Facebook Feed

3 weeks ago

Yoram Ettinger
Purim Guide for the Perplexed 2023: bit.ly/3ZdlxHY ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

3 weeks ago

Yoram Ettinger
אתגר מרכזי לביטחון לאומי: bit.ly/3xkSwh1 ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

3 weeks ago

Yoram Ettinger
US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement - acumen: bit.ly/3lVqpCM ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

Israel-Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian issue

Saudi order of priorities

*The State Department and the Western foreign policy establishment have contended that the Palestinian issue features prominently on the Saudi order of national priorities. Therefore, they have maintained that a substantial enhancement of Israel-Saudi cooperation – and certainly, the attainment of an Israel-Saudi Arabia peace treaty – would be preconditioned upon substantial Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, including the establishment of a Palestinian state.

*However, contrary to the State Department’s worldview, Saudi Arabia’s strong man, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), does not consider the Palestinian issue a top priority.

*Moreover, conversely to State Department assessments, MBS is aware that the Palestinian issue is not the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, neither a crown-jewel of Arab policy-making, nor a core cause of regional turbulence.

*Furthermore, unlike the State Department, MBS accords critical weight to the Palestinian intra-Arab track record, which is low on moderation but, top heavy on subversion, terrorism, treachery and ingratitude (especially the Palestinian collaboration with Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait); as well as, the deeply-rooted Palestinian collaboration with international terror organizations, Muslim Brotherhood terrorists and Iran’s Ayatollahs’ regime (which constitute lethal threats to the House of Saud), North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

*Simultaneously, MBS is absorbed with the strategic goal of evolving Saudi Arabia into a modern regional/global superpower, by reinforcing regional stability, minimizing the threat of existing rogue entities (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs and Muslim Brotherhood terrorists), preventing the rise of additional rogue entities (e.g., the domestic Shiite subversion in the oil region in eastern Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s Houthis, the proposed Palestinian state and Hezbollah), and bolstering investment, infrastructure development and economic diversification (e.g., hightech).

*Irrespective of MBS’ deep Islamic beliefs, and notwithstanding the 280-year-old alliance between the House of Saud and the fundamentalist Wahhabi establishment in central and southwestern Saudi Arabia, MBS has recognized the value of Israel’s military, technological capabilities, and Israel’s special standing among most US voters and Capitol Hill legislators, as well as Israel’s reliability and effectiveness in the pursuit of MBS’ game-changing strategic goal.

*In fact, under the leadership of MBS, Saudi Arabia has forged unprecedented defense and commercial cooperation with Israel, and has served as the most critical engine behind Israel’s peace treaties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and the Sudan, independent of the Palestinian issue and in the service of their own order of national priorities.

*Contrary to the State Department’s position, these countries – just like Egypt and Jordan before them – do not sacrifice Middle East reality and their national security interests on the altar of wishful-thinking, oversimplification and the Palestinian issue.

Israel-Saudi Arabia peace treaty?

*An effective Israel-Saudi Arabia peace treaty must be a derivative of the national security interests of both countries.

*The Saudi interest in expanding its defense, counter-terrorism and commercial cooperation with Israel – and possibly concluding a peace treaty – has not been a byproduct of the Saudi appreciation of Israel’s peaceful intention and concessions to the Palestinians.  It has been a byproduct of the high regard for Israel’s posture of deterrence and muscle-flexing in the face of Iran’s Ayatollahs, Israel’s determined war on Palestinian and Islamic terrorism, and its defiance of US pressure and US policy on Iran.

*On a rainy day, MBS would prefer a deterring and defiant Israel on his side.

*A deterring-Israel is a cardinal national security asset for Saudi Arabia. A retreating Israel would be irrelevant to Saudi Arabia’s national security.

*An Israel-Saudi Arabia peace treaty would be rendered impractical if it required Jerusalem to give up the most critical historic, geographic and topographic high grounds of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), facilitating the establishment of a Palestinian state. It would transform Israel from a terror and war-deterring force multiplier for the US and Saudi Arabia to a terror and war-inducing burden.

*Israeli retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria to the pre-1967 8 to 15-mile-wide sliver along the Mediterranean would emit short-term congrats from Foggy Bottom. But, it would devastate Israel’s long-term posture of deterrence, eliminate Israel’s value for Saudi Arabia, reduce Israel’s economic and defense boon for the US, and doom Israel to extinction.

*Contrary to the State Department’s view of Israel-Arab peace treaties as pillars of national security, the unpredictably-violent Middle East features a 1,400-year-old reality of transient (non-democratic, one-bullet, not one-ballot) Arab regimes, policies and accords. Thus, Middle East reality stipulates that as desirable as Israel-Arab peace treaties are, they must not be preconditioned upon a sacrifice of Israel’s most critical national security feature: the permanent topography of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which dominate 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructure.

*In June and December of 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor and applied its law to the Golan Heights, in defiance of the State Department warning that such actions would force Egypt to abandon its peace treaty with Israel. However, Egypt adhered to its national security requirements, sustaining the peace treaty. Routinely, the State Department warned that construction in Jerusalem (beyond the “Green Line”) and in Judea and Samaria would trigger a terroristic volcano and push Egypt away from the peace treaty.

*None of the warnings materialized, since Arabs act in accordance with their own interests; not in accordance with the rogue Palestinian agenda.

*Notwithstanding the State Department’s worldview, and independent of the pro-Palestinian Arab talk, Arabs have demonstrated an indifferent-to-negative walk toward the Palestinians. They have never flexed military (and barely financial and diplomatic) muscles on behalf of the Palestinians. They have acted in accordance with their own – not Palestinian – interests, and certainly not in accordance with the State Department misperceptions of the Middle East.

*Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will conclude a peace treaty with Israel when he deems it beneficial to his game-changing, grand vision of Saudi Arabia, and when it’s possible to overcome domestic Wahhabi opposition, regardless of the Palestinian issue.

                                                                           Support Appreciated  

 




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb

US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

Support Appreciated

 




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb