Solan, the band’s lead singer, and Yonnie Dror, who plays various traditional and Western wind instruments, discuss their music in an interview by Amanda Borschel-Dan. (Audio, 25 minutes.)

In an extended television interview with an Arab broadcaster, Prince Bandar bin Sultan—who served for twenty years as the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., for a decade as head of the Saudi National Security Council, and two years as intelligence chief—responded forcefully to the Palestinian claim that the Gulf states have, by normalizing relations with Israel, “stabbed the Palestinians in the back.” Defending Saudi devotion to the Palestinian cause, Prince Bandar delivered a lengthy history of his country’s role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which he bluntly upbraided Palestinian leaders, and Yasir Arafat above all, for squandering chances at statehood and for their lack of “ethics.” While Bandar’s sentiments can hardly be described as pro-Israel, he asserted that the Palestinian leaders are every bit as responsible as the Jewish state for the plight of their people: