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In Israel, which had regarded Faisal as an anti-Jewish zealot who financed Arab wars and terrorism, there was neither joy nor mourning but a noticeable sense of relief at the unexpected death of a powerful enemy. "A Jew-hating Arab king," declared the Tel Aviv religious daily Hatzofeh, "has been removed from the stage." Most Israelis obviously hoped that the change in Saudi leadership would create a period of instability for the Arab states, thereby causing them to become more preoccupied with their own problems and less concerned with Israel for a while.
After a remarkable reign, Faisal died at a time when his prestige throughout the Arab world was at a peak. In the past, many Arab radicals had savagely attacked him as a reactionary, tyrannical ruler of a feudal desert kingdom. But all that changed after Faisal dramatically imposed the oil embargo in October 1973. The Cairo daily al Gumhouriya, once a vehicle for anti-Faisal propaganda campaigns, observed last week: "The Arab nation can never forget his heroic stand during the October war, or that he launched the oil battle in support of the fighters in Sinai and the Golan, or the moral and material aid that he gave without limit to the front-line states." Recalling that Faisal's most abiding wish—to pray at the Dome of the Rock in an East Jerusalem under Arab jurisdiction—had not been fulfilled, the newspaper added: "He gave much toward achieving [the dream] that all Moslems can pray in Jerusalem when peace returns."
In the first hours after Faisal's assassination, there was confusion and uncertainty as to precisely what had happened in Riyadh. The official Saudi announcement had described the assassin, Prince Faisal ibn Musaed, as "mentally deranged." Inevitably there were rumors at the outset that the murder might have been part of a conspiracy to overthrow the House of Saud and with it one of the world's last remaining absolute monarchies. Only six years ago, Faisal had uncovered a plot by a number of his own air force officers; the conspiracy was apparently so widespread that some 60 officers were arrested, and the entire Saudi air force was grounded for a time. But last week's apprehension quickly waned after the announcement of the succession.
On the available evidence, the assassination seemed almost certainly to have been the act of one man. At week's end Prince Faisal was being held in a Riyadh prison; if he is judged mentally competent, he will probably be executed by decapitation, according to Saudi tradition. Reports from California and Colorado, where the prince had been a university student, described him as a quiet, likable, notably unstudious young man who had once been arrested in Boulder for selling LSD and hashish. To his blonde former girl friend, sometime Movie Actress (Bite of the Co bra) Christine Surma, 26, an ambitious young woman who also bills herself "the country's only female auctioneer," the prince was a "perfect gentleman" who was proud of his family and his country. "If he's crazy," she declared, "he's become so since he left the U.S."