The more time that passes, the more feathers are plucked from the “Saudi initiative” – the informal plan of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah for “complete” Israeli-Arab peace.

But prior to a serious debate about the ever-changing substance of this initiative, there are a few things worth knowing about Saudi Arabia.

Between the years 1974 and 2001 the small Saudi Arabian kingdom sold petroleum and its products at a total sum of 1,300 billion dollars. Or in words: One-thousand three hundred billion dollars.

These legendary oil revenues were not invested in developing the country. Product per capita in Saudi Arabia dropped from 29,000 dollars annually in 1980 to 7,400 dollars this year. Unemployment skyrocketed to 16 percent. Education on all levels is crude and behind the times. There are no good universities in Saudi Arabia, no research institutes, no culture. There is no hi-tech. No army. Industry and agriculture are losing enterprises that are subsidized.

So where is the money? It was stolen and divvied up by the members of the royal house. According to estimates made by Merril Lynch, the financial assets held by the wealthy Saudis outside its borders amount to 1,000 billion dollars. 1,000 billion dollars.

Five percent of the Saudi wealth would solve not only the destitution of all the Palestinian refugees, but could also lay the foundation for the existence of a prosperous Palestinian economy for generations to come. But what do the princes in the Saudi court care about the fate of their brethren who wallow in the camps?

Saudi Arabia remains a corrupt medieval kingdom in which the rich play with their technological gadgets and hold their assets safe in foreign banks. There is no democracy in Saudi Arabia, no equal rights, no civil legal system. It is no surprise that it is ruled by a crown-prince who would have been convicted in any court in the enlightened world of the crime of bigamy.

Nothing prepares him and his ilk to initiate an Israeli-Palestinian “peace plan.”

Saudi Arabia revises its initiative: No more normalization

Yedioth Ahronoth (p. 2) by Smadar Peri — The Saudi Arabians are now offering less to Israel in return to a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders. From now on there is no talk of full normalization. Instead, Israel is being offered complete, but “frozen” peace.

This clarification was presented by Saudi Arabia in the meeting of Arab foreign ministers that was held yesterday in Cairo in advance of the Arab League summit meeting in Beirut at the end of March. Political sources said that full peace would mean formal diplomatic relations and nothing more. Conversely, normalization also includes trade relations, tourism and visits — which is something that most Arab leaders are averse to.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher lowered expectations yesterday when he defined the Saudi peace initiative as “ideas” and stressed that “there are a few initiatives now, among which are the Saudi ideas.”

These articles appeared on March 11, 2002 in Yediot Aharonot

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