MJ Rosenberg has a fascinating column this week on a potential new axis in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia and Israel… Rosenberg calls for, egad, creative thinking on the Bush Administration’s part to seize the moment on a Palestinian state.
The new ingredient is that the Saudis now view Israel as facing the same threat they now confront: Shiite radicalism. While before they simply said that Israel should just do whatever the Palestinians want to end the conflict, now they are saying that they will work with both Israelis and Palestinians to craft a solution.
That is the meaning of the meeting which Yediot Ahronoth reports took place two weeks ago between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and a top Saudi official. Yediot reports the meeting took place in Jordanian King Abdullah’s Amman palace late at night… The only details Yediot has are these: “The main issue was the threat posed by Iran’s attempts to obtain nuclear weapons and spread Shiite terror in the region. Olmert and his hosts reached an understanding at the meeting that secret intelligence cooperation should be continued against the Iranian threats.”
…If these reports are correct, and most observers believe they are, the Saudis are working with Israel to defuse the greatest single threat to Israel’s existence, that of a nuclear Iran. This is a development that would have been unimaginable a few years ago when Saudi Arabia was the de facto head of the rejectionist front.
Phil,
Here's a tip for you (I'd follow up on it if I were still in the reporting biz.) Back in '92, Rabin came to power looking to make a diplomatic breakthrough with the Arabs. (He had in mind Syria, but was handed the Palestinians by Peres).
As I reported at the time for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the apparent motive was to create a ring of co-existent Arab states modeled, in their relations with Israel, after Egypt, to position against what Rabin saw as the existential threats to Israel: Iran and Iraq.
The lynchpin in such an unofficial alliance would presumably have Saudi Arabia.
Yet, by 1996, the Saudis were assuming a rejectionist front, that included funding Hamas. According to Dennis Ross, in late 2000 Clinton asked the Saudis to convince Arafat to accept a compromise on Jerusalem.
The Saudis said no.
In other words: In '92, Rabin seemed to feel that a diplomatic breakthrough would bring Saudi Arabia onto the American side against Iran and Iraq. At this time, and for the Clinton years, the U.S. mideast team was mostly Bush I veterans.
Yet, the Saudis did nothing to foster peace, and in fact help fund its self destruction, first with the Hamas bombings that elected Netanyahu in '96, and then in sabatoging Clinton's last-ditch effort in 2000.
And then in 2000, the Bush/Bandar dynasty resumes power.
Some questions come to mind: Did Rabin receive unofficial assurances from the Saudis that proved to be false?
If so, did Bush family interests play a role in that?
There may be a major story, or maybe not. But if you want a copy of my reporting from a decade ago, and some leads on who to contact for the followup, drop me a line.
So the Saudis are beginning to feel the heat; not just from their own homegrown jihadists but from the Persian dwarf holocaust denier with nuclear ambition. What are we to make of their offer to Israel for arab league recognition and peace if she relinquishes all of the territory acquired in 67? Have land for peace deals ever brought a moments peace to Israel?
Hey Phil, for a guy who married out and doesn't oberve any Jewish rituals, customs, or beliefs. Who is raising Christian kids, you have a weird obession with the Jews and Israel. Do you ever write a column about ANYTHING else. Or do you sit in a dark room and obsess about the Elders of Zion. Just a question.
Thanks for citing my piece. I do think it would be a happy irony if Bush's invasion of Iraq has created such a miserable situation that it drives the Saudis and the Israelis to conclude that there is no alternative to the peace envisioned in UN 242. Latest poll in Israel shows 67% would talk even to Hamas so the Israelis definitely understand how bad the status quo is.
Your rather rabid critics in Queens and Brooklyn just don't seem to feel the urgency sensed in Tel Aviv. What kind
of distorted Jewish loyalties leads Jews who live 6000 miles from Israel to be so willing to see Israelis fight and die in wars that accomplish nothing. With friends like these….
Bill Pearlman thinks you shouldn't write about Israel because you aren't observant.
Well, here's the facts. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not only threaten observant Jews. It threatens every Jew, gentile or whatever who can end up dying in a terror attack fueled by the hatred that conflict has spawned. If you live in NY, you just don't know when you are going to die for Israel/Palestine. It's as much a local issue here as in Haifa. I'll be damned if my grandkids are going to pay the ultimate price so that religious fanatics can burn down olive trees and torment Palestinian kids in the West Bank. Keep it up, Phil.
Well, well. Looks like the link to MJ Rosenberg's article turns up something interesting…..According to Woodward's book..
"As is well known, the Bush family is very close to the Saudi ruling family. They are so close that when then Governor George W. Bush was thinking of running for President, his father asked Prince Bandar, then Saudi ambassador to the United States, to come to Texas and essentially conduct a tutorial on Middle East issues for the future President. "
So, our Middle East policy IS being highly influenced by (if not outsourced to) a foreign Middle Eastern nation. Only it isn't Israel, its Saudi Arabia. I wonder how Weiss could have missed that little tidbit…Oh I forgot, his blinders won't let him see beyond his single minded obsession.
Avi, all I'm saying is that he isn't Jewish in any area of his life except when it comes to dumping on Israel. And it is the subject of every column he writes. The evil of Israel and the dominance of the dreaded LOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you think that their is something deeply sick about that. Prabably steming from childhood although that's just a speculation.
"Your rather rabid critics in Queens and Brooklyn just don't seem to feel the urgency sensed in Tel Aviv."
MJ, this rabid critic is in Tel Aviv, not Brooklyn or Queens. We are not "urgent" to deal with the unstable, backwards, Arab regimes surrounding us. Israelis know the history of the PLO and mentality of the Arabs.
Re: Phil Weiss
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance..it is the illusion of knowledge"
Stephen Hawking
Hey M.J.
a few things noted;
using double initials before your last name does not add veritas nor does it make you "waspy", especially with a big fat rosenberg sitting in a pile at the end of it. It just makes you seem foolish and makes it obvious you are trying to hide something.
when you rail against the outer boroughs you are only demonstrating some sort of anti-white ethnic snobbery and bias. as you can plainly see, whether from manhattan, ramat gan or poughkeepsie, we can all see right through little philly weiss. we have all known plenty of others just like him and we understand the role of the jew as anti-semite.
Thank you for giving us a little more insight into who you are so we can now see your biased reporting for what it is.
if we throw in with anyone it should be the shia. Iran has never attacked anyone, lebanon is a rising star thanks to the peace between hezbollah and the crazy beirut lifestyle people.
the israelis and the saudis are the past. they are unfun and lame. plus, both are slated for demolition from the jihadist wrecking ball.
better yet, let's not play anyone off anyone else. how about israel and saudi figure out how to get along with their neighbors like normal countries? or leave if they don't like it
Lester: Hear, hear! But do "a people apart" really want to get along with their neighbors?
Maybe i'm just a pessimist, but I find it hard to imagine an Israel that is at peace and just going about its business. What would hold the society together, if not hatred of the outsider?
Trouvere, maybe your butt needs to be spread "apart" and a shofar shoved up.
And it isn't just the comments one sees on this site that make me pessimistic.
trouvere: maybe after that shofar is shoved up your ass you'll stop talking out of your ass and your pessimistic imaginations will subside and be replaced with reality.
bluebell- stop being so awful
trouvere- the question isn't whether a peace between AN israeli people and the middle east is possible. I feel it certainly is. the question is: is peace between THE israelis and the rest of the middle east possible. that is, are these particular semetic and non semetic, european and ethiopian jews capable of investing in the "loss of security" that would be required for them to exist indefinately in that region. I don't know the answer.
Lose the rhetorical, uninformed bullshit.
It's call the Road Map- follow it and there will be peace.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/20062.htm
bluebell- what if they don't follow it
Israel has commited to following the Road Map set out by the the Quartet [the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia]
I guess the muslims don't care too much about the quartet. how about israel just jumps to the end of the map, like go back to the 67 borders.
or better yet, go back to wherever they came from originally so we can all stop walking around with targets on our backs.
america and israel are never going to attempt to genuinly make peace with the arab world. We should get out of there before we are told to leave in a way we dont' like.
it's too bad your such an uninformed dipshit, and a pussy, as well
I'm highly informed and will kick your ass.
survival isn't in the cards for israel. there are too many muslims and too few jews. the number of israelis with actual ethnic connection to the land (semites) is small. many are russian or ethiopian.
arabs are not only breeding faster but they aren't becoming any more accepting of either israel or western hegemony as they grow more advanced (probably the reason Israel is targeting lebanon and Iran ).
If the pilgrims had been surrounded by 300 million indians at similar levels of civilization they would have been wiped out a plymouth rock.
BTW, Israel never accepted the Road Map. It introduced 19 conditions and prerequisites which effectively gutted it. It was only accepted by the Palestinians.
Why anyone would need to be told this, when they could just look at Israel's behavior over the past four years, I don't know.
"BTW, Israel never accepted the Road Map. It introduced 19 conditions and prerequisites which effectively gutted it. It was only accepted by the Palestinians."
Name those "19 conditions and prerequisites".
Israel and the Palestinians agreed to the Road Map, but Arafat started ordering bombings (a breach) before the ink even dried.