From Riyadh to Jihad: Perspective on the Arab Summit in Beirut

Saudi Arabia has remained the most consistent opponent of Jewish sovereignty in the middle east, ever since King Saud of Saudi Arabia made that clear to US President Franklin Roosevelt in March, 1945, Since the Saudis would never compromise with the idea of a sovereign Jewish state in an area of the world that the Moslems viewed as a “Wakf” or exclusive to Moslem rule. For fifty seven years, that Saudi policy has remained unchanged.

As recently as January,1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin Called accused the Saudi Arabian government of providing direct finance for the Islamic Hamas terror network, whose express purpose was to overthrow the Jewish State and to replace it with an Islamic state of Palestine. Rabin also took that occasion to express his disappointment that the outgoing Bush administration had done nothing to use US influence to stop Saudi Support for the Hamas. The Clinton administration also neglected to use its Influence with the Saudis to stop Riyadh sponsorship of the Hamas and Hizbullah.

As for the Saudi plan that will be floated this week at the Arab summit in Beirut, far from calling for recognition of Israel, the now-published Saudi plan, made available to Reuters and posted at here, instead calls for Israel’s dismemberment.

The Saudi plan would solves the “problem of Palestinian refugees in conformity with Resolution 194”, without any mention of UN resolution 242 that followed the 1967 war and UN resolution 338 that followed the 1973 war which guaranteed the security of all States as a condition for any withdrawal from territories.

UN resolution 194, adopted after the 1948 war, guarantees the 3.6 million Arab refugees and their descendents left villages in 1948 the “inalienable” right of repatriation to the 531 Arab villages that were replaced by Israeli cities, collective farms and woodlands.

The Saudi plan calls for Israel to relinquish control of its most of Its capital city, Jerusalem, by demanding that Israel unilaterally withdrawal to the 1949-1967 cease fire lines that divided the city, and by mandating the “right of return” for Palestinian Arab refugees who have been wallowing in UN refugee camps since 1948 to exercise their right to go back to the Arab neighborhoods inside Jerusalem that were uprooted during the 1948 war.

In other words, the Saudi plan is an elegant way of advocating that that the vast majority of Israel’s population would be displaced.

Since Saudi Arabia remains a prime business partner of the US, and a prime supplier of oil to the world, the voice of Saudi Arabia is hardly to be dismissed.

The question remains: Why has Israel reacted with little more than the Shrug of a diplomatic shoulder to the Saudi initiative?

Perhaps the Israeli attitude has something to do with the fact that Israel has established a “modus vivendi” business-like relationship with the vast majority of the Moslem Arab world, reflected in the fact that Israel quietly exports more than 1.5 billion dollars of goods and products to the same Moslem Arab world that maintains no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state

There is an atmosphere of optomism and wishful thinking throughout Israel which posits that Saudi Arabia is ready to conduct “normal” relations with the Jewish state. Not diplomatic relations, not a peace treaty. Business relations.

After all the philosophy of the “new middle east”, posited by Israel’s Foreign minister, Shimon Peres, is that good business relations will Lead to peace.

The question remains: Does the Saudi initiative reflect a business-like Approach to upgrade Israel’s status in the middle east marketplace, or is this the beginning of an international Moslem Jihad/Holy War to displace the Jewish state

Time will tell.