Israel should stop ‘PRing’ Saudi Arabia as if it’s the next country that will initial the Abraham Accords and normalize with the Jewish state. This kind of targeting just will not do.
The latest statement by Israeli president Isaac Herzog that he will be willing to visit Riyadh ‘publicly’ and establish relations with the Saudi leadership is a ‘hopeful pulling’ technique that this is going to happen. Indeed, the implication of the statement is it’s already happening and the visit is a foregone conclusion.
Herzog:"I would like to have a public trip to #SaudiArabia"
— Qasemebnolhasan (@Qasemebnlhasan) May 2, 2022
The head of the Zionist regime called for a trip to Saudi & for Riyadh to join the compromise agreements.
Increasing insecurity in the region with the help of proxy terrorists is part of the joint cooperation btw the 2. pic.twitter.com/DP36q5GWm6
Of course it’s a media play on words with the bandwagon being Israel, this is not a make believe story. Under no circumstances the Saudi leadership did say it will establish relations with Tel Aviv unless Israel moves on the peace road vis-a-vis the Palestinians. There is a continuing targeting by the Jewish state, and has been so for a very long time despite the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock and that means there will continue to be a Saudi-Israel freeze if such a phrase can be used despite Jewish wishful thinking and fairytale.
The recent replies of Prince Turki Al Faisal, ex-chief of Saudi intelligence, and it can reasonably be argued he still reflects Saudi foreign policy, should hammer the point across that Riyadh is not interested in handshakes unless there is a Palestinian-Israeli deal and it will not put itself in a tight corner because of its global pan-Islamic leadership unlike say Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.
His commentary is frank, transparent and clear with no mincing of words. Two interesting interrelated things come out of what he said. First he argued there should be sanctions imposed on Israel for its invasions of different Arab countries; and these sanctions should be like those imposed on Russia by western states for its military action in Ukraine. Both countries are committing the same aggression Prince Turki argues.
He was also scathing about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. While he said there can be a political solution the Prince argued this is not happening and that what he sees on-the-ground is that the Palestinian people remain under Israeli occupation and violent attacks against them are being constantly with almost daily deaths.
Prince Turki al Faisal interview. Says KSA feels let down by the United States and perceives hypocrisy in the US response to Russia's invasion. Says what Russia did is no different from what Israel has done.
— Steven A. Cook (@stevenacook) May 2, 2022
Ok, then why is cool to sanctions on Moscow?https://t.co/V559zgJoox
He also added Palestinian land thefts are continually being made by Israel despite the assurance it provided to Arab countries when it signed with them the Abraham Accords in the late 2020.
Prince Turki’s comments couldn’t be clear than that and which Saudi officials including the country’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman have made time and again. Clearly they are not going to be swayed, not now or in the near future regardless of what happens in the different parts of the Arab region.
So Israeli officials should take it upon themselves to stop uttering the normalization charade for Arab countries including those that signed with Tel Aviv are not buying such words. Normalization yes, but it must be conditioned to Palestinian aspirations. And this means the accords were linked to transactional interests put forward by the previous republican administration of Donald Trump. They were part of a ‘locked era’.
If Israel is really genuine then it must be willing to negotiate and make decisive concessions to the Palestinians. Its Israeli actions that matters. The bloody and violent acts of Israeli soldiers in the Al Aqsa Mosque last Ramadan put lots of question marks on the real intentions of the Jewish state and which Arab governments are very irritable with as demonstrated by Jordan, Egypt and UAE governments, in Europe and the USA. Israel can’t continue to talk about peaceful normalization with Arabs while attacking the people it occupies.
Meanwhile Herzog is adamant. He says he will be happy to visit Saudi Arabia publicly but doesn’t elaborate on that. The question that begs itself is did he visit the Kingdom privately and if so when? There were reports at the time and when Benjamin Netanyahu was in power that he met with the Saudi Crown Prince in NEOM, the Saudi mega project on the Red Sea though it was never confirmed.
What Herzog did emphatically say is that he wants the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords, almost waiting for it to happen. We wait and see!
