Tuesday, December 08, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
There were lots of articles about the blunt (and bizarre) criticism that Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud hurled at Israel at the IISS Manama Dialogues over the weekend:. Here's AP's:
A prominent Saudi prince harshly criticized Israel on Sunday at a Bahrain security summit that was remotely attended by Israel’s foreign minister, showing the challenges any further deals between Arab states and Israel face in the absence of an independent Palestinian state.The fiery remarks by Prince Turki al-Faisal at the Manama Dialogue appeared to catch Israel’s foreign minister off guard, particularly as Israelis receive warm welcomes from officials in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates following agreements to normalize ties.Prince Turki opened his remarks by contrasting what he described as Israel’s perception of being “peace-loving upholders of high moral principles” versus what he described as a far-darker Palestinian reality of living under a “Western colonizing” power.Israel has “incarcerated (Palestinians) in concentration camps under the flimsiest of security accusations — young and old, women and men, who are rotting there without recourse to justice,” Prince Turki said. “They are demolishing homes as they wish and they assassinate whomever they want.”The prince also criticized Israel’s undeclared arsenal of nuclear weapons and Israeli governments “unleashing their political minions and their media outlets from other countries to denigrate and demonize Saudi Arabia.”
There are two important points that the media is ignoring.
One is the blatant antisemitism in Prince Turki's remarks.
Saying that Israel is incarcerating Palestinians in concentration camps is directly comparing Israel to Nazis, and the only reason to use that language is to deliberately hurt the feelings of Jews.
And what concentration camps is he talking about? The only camps in the Middle East are the ones set up by Arab nations to keep Palestine "refugees" in misery. Lebanon has one large one that is literally surrounded by a wall with watchtowers.
Yet his antisemitism doesn't end there: he is implying that Jews control the media and the politics of other countries besides Israel, "unleashing their political minions and their media outlets from other countries to denigrate and demonize Saudi Arabia."
What is even stranger is that Saudi Arabia's most strident critics are generally Israel's biggest critics, too. There is plenty to criticize in Saudi Arabia - its human rights record is horrendous - but the criticism comes from NGOs like Human Rights Watch. So not only are Turki's charges about "concentration camps" and Israeli control of the media antisemitic, they are fictional.
I have not seen any media outlet point this out, which seems like a basic journalistic task.
The second point that no one is making about the conference is that even with the Saudi barbs, here was a conference attended by countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan - with Israel.
As far as I can tell, Israel didn't attend last year's conference, because many Arab nations would have walked out if it did. This year saw not only an Israeli delegation but a speaker as well, Gabi Ashkenazi.
If Saudi Arabia can verbally attack Israel at a conference like this without resorting to antisemitic tropes, that's fine. At least Israel is now considered a part of the Middle East. Friends can and do argue. The bigger story is not Saudi criticism of Israel but that Saudi Arabia and Israel were talking with each other, publicly - something that not long ago would have been unthinkable.
