According to a 2010 cable from the U.S. embassy in Riyadh disclosed by Wikileaks, the U.S. is extremely pleased with ongoing Saudi efforts to reduce the extent of the Saudi economic boycott of Israel, including a historic compromise over fuel filters made in Israel that are used in General Motors (GM) vehicles.
The Saudi economic boycott of Israel, instituted after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, is carried out under the auspices of the Arab League, though individual member states are able to carry out the specifics of the boycott as they see fit, which gives the Saudis the legal leeway to reduce the terms of the boycott without discussion among Arab League members. Several members, such as Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, do not even enforce the primary boycott anymore (though Saudi Arabia still does) that bans dealings with Israeli firms.
The pace of globalization – container shipping and aircraft manufacture, in particular – have made the boycott increasingly difficult (and unprofitable) for Arab nations to enforce. The Saudi effort has been one of eliminating “secondary and tertiary” aspects of the boycott – which means no longer applying restrictions to non-Saudi firms that do business in Israel (secondary boycott) or to firms that make use of Israel cargo facilities (tertiary boycott).
As an example of how difficult (and unprofitable) the secondary and tertiary aspects of the boycott would be for the Saudis to maintain, take Boeing.
Boeing sells aircraft to Israeli customers like El Al and works with Israeli firms to manufacture parts for F-15 fighters and Apache attack helicopters (primary and secondary boycott conditions) and makes use of Israeli cargo facilities for its air shipping (tertiary conditions). And yet the Saudis do not boycott Boeing. In fact, F-15s and Apaches are used by both the Israeli and Saudi militaries (as are dozens of Boeing-manufactured commercial aircraft used by Saudi Arabian Airlines).
The Saudi royal family, as always, intends to play both sides of the game, and, as always, they are doing an excellent job of it. As evidence of their newfound cooperativeness, Saudi trade officials informed their U.S. counterparts that:
“He [Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade Abdullah Al-Hamoudi] . . . anecdotally explained that the small Israeli-made fuel filters in General Motors vehicles are acceptable as long as they are not shipped directly as spare parts.”
When I read this, I was reminded of Ryszard Kapuscinski’s description of a Soviet customs officer sifting through sacks of grain, to the point of fingering individual grains to make sure they meet “standards”:
The Bedouin bureaucrat removed the fuel filters from the engine, gingerly lifting them up to his nostrils. He was like a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out Israeli goods. It was said that he could identify which kibbutz a bottle of Israeli olive oil had come from by smell alone. He paused to smell every metal fixture, every piece of plastic stripped from the Cadillac – like a debutante sampling her perfumes – looking for the tell-tale essence of Israeli beneath the overpowering reek of gasoline. Even if the Zionists handled the parts in hazmat suits, they wouldn’t throw him off the scent. If it was “Made in Israel,” he would flush it out of the undergrowth.
Or was it, disappointingly (and probably, realistically), just a mundane matter of a web search for serial numbers, skimming through a manual and making a couple of phone calls to GM? The diplomatic record is, sadly, silent, on the specifics.
No matter how the Saudis arrive at their decision, though, the U.S. is indeed grateful for the effort to “simplify” things:
“Al-Hamoudi’s commitment to investigate all prohibited requests, and to be the point of contact on future complaints, further reflects Saudi Arabia’s high-level engagement on all of its GCC and WTO trade commitments. Saudi Arabia’s willingness to investigate private entities is also a noteworthy indication of how seriously the SAG [Saudi Arabian Government] takes this issue, and the SAG’s strong commitment to honor its commitments.”
Kind of takes the wind out of the “if you don’t recognize a Palestinian state at the UN in September, we will raise the price of oil!” threat, doesn’t it?
