State department seems to condition Israel-Saudi peace on Saudi human rights

State Department spokesperson Ned Price, looking as stiff as a board, said something a little strange:

We seek to accomplish a great deal with the Saudis: to end the war in Yemen and ease Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, to use our leadership to forge ties across the region’s most bitter divide[s], whether that’s finding the way back from the brink of war with Iran, and to a meaningful regional dialogue, or forging a historic peace with Israel....But we can only address these many important challenges in a partnership with Saudi Arabia that respects America’s values.

The US has every right to condition its relationships with other countries on their human rights records. Admittedly, the fact that it is practically begging to build a relationship with Iran without any similar conditions makes this look a bit hypocritical.

But to say that the US won't try to broker peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia unless the Saudis meet certain arbitrary conditions? That is punishing Israel for Saudi Arabia's human rights posture! 

All this will do is make the US irrelevant in the region, as the Israelis and Saudis will not wait for US approval to do what is in their own best interests. In fact, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain are discussing a common defense alliance.

Note that the US is not part of those discussions. This alliance would be in spite of the United States, not because of it, as the Gulf nations and Israel are wary of Biden doing what Obama did and discarding US allies in favor of coddling Iran.

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