Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: geopolitics

Showing posts with label geopolitics. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Saudis offer Palestinians symbolism while really wanting to use Israel and the US to strengthen their own leadership in the Middle East

Yesterday, Saudi diplomat Nayef al-Sudairi arrived in Ramallah as the Saudi envoy to the Palestinian Authority.

He did all the things skittish Palestinians want to see as they get increasingly nervous about a Saudi-Israel normalization deal that leaves them behind.

The position is called "ambassador" implying that Palestine is a real country.

Al-Sudairi visited Yasir Arafat's grave and placed a wreath on his tomb. He also visited the Yasir Arafat Museum.

He told Abbas at the official ceremony "God willing, this visit will be the beginning of strengthening more relations in all fields.”

He tweeted, "From the beloved state of #Palestine #Land_of_Canaan, the most beautiful greetings, coupled with the love of my Lord #the_Custodian_of_the_Two_Holy_Mosques and His Highness Sir #the_Crown_Prince."

But all of this pomp and ceremony is geared towards what Palestinians love the most: symbolism. They crave relevance and respect and often confuse those with actual gains.

For over a decade now, Palestinians have done nothing to advance peace or to make the lives of their people any better, but they celebrate anything that gives them apparent legitimacy. The official Wafa news agency is filled with press releases of Abbas sending or receiving congratulatory messages with real countries.

The Saudis have turned into world class politicians. They have skillfully managed relations with both China and the US, and they are doing the same between Iran and Israel. They are working hard to include Israel into their vision of an integrated Middle East that they lead. Their US ambassador Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud described their vision last July:

Her country envisions Israel belonging to an “integrated Middle East”.

In line with Saudi Vision 2030, the diplomat said that Riyadh desires a “thriving Israel” and a “thriving Palestine”, adding that “Vision 2030 talks about a unified, integrated, thriving Middle East, and last I checked Israel was there…we want a thriving Red Sea economy”.

Princess Reema stressed that Saudi Arabia’s focus is on integration, not normalisation, with Israel. “We don’t say normalisation, we talk about an integrated Middle East, unified [as] a bloc like Europe, where we all have sovereign rights and sovereign states, but we have a shared and common interest,” asserted the Saudi ambassador.

“So that’s not normalisation. Normalisation is you’re sitting there, and I’m sitting here, and we kind of coexist, but separately. Integration means our people collaborate, our businesses collaborate, and our youth thrive.”

The Saudis are smartly offering intangibles to Israel, the US and Palestinians to gain in exchange real physical benefits - a civilian nuclear program that could become the basis of a military nuclear program if Iran builds a nuclear weapon, a mutual defense pact with the US, and access to top-level military and intelligence technology.

The pretense of embracing Palestinian nationhood is mostly lip service so the Palestinians don't try to blow up normalization with Israel. Normalization with Israel is a carrot to get the US to provide the green light for the arms and civilian nuclear program (which also requires Israel's approval.) Acting warmly with China and Iran gives incentive for the US and Israel to not want to be left behind. And ultimately, Saudi Arabia wants a Middle East where it is the leader and major beneficiary of all commercial, political and even religious decisions.

Israel has to think long and hard about the costs and benefits of normalization. It shouldn't only look at the intangibles, because many of the tangible benefits of peace are already there. Israel is already meeting with Saudis, it is probably already sharing intelligence with Saudis, it is probably already trading with Saudis via the UAE. Saudi Arabia won't veto the proposed rail line that would speed up trade with Europe via Haifa if a full peace deal is not signed.

In may ways, Israel's vision of the Middle East dovetails with Saudi Arabia's. It just shouldn't be seduced by symbolism, the way the Saudis are doing with the Palestinians.

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Egypt's restoration of synagogue is upsetting Cairo's Muslims

Egypt now has more restored synagogues than it has Jews.

There are only three Jewish women left in Egypt, the youngest of whom is 70. But Egypt has, in recent years, restored five synagogues to their former glory, with seven or eight more still in disrepair.

The most recent restoration was the Ibn Ezra Synagogue which re-opened last week. To tourists only, of course.

While Egypt is presiding over these multi-million dollar restorations, Egypt's Muslims are complaining that the government is destroying Islamic historic sites to make way for development projects.

Muslims are seeing not only Jewish but Christian, Roman, Greek, and Pharaonic antiquities being preserved, while laws to preserve Islamic sites are apparently much more onerous. Resentment is being expressed in Arabic news media.

Egyptian media lists three reasons why Egypt's government is spending so much money and time restoring Jewish synagogues and preserving the Jewish cemetery even as a Muslim cemetery is being relocated for development work.

One reason is that the Egyptians want to stay on the good side of the US, and they think (probably because Jews run the world) that restoring synagogue will pay political dividends.

The second is that it is simply to promote tourism. Tourism went down after the last coup, and they want to attract Jews to Cairo..

The third reason is to make President Sisi look moderate to the world and to his own people. This is the sort of no-risk move that makes him look tolerant of a virtually nonexistent minority. And in 2018, Sisi passed a law allowing him to stay in office until 2030, and the optics were bad - he wants to change them

All three of the reasons are using Jews as a means to an end.

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What does Israel gain from a Saudi normalization deal?

The US negotiations with Saudi Arabia over recognizing Israel looks more and more like using Israel as a pawn for a US-Saudi deal than anything that will have huge benefits for Israel.

The Saudis want from Washington a NATO-style defense pact and a civilian nuclear program. The Saudis want from Israel access to intelligence (which they probably already have indirectly), access to Israeli technology and investment opportunities there.

The US would get more leverage over the Saudis vis a vis their growing relationship with China, and for them not to abandon the US dollar as their currency. The US would prefer the Saudis be in their orbit than with BRICS (although normalization with Israel has not stopped the UAE from joining BRICS.) The Saudis would also give the US more military options in case of a war with Iran erupting.

While Israel would reap some benefits from normalization with Saudi Arabia, I don't think it adds up to much.

As I wrote on Twitter/X yesterday:

* There is already a cold peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and it is unlikely to get that much warmer with an agreement. The Saudis are not and are unlikely to become a military enemy of Israel.

* Israel can already sell things to the Saudis via the UAE if they want the products, with the exception of weapons and similar items. I'm sure that this trade already started a while ago.

* Saudi Arabia may be modernizing but it is still one of the most repressive, anti-human rights regimes on Earth. Anything bad they do will be used as ammunition against Israel.

* It isn't as if the Saudis would start suddenly voting against anti-Israel resolutions at the UN and dragging the rest of the Arab world with them.

* Only a small percentage of Saudis would visit Israel, and that would almost all be to Al Aqsa.

* Speaking of, the Saudis almost certainly want influence over the Temple Mount to add to their control of the top two Sunni Islamic holy sites. This could adversely affect Israel's relations with Jordan.

* If Iran started a war in the region that threatened the Saudis, Israel would help them out regardless. Covertly, but certainly.

* Joint projects and investments would be nice, but they would benefit the Saudis more than the Israelis.

The Abraham Accords was a game-changer. It broke the united Arab front against Israel. It gave Israel an economic and political foothold in the Gulf, bolstered by Bahrain.

What more would a Saudi deal give to Israel? I don't see huge advantages for Israel, especially when the US is dangling the Saudis as a means to restrict Israeli actions.

Not that there are no advantages t Israel at all - of course there are. It would be very nice if the Israeli and Saudi air force could cooperate and practice together, and engage in war games against an Iranian threat. Normalization would solidify the idea that there is no going back in the Arab world to the days when Israel was a pariah. Open trade would benefit both parties. But these are nice-to-haves, not must-haves.

The US is taking it for granted that the Israelis are salivating over a deal. President Herzog said to Congress that Israel prays for such a deal. But I simply don't see what Israel would get from it that they aren't getting now, or wouldn't get in case of an emergency.

Both the Saudis and the Americans are negotiating with the idea that Israel needs no prodding to join any deal. Israel needs to signal that it expects some additional concrete benefits, from both Washington and Riyadh, to join in. Because as of now, it looks like the Americans and Saudis would gain more from such a deal than Israel would.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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The Saudis describe their vision of the Middle East's future, and where Israel fits in

Several weeks ago I wrote about how Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as the leader of the Middle East, and what it wants to accomplish.

Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, at the Aspen Ideas Festival this past weekend, described the vision in more detail - including where Israel fits in.

“We want to see a thriving Israel,” she said. “We want to see a thriving Palestine. Vision 2030 talks about a unified, integrated, thriving Middle East and last I checked, Israel was there. We want a thriving Red Sea economy.”

The princess continued. “We don’t say normalization, we talk about an integrated Middle East, unified [as] a bloc like Europe, where we all have sovereign rights and sovereign states, but we have a shared and common interest. So that’s not normalization. Normalization is you’re sitting there, and I’m sitting here, and we kind of coexist, but separately. Integration means our people collaborate, our businesses collaborate, and our youth thrive.”

The Saudi vision is to have a unified Middle East bloc of nations where there is not so much dependence on superpowers. It wants to eliminate the infighting. And it wants to lead, by promoting the benefits to all - under the beneficence of Saudi Arabian cash.

The new Saudi Arabia wants not to oppose states like Syria and Iran, but to subsume them.

Diplomacy with Iran, Princess Reema continued, provides “another way” to deescalate tensions in the region. “You do not want a nuclear Iran pointing itself at the rest of us,” she said. “You don’t want us poking and prodding. You don’t want Israel poking and prodding. You don’t want the Iranians aiming at Israel. You don’t want any of that.”

The ambassador defended Saudi efforts to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world, explaining that the kingdom is using available avenues to bring humanitarian relief to the war-torn country. The war in Syria, she said, has gone on for “12 years, where it’s not just a war zone, the country is [in] shambles. We cannot have another failed state in the Middle East. It is unreasonable to let it happen. And so the question is, what do you do? And that’s what we’re trying to solve for today.”

The Saudis seem to be waving the carrot of going beyond normalization to Israel's long-standing dream of being fully integrated in the region. While Reema said that Saudi Arabia would “always come to the U.S. first” when it needs for new technology, it sounds like it wants to go to Israel second, to make the Middle East an independent world power.

I do not see Egypt being included in any of these Saudi plans. Maybe they are part of it, or maybe the Saudis consider Egypt to be an African leader, not a Middle East leader.

My long-shot prediction is that Saudi Arabia will try to work on the Lebanese issue. They desperately need cash to not become a failed state, and the people dislike Hezbollah and Iran. While Lebanon's problems may seem intractable, if the Saudis could help get it over the current hump, it could marginalize the Shiite threat and even pave a way for Lebanese/Israeli peace. The Saudis might not want to do this publicly, because failure would look bad and the chances of success are low, but I wouldn't be surprised if they look at Lebanon as a key to show their leadership and their vision of a unified Middle East by unifying the most polarized nation in the Middle East.

As for Saudi Arabia's traditional Sunni Islamic conservatism and how it has been difficult to coexist with Shiites, Christians and Jews: the princess' short sleeves and leaving much of her hair uncovered is just as much a message to the other groups in the region as her words are.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The Saudis are emerging as the new superpower of the Middle East

The United States has left a leadership vacuum in the Middle east - and the Saudis filling it.

For decades, there has been jockeying on who would be the leader of the Muslim world. Egypt filled the role under Nasser but since then it has been a free for all.

Iran tried to position itself as that leader in the 2000s, but it could not overcome the antipathy from the Sunni majority. Turkey has been making its bid. The UAE, while tiny, has been trying to set a new direction for the Gulf states in a post-oil world.

But over the past couple of years, Saudi Arabia has emerged as the clear leader. The Saudis always wanted a leadership role as well, but until recently their main asset was Mecca, and the religious component was a necessary but not adequate prerequisite for true leadership.

Now, the Saudis are setting the agenda not just as the leaders of the Muslim world but of the entire region.

Up until now, the Saudis have been the passive recipients of US security guarantees. The Obama administration's reckless pursuit of an Iran deal and discarding Saudi concerns taught the Saudis that relying on the US for security and leadership is foolhardy and they need to create their own solutions. The ignominious US abandonment of Afghanistan showed that the days of Pax Americana are long gone.

There has been much media attention to China filling the leadership vacuum, and indeed China has ambitions there, but mostly just to keep things calm to serve their own interests. The Saudis are not being passive anymore. They have been becoming skilled diplomats and working all sides to become congruent with Saudi goals and ambitions. I see the Chinese role in brokering agreements between Riyadh and Tehran as more the Saudis using China to rein in Iran than China showing leadership.

What are the Saudi goals? I believe that the major goal is security. Letting the US, Russia, and China set the agendas for the Middle East guarantees permanent strife for the region with no benefits. The Saudi vision for the region is to reduce risk by ending pointless conflict that only benefitted outsiders.

Refreshingly, the Saudis - along with the UAE and Bahrain - seem to have abandoned the zero-sum mentality that has kept the Arab world behind for so long. They are now seeking win-win solutions that can allow everyone to prosper without the worry of war, with themselves as the leaders.

The Saudi-led rapprochement between the Arab League and Syria is a perfect example. From their perspective, Syria is an evil regime, and there is no love lost between Syria and the other Arab states. Yet nothing has been gained by a decade of shunning them. Better to embrace them and influence them in a bear hug.

To an extent, this may be the Saudi policy towards Iran as well, as the Iranian economy is in terrible shape, and the Saudis are quite publicly telling the world that they have lots of cash. Their buying major soccer stars is a message to their neighbors. The Saudis may see Iran's threats to refine uranium to levels needed for the atom bomb as a bid for influence, and the message back is that Iran can have more influence and economic independence if they join in with the Saudi vision and de-emphasize their nuclear ambitions. (I'm not saying this will work, but if Iran is closer to the Saudi orbit, then Saudi Arabia is no longer a potential nuclear target.)

The Saudi leaders have been wisely investing in a future without fossil fuels, and they are trying to position themselves as an economic powerhouse in the coming decades. The Saudis want to keep the the peace with promises of sharing the economic future, but unlike similar US promises, the Saudis have skin in the game.

In recent weeks there has been more talk of the Saudis making peace with Israel. Again, the Saudi diplomats are in the driver's seat. Instead of the US leading the way, the Saudis are using the carrot of a possible peace deal to get what they can out of the US. They see the Arab-Israeli conflict as a pointless waste of time that hasn't benefitted anyone. On the other hand, they see great potential benefits of Israeli participation in the Saudi vision of the future

In the old Arab mindset, the Palestinian issue was useful: it distracted from infighting and Arab corruption. It was used to create a false sense of Arab unity. In the new Saudi vision, those goals are better addressed by actually trying to build a modern society with transparency and a prosperous future. The Saudis still care about Palestinians but they know that there is no humanitarian disaster and that Palestinians are in no worse shape - and often better shape - than most other Arabs. They will try to leverage peace to get concessions from Israel on the issue, but the Palestinians are an afterthought in the Saudi vision for its role as the leader of the region.

The Saudis want the Middle East to be a player on the world stage in a post-superpower world, and they want to be the ones to set the agenda for the region. So far, they are doing exactly that.

Israel needs to decide on its own vision and determine how close it is to the Saudi version.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Israel blamed for acting like every Western nation

The desire to paint Israel as evil is an all-encompassing obsession for some. But they thirst for new material.

+972 Magazine published an expose about Israel's ties to the Greek military junta in the 1960s:

The relationship blossomed during the dark days of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 and 1974 — a period marked by the brutal repression, imprisonment, torture, and murder of opponents of the regime, and a period that was deliberately omitted from the celebratory narrative Israel promotes.

Israel, was a besieged country in 1967 surrounded by enemies. The Greek coup happened in April - before the Six Day War.

For Israel, a potential ally in the Mediterranean would of course be an attractive prospect to cultivate.

This article mentions, as an aside:

Immediately upon seizing power, the military junta began a campaign to eliminate its real and imagined opponents, an effort embraced or tacitly supported by most Western European countries and the United States.

So Israel was acting exactly as Western European countries and the US did. This was the height of the Cold War, and the junta's anticommunist position was the major factor in this decision-making.

Yet Israel is singled out for not caring about human rights. This was in a year when Israel was being threatened daily with annihilation in Arab newspapers.

When countries choose whom to ally with, they look at shared interests, in how that relationship could help each country politically and economically. Human rights is always a very low priority. This is is true for every country in any time period. It was especially true in the 1960s when nations were divided into pro-Western or pro-communist with little regard to any other issue.

All of that context is missing from the +972 piece.

But it concludes with its own bizarre spin:

This history suggests that the State of Israel was not merely a passive player, following only the will of the great powers; it was and remains a powerful and autonomous promoter of its own interests first and foremost, willing to compromise on values like democracy and human rights in order to gain international support in its own oppression of the Palestinian people.

What do the Palestinians have to do with Israel's relations with Greece? The article didn't mention Palestinians at all before its conclusion. Israel's relations with other countries outside the Arab world have nothing to do with Palestinians. Israel's concerns at the time was with the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War, the Palestinian issue was not even close to the top priority of Israel in those days.

But since the article had no real dirt when exposing Israel's semi-secret relations with the Greek junta, it has to jazz it up to appeal to its audience of Israel-haters - and pretend that everything Israel does is meant to oppress others.

There is nothing embarrassing about how Israel acted. It acted as any other nation would. But when you have Israel, you don't want to compare it to other nations. Doing so dilutes the message that Israel is uniquely evil - and that message is the only reason +972 exists.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!