Surprise! Europe Picks the Wrong Side. Again. - by Melanie Phillips

...The Europeans support the Palestinians and do not see the Iranian regime as their enemy – even though it has been in a state of self-declared war against the west since it came to power in 1979 and is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Instead they are turning the Arab leader who is fighting their common enemy, and who may be prepared to make a historic peace with their ostensible ally, into a foe. Go figure.

Melanie Phillips..
melaniephillips.com..
05 December '17..

For years Israel has been blamed for standing in the way of peace with its Arab neighbours. When it rejected a “peace plan” by the the Saudi regime which would have brought about Israel’s destruction, it was excoriated for turning down a chance to end the Middle East conflict.

Now the new Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has proposed another peace plan. Unlike its predecessor, according to the New York Times, this one would enable the Palestinians and the Arab world to live in peace and harmony alongside the State of Israel. The century-old Arab war of extermination against Israel would end.

Prince Mohammed has told the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to accept this plan or he’s finished. The Palestinians have been screaming betrayal ever since to anyone who will listen.

Lo and behold, Europeans have a new bogeyman.

(Continue to Full Post)

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Israel’s peace fantasists in action by Caroline Glick

...The Iranian threat does share two features with the delegitimization campaign. Both threaten Israel’s existence, albeit in different ways. And both require strategic operations that contradict the central guidepost of Israeli strategic thinking for the past 20 years. We don’t need open relations with the Arabs. We get more behind the scenes that we will ever receive in front of them. And the Palestinians aren’t the key to good relations with the West. They are the justification for anti-Semitism. We have the means to handle both threats. But doing so requires that we first put our long-held delusions behind us.

Caroline Glick..
CarolineGlick.com..
15 May '15..

The Saudis are in play, casting about for partners.

In a clear vote of no-confidence in US President Barack Obama’s leadership, Saudi King Salman led several Arab leaders in blowing off Obama’s Camp David summit this week. The summit was meant to compensate the Sunni Arabs for Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Salman’s decision is further proof that US-Saudi relations have jumped the tracks. For 70 years the Saudis subcontracted their national security to the US military. Deals were closed with a wink and a nod. That’s all over now.

Obama has destroyed Washington’s credibility. Salman views its gentleman’s agreements as worthless. All he wants now is military hardware. And for that, he can send a stand-in.

The Saudis never put all their eggs in America’s basket. For 70 years the Saudis played a double game, maintaining strategic alliances both with the liberal West and the most reactionary forces in the Islamic world. The Saudis pocketed petrodollars from America and Europe and transferred them to terrorists and jihadist preachers in mosques in the US, Europe and worldwide.

Iran isn’t the Saudis’ only concern. Although for outsiders the worldview of the theocracy governing Saudi Arabia seems all but identical to the worldview of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Saudis consider the Brotherhood a mortal foe. The Saudis claim that their tribal, top-down regime is the genuine expression of Islam. The Brotherhood’s populist, grassroots organization rejects their legitimacy.

And so, since the Arab revolutionary wave began in late 2010, the Saudis opposed the empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Saudis are the primary bankrollers of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s regime.

During Operation Protective Edge last summer, the Saudis sided with Sisi and Israel against Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its Turkish and Qatari state sponsors. Although Saudi Arabia had previously been a major funder of Hamas, that backing ended in 2005 when, following Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas forged strategic ties with Iran.

For the past five years, the Saudis worked against both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. But in recent months they began reconsidering their two-war approach.

With the Iranian-backed Houthis’ takeover of Yemen and the US’s conclusion of its framework nuclear deal with Iran, the Saudis apparently determined that weakening Iran takes precedence over fighting the Brotherhood. With its Houthi proxies in Yemen deployed along the Saudi border abutting Shi’ite-majority border provinces, and fighting for control over the Bab el Mandab, Iran now poses an immediate and existential threat to Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, as the Saudis see it, the threat posed by the Brotherhood has severely diminished since Sisi began his campaign to destroy its infrastructure in Egypt. So long as Sisi continues weakening the Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya, the Saudis feel safe working with the Brotherhood and its state sponsors Turkey and Qatar in Syria and Yemen. To this end, much to Washington’s dismay, the Saudis are willing to back a consortium of rebel groups in Syria that include the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist offshoots are not the only strange bedfellows the Saudis are willing to work with in their bid to neutralize Iran.

They have also signaled a willingness to work with Israel.

While Israel should be willing to reciprocate Saudi overtures, there are institutional impediments to constructive cooperation.

For more than 20 years, Israel’s policy-making community has been intellectually ensnared by the notion of peace. As a consequence, the concept of joint action based on shared interests has become almost incomprehensible.

Evidently PM Netanyahu's Speech Already Bearing Fruit

...It’s also a tough sell because of the administration’s own rhetoric. AFP quotes a State Department official today as follows: “You can’t read into the nuclear negotiation any kind of determination of where the US relationship with Iran may go in the future.” In fact, you absolutely can. The administration’s posture toward Iran, as evident in this conciliatory deal on the table, is that Tehran is a power with legitimate “rights” to enrich uranium and have a nuclear program in place, and that it’s a country that can be trusted with a sunset clause to boot. Netanyahu’s speech clearly and convincingly laid out the case against that view. And Kerry knows it.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
03 March '15..

Part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s role today was as a representative of his region of the world. It tells you just how concerned those who deal with Iran are about the pending nuke deal that the Israeli leader was voicing–genuinely and accurately, by the way–the nervousness of not just Israel but Saudi Arabia, among other Gulf allies of the U.S. And on that front, Netanyahu may have already succeeded.

Obviously the main point of the speech was Iran’s nuclear program. But Netanyahu also sought to convey the kind of regime Iran is and what it does with its military and financial might. “If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, let it act like a normal country,” Netanyahu said. He recited a litany of examples of Iranian troublemaking, and pointed out that these are all recent–that this is the regime on a path to a nuclear bomb. Netanyahu said:

Iran’s goons in Gaza, its lackeys in Lebanon, its revolutionary guards on the Golan Heights are clutching Israel with three tentacles of terror. Backed by Iran, Assad is slaughtering Syrians. Back by Iran, Shiite militias are rampaging through Iraq. Back by Iran, Houthis are seizing control of Yemen, threatening the strategic straits at the mouth of the Red Sea. Along with the Straits of Hormuz, that would give Iran a second choke-point on the world’s oil supply.

Just last week, near Hormuz, Iran carried out a military exercise blowing up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier. That’s just last week, while they’re having nuclear talks with the United States. But unfortunately, for the last 36 years, Iran’s attacks against the United States have been anything but mock. And the targets have been all too real.

Iran took dozens of Americans hostage in Tehran, murdered hundreds of American soldiers, Marines, in Beirut, and was responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beyond the Middle East, Iran attacks America and its allies through its global terror network. It blew up the Jewish community center and the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. It helped Al Qaida bomb U.S. embassies in Africa. It even attempted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, right here in Washington, D.C.

In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow.

Netanyahu wants the West’s negotiators to curb Iran’s terrorism and expansionism as part of the negotiations. And he’s not alone.

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry cannot dispute the characterization of Iran in Netanyahu’s speech, and don’t try to do so. What he said is the uncontested truth. Obama sees Iran’s regional influence as either inevitable or ultimately desirable. Yet those in the region are well aware that Obama’s view of Iran is a fantasy; Tehran is the prime agent of destabilization throughout the Middle East.

The Administration's Frat-House Statecraft and U.S.-Iran Détente

...But strengthening Hezbollah will not only imperil Israel’s security. It will also put Europe in greater danger and U.S. interests as well. It’s a dim-witted policy, in other words, no matter what you think of Israel. And the general détente with Iran is, as the Journal points out, an insult to our Gulf allies as well as damaging to the fight against ISIS. The president’s policies put our allies at the mercy of their enemies. That he’s taunting them too only makes it clear that the policies are being instituted precisely how he envisioned them.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
29 October '14..

The silliness of President Mom Jeans calling an Israeli special forces veteran “chickens–t” was what first dominated the reactions of the Obama administration’s frat-house taunts directed at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. But the larger strategic impact of the insult, as passed through what Matthew Continetti has termed the “secretarial” press, this time via Jeffrey Goldberg, soon became apparent. And it has now been confirmed by a major story in the Wall Street Journal.

It was easy at first to miss anything but the string of insults directed from Obama to Netanyahu, including the casual accusation of autism. (It’s arguable whether this represented a new low for the president, who has a habit of demonstrating his grade school playground vocabulary.) But once the initial shock at the further degrading of American statecraft under Obama wore off, it was easy to see the real purpose of the story. The Obama administration wanted to brag through its stenographer that the president had protected the Iranian nuclear program from Israel:

I ran this notion by another senior official who deals with the Israel file regularly. This official agreed that Netanyahu is a “chickenshit” on matters related to the comatose peace process, but added that he’s also a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. The official said the Obama administration no longer believes that Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to keep the regime in Tehran from building an atomic arsenal. “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”

If Iran goes nuclear, those words will be the perfect description of the Obama administration’s fecklessness: “Now it’s too late.” Too late, that is, for our allies like Israel and the Gulf states to protect themselves from the consequences of the Obama administration’s Mideast policies–which principally affect Israel and the Gulf states. But “fecklessness” may not be the right word. The Wall Street Journal reports today that the president has been effective after all:

Would Israel get a Security Council seat if it flogged criminals?

...Despite the end of the Cold War and the Oslo process, the Arab world and the PLO never ceased activating the “automatic majority” they enjoy at the General Assembly in order to isolate and defame Israel. It is the same “automatic majority” that blocks Israel’s access to Security Council membership, since non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly. So the only point of throwing Israel’s hat into the ring is to publicly remind the free world that it has become a minority in the very organization it founded and which has since been hijacked.

Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
I24News.tv..
23 October '13..

Much has been said and written about Saudi Arabia’s bizarre rebuff of the UN Security Council. What went nearly unnoticed is the fact that Israel announced earlier this month that it is running for a Security Council seat (in 2019). This is Israel’s first attempt since its admission to the UN in 1949 to join the organization’s most powerful body. Unlike Saudi Arabia, however, Israel stands no chance of being accepted (and declining). The fact that Israel’s bid is hopeless provides an opportunity to understand what is wrong with the UN.

While declining Security Council membership, Saudi Arabia is applying for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) - although its legal system practices flogging, amputations, eye gouging. It is a country that lashes rape victims instead of punishing the perpetrators publicly beheads homosexuals and, in February 2013, arrested 53 Christians for the “crime” of praying in a private home. It is one of the world’s most horrendous human rights violators, but its bid for UNHRC membership will be successful because most members belong to the same league. Since its founding in 2006, the UNHRC has included countries such as China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Mauritania (a country that practices slavery), Venezuela (under Chavez) and Ghadafi's Libya. Saudi Arabia will be in good company.

Unfortunately, the UNHRC is not the only UN body that makes a mockery of sanity and common sense. Earlier this month, Iran was elected to the General Assembly’s Committee on Disarmament and International Security. A country that openly defies Security Council resolutions in its pursuit of nuclear weapons and support of terrorist organizations, is now entrusted by the General Assembly to monitor disarmament and international security.

Appointing pyromaniacs as firefighters is a UN tradition. In January 2003, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was selected to chair the UN’s Disarmament Conference. At the time, Iraq was defying UN weapon inspectors. That same year, Syria was sitting on the Security Council (it was elected in 2002) to enforce international law and order, while serving as an active arms transit between Iran and Hezbollah.

Israel, by contrast, was never elected to the Security Council, to the UNHRC or to the Committee on Disarmament. Would Israel stand a better chance were it to promote international terrorism, to amputate thieves, or to produce chemical weapons? Hardly.

Show me the money! - The corruption of public discourse over Israel.

Unable to defeat Israel on the battlefield, unable to compete with her economically, this is the only effective weapon in their arsenal. Israel is to be branded a pariah state and strangled through political, diplomatic, and economic isolation. The immediate objective in this campaign at the present time is to deprive Israel of her most important major power ally and strategic partner for the past four decades, the U.S.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal
speaks at Harvard, 2012

Fresnozionism.org..
11 March '13..


Rob Vincent is back, with a follow-on to his previous piece, “How the heck we got here.” This time he asks the question “how come we don’t know where we are?”


The corruption of public discourse over Israel
By Robert K. Vincent

Ideally, here in the U.S. and also in other Western societies, one would expect a relatively free and open forum of discussion for competing points of view, in what some have called the “marketplace of ideas”. In this realm, the venues for discussion are academic institutions, and for the public at large, national-level print and broadcast media organizations. These venues – which I would collectively term as the “organs of thought control” – define the acceptable parameters of debate on any issue. Points of view that are deemed unacceptable in these realms, rightly or wrongly, are relegated to the fringes of public discourse, and thus have little chance of influencing public opinion or policies where relevant.

Inherent in the concept of being a “marketplace” of ideas, the relative competitiveness between various points of view should be measured in terms of who has the better command of facts, of logic, and pertinent history.

But what if this “marketplace” were corrupted, in a manner analogous to the “fixing” of actual marketplaces? What if, as was the case during the “robber baron” days of 19th century America, a “Standard Oil” could buy out or otherwise shut down any form of competition? From there, a narrative of questionable veracity and authenticity could nonetheless dominate public discourse unopposed, leading to negative policy outcomes.

On the international stage, we have already seen this dynamic play out in at least one successful instance. Consider the course of the Vietnam War. In this conflict, the U.S. had every material advantage as these are normally calculated in warfare. Yet, in unprecedented fashion, despite winning every battle, we lost the war. Though many cite the failure of American will as the primary reason for American defeat, this only tells half the story. American failure of will was brought about as a result of deliberate calculation and tactical genius by our foes.

Without delving too greatly into the specific history here, it can fairly be said that while the U.S. concentrated on a two-dimensional battlefield focused on the clash of arms, Vietnamese leaders recognized the impact that could be brought to bear by a clash of perceptions that were vulnerable to manipulation in the modern media age. This was a revolutionary development, on a par with the groundbreaking historical significance of Nazi Germany’s “blitzkrieg” tactics of WW2.

Indeed, everything of this nature that was done to the U.S. during the Vietnam War is being done to Israel today. Terrorism, combatants routinely disguised as civilians, the deliberate use of civilians as human shields for media impact, child warriors, suicide bombers, and agitation on college campuses, all of these tools which sound so familiar to those of us involved in the defense of Israel were pioneered, in their modern form, by the Vietnamese communists.

That we see these very same tactics used against Israel is no coincidence: Yasser Arafat traveled to Hanoi during the late 1960s in order to glean wisdom from North Vietnamese leaders regarding the methods by which he could defeat a materially superior foe. Here, he was exposed to the techniques North Vietnam used in order to change the terms of the debate regarding the conflict in question, of manipulating public opinion to one’s own advantage. The rest, as they say, is history.

What's Compelling Saudi Arabia to Begin to Tell the Truth About Israel?

Evelyn Gordon..
JINSA Fellow..
26 December '12..

If there were a prize for the Arab country that has done most to promote Arab-Israeli peace recently, I'd seriously consider nominating Saudi Arabia. Admittedly, that's a counterintuitive choice: Riyadh doesn't even recognize Israel and shows no signs of doing so anytime soon; moreover, it finances the spread of extremist Islamic ideology. But Saudi-funded papers have been doing something that may be far more important than another handshake on the White House lawn: providing a platform for Arab journalists and public figures to challenge the dominant Middle Eastern narrative of Israel as the root of all evil.

Consider, for instance, a column published last month in Asharq Al-Awsat, a paper owned by a member of the Saudi royal family and known for its support of the Saudi monarchy. Written by the paper's then-deputy editor-in-chief, Adel Al Toraifi, and titled "Who holds Hamas' terrorism to account?" the column blamed not Israel, but Hamas, for Palestinian casualties during both the second intifada and the recent fighting in Gaza.

During the intifada, wrote Al Toraifi, "Only a small number of Palestinians died in the first weeks." But then, "Hamas and other factions decided to militarize the intifada through the use of suicide attacks, costing the Palestinians nearly 2,000 lives in less than two years."

Similarly, when smaller factions began "sabotaging the truce in Gaza," Hamas "did not condemn their attacks, rather its leaders talked about the victory that was achieved through the missile fire." Consequently, "a hundred Palestinians have died and what remains of the dilapidated infrastructure there has been destroyed."

Now contrast this with the reaction of Israel's "peace partner," Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. In his speech to the UN last month, Abbas accused Israel of committing "barbaric and horrific" crimes in Gaza in retaliation for ... his UN bid! The thousands of missiles launched at Israel weren't even mentioned, much less condemned. And other senior PA officials openly praised the missile fire. Moreover, the two Arab states with which Israel has peace treaties, Egypt and Jordan, similarly accused Israel of unprovoked aggression while refusing to condemn the rocket fire.

In short, all told their people that Israel is simply an evil country that kills innocent Arabs for no good reason. And why would anyone make peace with a country like that?

Al Toraifi, in contrast, told his readers that Israel isn't inherently evil; it was just responding to being attacked. He also told his readers that Palestinians aren't wholly innocent; their behavior, too, will have to change for peace to be possible. These are obviously messages far more conducive to peace.

Abdulateef Al-Mulhim on the Arab Spring and the Israeli enemy

Abdulateef Al-Mulhim..
arabnews.com..
06 October '12..

Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.

The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations. From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn't the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.

I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.

The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?

Stern - Arrogance, Silence and the Saudi Threat

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
09 August '12..

Saudi Arabia has, according to the US, threatened that they will step in to protect Iran by shooting down any Israeli planes on the way to destroy or damage the Iranian nuclear threat to its people. There are so many facets of this concept and so many things go through my mind.

First, is the arrogance. I am reminded of the single plane in 1967 that kept flying into Eilat, landing and then appearing to unload war equipment and then taking off again, only to circle around out of sight and then reland - all to convince the Arabs that Eilat was being supplied with massive arms and it was not worth attacking. It worked. One plane...

I am reminded of the story - fact or fiction - of Israeli jet fighters making their own statement by not only overflying Saudi Arabia, but daring to touch down on their runways before lifting off again to the skies. I am reminded of our daring flight to Uganda to save the hostages in Entebbe; of our flights to Ethiopian and Yemen to bring the persecuted Jews of those communities home. I am reminded of our flying in to Iraq to bomb the beginnings of their nuclear reactor; of our flying in to Argentina to kidnap and bring Adolf Eichmann to justice. I am reminded of a few years ago, as Elie was on the Syrian border, of our planes flying overhead to bomb the beginnings of what would have been a Syrian nuclear reactor.

It is arrogance on my part to laugh at the Saudi threat; to wonder if they would even have, in the blink of an eye, the time to identify the Israeli jets, let alone scramble and catch them. Of course, it is arrogance. The Saudis have advanced warning systems - thanks to their allies in the United States. And still I dismiss the Saudis. I think of them, probably wrongly, as lazy and arrogant men who belittle their women, sit around in long robes smoking on ancient water pipes. It's a silly image and yet it persists.

Second, then, in my thoughts, is the fact that this threat is being made public by the US and not by the Saudis. The Saudis have apparently chosen to voice this threat through American officials and this time, Israel has correctly identified it as yet another attempt by the US to control Israel. Obama's government doesn't want Israel to attack Iran until it gives the go-ahead either by performing the attack itself, or by granting us permission.

On the flip side, Israel understands quickly that if the US attacks Iran - Iran's first target will be Israel. We will pay for any attack with missiles against our civilian population. And yet, the US expects us to alert them to our plans, to delay and/or go according to their schedule.

Marquadt-Bigman - Quote of the day

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
02 March '12..

Let us pause here in front of this state of [Assad’s] mad dictatorship, and compare it with what Israel has committed against us [i.e. the Arabs] in recent times […] particularly the Lebanon and Gaza wars. The entire world rushes to stop Israel’s aggressions against Lebanon in 2006, and this war ended after approximately two months, claiming the lives of 1,200 Lebanese. The same thing applies to the Gaza war, which had approximately the same death toll. In both wars, the public opinion in the Arab world rushed to take action, whilst counterfeit “friends of Israel” lists were issued, masterminded by the al-Assad regime; indeed a number of Arab politicians attempted to exploit this tragedy, most prominently the al-Assad regime. However we did not hear anybody ask – even now – why did these wars happen? Whose interests did these wars, and more, serve? Who was responsible for this?

Sultan Knish - Between Mecca and Jerusalem

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
25 December '11




Forget Athens and Jerusalem, the new dialectic is between Mecca and Jerusalem. On one side is support for the spread of a repressive theocratic ideology across the region and around the world through violence and intimidation, on the other side is the rise of indigenous states from the pre-Islamic era employing technology and ingenuity to transform the region.

Every time a politician pays tribute to Saudi Arabia, a journalist endorses the Arab Spring and a diplomat goes on about how Israel must make concessions to Islamic terrorists or it will destabilize the region, you see a man used to raising his arse and bowing his pate to Mecca.

It has become mainstream to speak of the Saudi royals as reformers and allies, while denouncing Israel as a reactionary backward state that's always causing trouble. The Saudis and their Gulf pals can pony up the Riyals to slam planes into the White House and the Pentagon, slowly behead women for witchcraft and promote an ideology so vicious that it gives Nazism an even run in the 100 meter genocide dash-- and come away with applause. But when an Israeli Prime Minister goes to the negotiating table with his worst enemies, he's greeted with a chorus of boos.

There was a time when Western capitals aspired to be the new Jerusalem, now they are turning into the new Mecca, the new Riyadh, the new Beirut and the new Cairo. Paris and London and a dozen other capitals have turned their back on Jerusalem and are quickly turning into meccas for Muslim immigrants and their Saudi funded mosques where barely beard speakers hiss hate into hand-held microphones.

On the foreign policy chessboard, their more upscale versions do the same. Scratch one of those dispassionate critics of Israel and you more often than not find a man with his head bent low toward Mecca.

Khaled Abu Toameh - If They Are Like This Now, What Will They Be Like With Nukes?

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
14 October '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2505/syria-nuclear-weapons

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is now threatening to ignite the Middle East and destroy Israel if NATO attacks his country, while his mufti is threatening to dispatch suicide bombers to Europe and the United States.

The threats coming out of Damascus are a sign of the growing predicament of the Assad regime, which has been facing a popular resistance since the beginning of the year. Syrian human rights and opposition groups say that about 3,000 Syrians have been killed at the hands of Assad's security forces.

Assad has been quoted as telling the Turkish foreign minister that, "if anything crazy happens to Syria, it will take me only six hours to move hundreds of missiles to the Golan Heights so they could be fired at Tel Aviv. At the same time, I will ask Lebanon's Hizbollah to open fire at Israel. All this will happen in the first three hours. In the next three hours, Iran will strike US warships in the region, while Shiites in the Gulf would start attacking Western targets and killing Americans and Europeans around the world. The Shiites will form suicide squads and hijack planes."

Assad's mufti, Ahmed Hassoun, was quoted as saying: "With the launching of the first missile at Syria or Lebanon, all our sons and daughters will go out to become suicide bombers in Europe and Palestine. I say this to Europe and America - we will prepare the suicide bombers if you attack Syria or Lebanon."

Keyes - Saudi Arabia in Jerusalem?

David Keyes
Israel Hayom
02 October '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=578

There is much to critique about former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s New York Times op-ed “Peace Now, or Never” on the eve of the Palestinians’ request for statehood at the U.N. One seemingly minor point that highlights the absurdity of the article is his proposal regarding Jerusalem. “Neither side [Israeli or Palestinian] would declare sovereignty over the city’s holy places; they would be administered jointly with the assistance of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States,” Olmert writes.

The idea of custody shared between Israel, Jordan, America and Saudi Arabia sounds appealing to the internationally minded, but upon closer examination, a more absurd idea could scarcely be found.

Imagine telling a child that Saudi Arabia should take part in administering holy sites in Jerusalem. This child might ask how Saudi Arabia administers its own holy sites. Does it, for example, allow people of all faiths equal rights?

The Saudi government, in fact, bans all non-Muslims from entering Mecca and Medina. It prohibits the importing of Bibles and the building of non-Muslim houses of worship. It imprisons men like Hadi al Mutif for nearly two decades for making a joke about religion. Days ago it beheaded Abdul Hamid Al Fakki for the crime of “sorcery.”

A 2010 U.S. State Department report on Saudi Arabia notes: “Freedom of religion is neither recognized nor protected under the law and is severely restricted in practice ...The government continued to commit abuses of religious freedom. Non-Muslim groups in different parts of the country were detained and harassed for worshipping privately ... The government continued to prohibit public, non-Muslim religious activities ...”

Should a government which systematically denies freedom of religion to its own citizens be invited into Jerusalem to uphold freedom of religion for others? Can one think of a more obscene proposal?

Ehud Olmert would be prohibited by the Saudi government from building a synagogue, importing a Torah and stepping foot in entire cities. And yet, he grovels for a Saudi role over overseeing Israel’s holiest sites.

Saudi Arabia is quite literally the last country on Earth that should be invited anywhere at any time to uphold and protect religious freedom.

David Keyes is the executive director of Advancing Human Rights and co-founder of CyberDissidents.org. He can be reached at david.keyes@advancinghumanrights.org.


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Tobin - Saudi Bluff on Palestinians Fools No One

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
12 September '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/12/saudis-obama-bluff-veto/#more-767524

(Yesterday I posted Caroline Glick's "Saudi Arabia's exploitation of Palestinian UN bid". Here by point of comparison, is Jonathan Tobin's comments addressing the same editorial, but arriving at a different conclusion. Yosef)

It appears the Palestinian Authority isn’t the only Middle East party playing liar’s bluff. In today’s New York Times op-ed page, former Saudi Ambassador to the United States Turki Al-Faisal writes if the Obama administration vetoes a motion recognizing a unilateral Palestinian declaration of an independent state, it will mean the end of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

Al-Faisal’s threats are patently absurd. The Saudis need U.S. power as a shield against both Iran and al-Qaeda just as much if not more than Americans need Saudi oil. But the main conclusion to be drawn from this threat is not so much about the Saudi devotion to the Palestinian cause, which we know is mere lip service. The interesting thing is what it says about the Saudis’ opinion of President Obama. For such a threat — albeit one without much credibility — to be issued by a prominent member of the royal family and the regime illustrates how weak they think Obama really is.

As to Al-Faisal’s threat the Saudis will break their alliance with the United States for the sake of a doomed and counter-productive diplomatic gambit by the Palestinians, they’re fooling no one. Talk about a more “independent” foreign policy by Saudi Arabia is just that: talk. The Saudis desperately need to keep America engaged in the Persian Gulf to keep their Iranian rivals at bay. Without the United States, upon who will the Saudis depend to guarantee their security? Let’s remember that al-Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalists are a greater threat to the Saudi monarchy than anyone else. It is their shaky regime that will suffer the most if they pursue policies, as Al-Faisal threatens, that undermine stability in Iraq and Afghanistan merely for the sake of pique over the Palestinians.

Let’s also dispense with Al-Faisal’s eyewash about Saudi dedication to the rights of the Palestinians. The Saudis know the Palestinians’ UN gambit is an attempt to evade negotiations, not a path to peace. Rather than wasting time trying to persuade the U.S. to back a plan that will guarantee conflict and further instability, the Saudis should have leaned on their Palestinian Authority clients to back off, because the only winners from this initiative will be Iran and Hamas. They will benefit from the violence that failure in New York will set off.

That brings us back to the Saudi evaluation of Obama. For them to believe the administration would even for a minute think about backing off on a veto that is as necessary to defend American interests in the region as it is for Israel because of a blatantly insincere threat from Riyadh is testimony to their low opinion of the president. Obama came into office believing he would transform the world’s opinion of America due to the force of his personality. Al-Faisal’s contemptuous essay is merely the latest evidence demonstrating how in less than three years he has won over no new friends and alienated virtually all of America’s allies.

Glick - Saudi Arabia's exploitation of Palestinian UN bid

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
12 September '11

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/09/saudi-arabias-exploitation-of.php

(Today I've also posted Jonathan Tobin's "Saudi Bluff on Palestinians Fools No One" addressing the same editorial, but arriving at a different conclusion. Yosef)

The Saudis effectively ended their strategic alliance with the US in the aftermath of the US-supported overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Since then the Saudis have strengthened their ties to China and Russia and from what I understand have refused to sign any new oil contracts with the Americans.

Now in this op-ed in the New York Times, the Saudis are hitching a ride on the Palestinian UN bid to justify their previous abandonment of America.

As my readers are well aware, I think that the US's abandonment of Mubarak was one of the greatest strategic errors the US has ever committed. But of course, the Saudis can't play the populist/leader of the Muslim world card by opposing the mob in Cairo. And so they never announced their breach with their US patron, which in their mind had lost all credibility as an ally when it ditched Mubarak. But the Palestinians and the war against the Jews is the great populist issue in the Muslim world. And so, aside from everything else, the PLO's UN initiative gives the authoritarian likes of the Saudis a perfect excuse for publicly acknowledging their previous abandonment of the US.

Moreover, the increasingly anti-Jewish American Left will seize on the Saudi claim as proof that the US's alliance with the Jewish state is undermining America's standing in the Arab world.

Oh dear. Things are getting uglier and uglier.

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Gordon - A Lesson from Riyadh About the True Threat to Middle East Peace

Evelyn Gordon
Commentary/Contentions
30 June '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/30/a-lesson-from-riyadh-about-the-true-threat-to-middle-east-peace/

All those Westerners who deem Israel “the greatest threat to world peace” ought to read a fascinating story in the Guardian yesterday: A senior Saudi official informed the paper that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will be forced to follow suit.

“We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don’t. It’s as simple as that,” the official said. “If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit.”

Why is this noteworthy? Because Israel is widely thought to have had nuclear weapons for almost 50 years now. Yet Riyadh never felt that Israel’s alleged nukes were threatening enough to necessitate acquiring its own nuclear deterrent, even though it has been formally at war with the Jewish state since Israel’s creation and has no diplomatic relations with it. Iran, in contrast, is a fellow Muslim state with which Riyadh has full diplomatic relations; they also share membership in groups like OPEC and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Yet Saudi Arabia deems Tehran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons so threatening as to require an immediate response in kind.

The reason for this seeming paradox is simple: Because they live in the region, Saudi officials know what too many Westerners seem to have forgotten: Israel has never once attacked anyone that didn’t attack it first. And since Saudi Arabia, for all its anti-Israel rhetoric, has not actually participated in anti-Israel hostilities since 1948, it knows it’s perfectly safe from whatever military capabilities Israel has. Iran, in contrast, has a record of unprovoked military meddling outside its borders even without the immunity nuclear weapons would bring. For instance, it offers extensive military support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Shi’ite militias in Iraq – all three of which have fomented civil wars in their respective territories, while the first two have fomented cross-border wars as well. Thus, a nuclear-armed Iran would be a real threat.

Why do so many Westerners seem ignorant of what Saudi officials know about Israel’s nonaggression? For this, Western media bear much of the blame. Consider just one typical example – Ethan Bronner’s New York Times piece this week on Gaza’s agricultural revival, in which former World Bank President James Wolfensohn recalled his dashed hopes for a thriving agriculture business in Gaza following Israel’s 2005 withdrawal:

But between the looting, security delays and corruption of border guards — both Israeli and Palestinian, he noted — and then after Israel’s three-week offensive in 2008-9 and the naval blockade, the economy fell apart.

Note what’s missing in this description of Bronner’s: the roughly 6,000 rockets and mortars Palestinians fired at southern Israel from Gaza in the three years following the withdrawal. This rocket fire was the reason for both the military offensive and the blockade. But an uninformed reader would never know it: He would conclude from this piece that Israel was guilty of unprovoked aggression, having launched a military offensive and imposed a naval blockade (which is also an act of war) for no reason at all.

But actions, they say, speak louder than words. And the vast difference in Riyadh’s response to Iranian versus Israeli nukes speaks volumes about the true threat to peace in the Middle East.

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Women, Saudi Arabia and Israel - IST #71

Avi Abelow
Israel Straight Talk
IST #71
21 June '11

In Saudi Arabia women are forbidden to drive and work in certain jobs. In Gaza the Hamas commits human rights abuses against it's own brothers, cousins and neighbors. In Syria and Libya, the dictators kill innocent civilians. Yet, the world seems to think that peace will come to the region if only Israel gave up it's holy land to the Arabs in her midst. We believe peace will come to the region when all the Middle East countries give human rights to all their citizens. Israel is just a red herring issue to distract people from the true problems in the Middle Eastern countries.



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What the Saudis Understand - and We Don't

Shoshana Bryen
Senior Director for Security Policy
JINSA Report #1081
April 21, 2011



Who would have thought that we would find ourselves agreeing with the Saudi approach to events in the Middle East, while thinking our own government needs a "reset"?

National Security Council Advisor Tom Donilon visited Saudi Arabia and Saudi King Abdullah brought three of his advisors to the meeting: Director of General Intelligence Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz; Secretary-General of the National Security Council Prince Bandar bin Sultan; and Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel Jubeir. David V. Dafinoiu of the Global Intelligence Center describes Muqrin as focused on Iran, Yemen, Libya and al Qaeda; Bandar on foreign military relations other than the United States; and Jubeir having the U.S. portfolio. All, according to the Dafinoiu, are "Hawks and live wires."

That looks about right - Iran, Yemen, Libya and al Qaeda are where the action is; Saudi Arabia is buying military equipment from China as well as the United States; and well, it was an American envoy, so Jubeir was there. Notice what did notappear to be on the agenda - Israel, Israeli occupation, Palestinians or Palestinian independence.

Perhaps King Abdullah believes Iranian attempts to destabilize the Gulf and al Qaeda in Libya and Yemen are real threats to the future of the Kingdom. Perhaps he believes Saudi Arabia needs to prepare for the coming confrontation with Iran. And perhaps he believes the United States should be doing its utmost to undermine the Iranian and Syrian regimes in hopes of ensuring Saudi and Egyptian (Sunni) hegemony in the region because that would better preserve Saudi oil producing interests - and would better preserve American/Western oil consuming interests as well.

We hope Mr. Donilon took the message.

But the Obama Administration seems fixed on "solving the Palestinian problem," which, in their lexicon means creating a Palestinian state come hell or high water. Secretary of State Clinton told the U.S.-Islamic World Forum (an offshoot of the Brookings Institution and the Government of Qatar) in Washington last week, "The status quo between Palestinians and Israelis is no more sustainable than the (Arab) political systems that have crumbled in recent months." She didn't mention that the crumbling (Arab) regimes look very much like the Palestinian Authority - corrupt and authoritarian - and their successors bear more than a passing resemblance to Hamas - corrupt, authoritarian and religious.

The Los Angeles Times reports, "American and European diplomats are continuing to prod Netanyahu to lay out his vision for restarting peace talks and ending the occupation of the West Bank. If he does not, diplomats warned, the so-called Mideast quartet - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - may attempt to jump-start the process by formally endorsing, for the first time, the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital."

Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

As a small matter, they appear to be interested in "ending the occupation of the West Bank" with no mention of Gaza, but all the talk about a Palestinian state includes "the '67 borders" (which are not borders, but armistice lines) including Gaza. Does that mean they are prepared to give Abu Mazen control of Gaza, or Hamas control of the West Bank? Or does it mean, "Never mind that iceberg; put the chairs where I tell you"?

As a large matter, Israel, the only Western and pro-Western democracy from the eastern Mediterranean around to Australia, sits amid conflagration, and the Quartet led by the United States, can think only of birthing another anti-Semitic, a-historical, Islamic, anti-Western kleptocracy allied with all the wrong people. If they think Hamas and Fatah, which will fight each other to the death over the new Palestinian entity, are friends of anything the West used to treasure, they are mistaken. And if they think pressuring Israel to come up with a plan for its own destruction will make the Saudis happy, they are mistaken twice.

The Saudis appear, for the moment, to have aligned their priorities correctly and are worried about precisely the right thing. How odd that the United States is so far behind a country still working its way through the 10th Century.

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Obama Knows Best? Why is the U.S. Government Telling Everyone in the Middle East What They are Supposed to Want?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
10 December '10

Yes, it is as bad as it seems. When Secretary of State Hilary Clinton protests the fact that the Syrian government lied to her about its missile supplies to Hizballah, she instructed those meeting with the Syrians on their talking points.

It is amazing how the Obama Administration let the Syrian regime walk all over them. Yet it also fits with their philosophy:

"While our commitment to principled engagement with Syria -- as demonstrated by Under Secretary Burns' recent visit -- remains strong, we must enlist additional French, British, Turkish, Saudi, Jordanian, and Qatari support to help dissuade Syria from expanding its ties to Hizballah any further, especially via the transfer of additional sophisticated weaponry."

Get that? It's multilateralism in action. The United States cannot do anything on its own but has to enlist a half-dozen others. But, of course, the French government is soft on Syria, the Turks are now Syrian allies, Qatar wants to keep in good with Iran and Syria, while Jordan is timid. As for the Saudis, they were struggling against Syria a year ago but given the lack of U.S. support they gave up.

In other words, this threat is a joke and trying to implement it would certainly fail. Moreover, note how the U.S. position begins by reaffirming engagement when it should start by threatening to cut it off. Once the Syrians know they aren't going to lose anything why should they give up anything?

Also, the United States is no longer a great power. For when the Obama Administration wants to threaten Syria it is in these terms:

"...It is especially important to stress that Syria's actions constitute serious violations of Security Council resolution 1701--which will be taken seriously by the international community--and belie its claims to respect Lebanon's sovereignty."

(Read full article "Obama Knows Best? ....")

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Saudi Arabia: Hates Iran, But Loves Al Qaeda--And Relies On Israel

Daled Amos
30 November '10

I already posted earlier today that Arab World Agrees With Israel--Iran Is More Urgent Than A Palestinian State, which makes sense from the viewpoint of keeping the status quo--particularly Sunni Arab dominance vis-a-vis Muslim non-Arab Shiites.

On the other hand, based on a small snippet reported in passing by The New York Times, we see that Saudi Arabia still supports Al Qaeda--in a big way:

Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December.

Grant Lawrence notes that The New York Times does not link to the cable it is quoting from, and goes on to point out:

As the WikiLeaks Embassy Cables show the Saudi King has been urging an attack on Iran. The Saudis are worried about Iran gaining superiority in the region. The King doesn't seem to be worried about triggering a World War or even a nuclear exchange. He doesn't care how many people will die.

Instead the Saudi's are busy keeping al Qaeda well funded so they can blow up an American target. Now their support of terrorism should put Saudi Arabia at the top of the list as a terrorist nation and possibly open it up for an American invasion.

We know that the hijackers on 9/11 were nearly all Saudis, but the United States invaded Afghanistan. Even though the al Qaeda network was known to be well supported by Saudi Arabia.

The US does have a huge blind spot when it comes to our 'moderate friends' the Saudis--but Saudi Arabia's fear of Iran is connected to its support to Al Qaeda.

(Read full post)

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