Israeli-Saudi normalization is a ridiculous charade, at least for now.
“Palestine” is mostly a priority of Western leftists who harbor self-imposed guilt, as well as of poor Arabs who are unexcited about their lives.
Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
Share this essay using the link: https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/israeli-saudi-normalization-is-a-charade
cha·rade (noun) – an absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance
Visiting U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan laid out to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday the opportunity currently available for Israel to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia if the Jewish state agrees to a pathway to a future Palestinian state.
Sullivan arrived in Israel earlier in the day after holding “constructive” talks on the Biden administration’s “comprehensive vision for an integrated Middle East region” with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The kingdom said the two discussed a “semi-final” version of a wide-ranging security agreement between the countries. The agreements are considered a major part of Washington’s efforts to bring Saudi Arabia around to recognizing the State of Israel for the first time — efforts complicated by the ongoing war in Gaza.
The Saudis have long called for an independent Palestinian state to be created along Israel’s 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Some pundits say this is likely unattractive for Netanyahu, whose government hinges on support from hardliners who oppose a two-state solution and support Israeli settlements on lands Palestinians want for that state.
However, also this week, Israel’s National Unity center-left party minister Chili Tropper rejected establishing a Palestinian state in exchange for normalization with Saudi Arabia, telling Army Radio that “we are against” such a move.
This appears to be the mainstream view in Israel, not because we are against normalization with Saudi Arabia, but because the Saudis cannot guarantee peace and prosperity for Israel vis a vis the Palestinians.
Anyone who has been paying attention during the last, I don’t know, 100 years can easily detect that a Palestinian state, right now, would be nothing more than a glorified launching pad for more virulent, antisemitic terrorism aimed at Israel.
Some argue that a Palestinian state would make the Palestinians more accountable in the “international community” — but more accountable to whom exactly? There is no real “international community” and there will always be countries that are willing to “safeguard” (i.e. enable) the Palestinians, such as Iran, Qatar, and even Russia and China.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Europe are increasingly weak, especially in the Middle East. Just ask Saudi Arabia; in 2021, the Biden administration cut off its support for the Saudis’ military campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. Washington later removed the Houthis from its list of terrorist organizations.
Starting in 2006 with Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then repeatedly — in 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021 — in clashes between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the U.S. worked to impose a ceasefire.
The result was a greatly emboldened Iran and terrorist proxies confident in the United States’ determination to step in and prevent their defeat. At the same time, U.S. forces largely withdrew from the Middle East, leaving a diplomatic and strategic vacuum readily filled by other powers.
Before long, China had signed a 25-year oil-for-technology-and-arms deal with Iran and negotiated a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, while Russia began purchasing many thousands of Iranian-built drones and missiles.
By 2023, the Middle East had become a powder keg with multiple Iranian flashpoints. Needed only was a spark. It came in the form of a belated American attempt to broker a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That treaty, if achieved, would have threatened Iran with a Saudi-Israeli military and economic front and, more intolerably from Tehran’s perspective, a Saudi nuclear program.
One could make the argument that wrangling Gaza away from Hamas (i.e. Iran) and into the arms of the Saudis, at least in the interim, would make a Palestinian state more attractive in Israel’s eyes.
But the Saudis do not really care about the Palestinians; they care about U.S. security guarantees, which are being conditioned with Saudi recognition of Israel because Biden’s administration and his leftist Democrats wants to (a) one-up Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords in the run-up to November’s presidential election, and (b) covet the growing Arab and Muslim populations in America.
Let’s recall a quote from one Muslim Arab who said:
“When I was an extremist Islamist fundamentalist, I would only vote Left. Why is that? I saw them as very stupid. I would fear the conservatives because they come with principle. That’s not someone they can brainwash. But the Left, I know they have no values and no principles to begin with. I dare you to find one Islamic extremist that votes for Donald Trump.”
“They give their vote to the leftist who wants to run around in Pride parades. Islamic extremists are against gays and homosexuals and transgenders, but they want the Left to go and get busy with that. They want them to go speak about the climate, go speak about abortion, go kill yourselves, go do that.”
“What is the fundamentalist and jihadi agenda for the West? The future of the West “has to be Muslim. This is the correct religion. This is the religion that all of humanity needs to be a part of Islam. And we will not stop until it enters every home.”
Meanwhile, for Saudi Arabia, the price of recognizing Israel is worth it, as long as the sailing goes smoothly with the Palestinians. But we have a rather enormous sample size to know that the Palestinians have never sailed smoothly. Look at what they did:
In Jordan in the 1970s – an armed conflict between Jordanian King Hussein and the Palestine Liberation Organization, in which the PLO tried to assassinate the king, known as “Black September”
In South Lebanon starting in the late 1960s – a multi-sided armed conflict initiated by Palestinian militants against Israel in 1968 and against Lebanese Christian militias in the mid-1970s, which served as a major catalyst for the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975
In Kuwait in the early 1990s – Many of a few hundred-thousand Palestinians living in Kuwait sided with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, leading to these Palestinians’ expulsion after the war.
If you want to know why virtually no Arab or Muslim country has taken in Palestinian refugees since Hamas waged war against Israel on October 7th, despite “standing in solidarity with Gaza,” it is because the wise know better than to make the same mistakes that Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait made.
When things inevitably go wrong with the Palestinians and their “state,” do you really expect the Saudis to police them? Or the Americans for that matter? In Israel, we are not naive enough to think that anyone, other than Israel, is willing to deal with the Palestinians — because that has been the broken-record story for the last 76 years.
Plus, the Saudis have bigger fish to fry than worrying about a few million Arabs somewhere off in the distance who offer no real economic or other value. As kids from the streets would say, the Palestinians are “chump change.” It is sad to say, but this is the reality. Israel knows it, the Saudis know it, and probably deep down the Americans know it too.
One Saudi author, Rawaf al-Saeen, said a few years ago:
“I’m willing to host a Jew in my house, give him food, and a bed to sleep, but I would never let a Palestinian in my house.”
“There’s nothing Saudi Arabia didn’t give you (the Palestinians). It even established a state for you. King Fahad, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan asked him to finance the Contras rebel groups, he said, ‘One good turn deserves another. Give me a Palestinian state.’ Reagan said okay. They agreed upon a Palestinian state. King Fahad informed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat they have gotten a Palestinian state. Arafat ran away and agreed to meet King Fahad only 10 years after all of this. Arafat wasn’t interested in a Palestinian state.”
“None of you (the Palestinians) want a Palestinian state, since you have no case, no country, and no land. This land belongs to Israel according to the Quran, and you are displaced people scattered from all over: Mongols, Turkmens, Circassians, Armenians, Gypsies. You have nothing in Palestine. Palestine is the State of Israel for the people of Israel.”
Yet the Biden administration is hellbent on shoving a Palestinian state down our throats, via Israeli-Saudi normalization. The conversation might look something like this:
U.S. to Saudi Arabia: “Recognize Israel, and you get a Palestinian state, more military support from us, and ‘civilian’ nuclear power.”
The Saudis: “Uh, verbal assurances on Palestine are fine. Tell us more about the other stuff.”1
“Palestine” is mostly a priority of Western leftists who harbor self-imposed guilt, as well as of poor Arabs who are unexcited about their lives. Arab ruling elites, like the Saudis, do not really care, so why should Israel?
Especially after October 7th.
Richard Hanania on X
Charade is right. It's like forcing someone to play a part they don't want to play. Why is Israel responsible for babysitting a dangerous bully? These people are living in some perverse fantasy where Israel accepts to be a sacrificial lamb. Healthy people create healthy boundaries for a reason. Psych 101.
Western Marxists, along with Islamists, comprised the PLO terrorist org and they are still waging war against Israel as members of the Islamo/Leftist Alliance (a.k.a. Red/Green Alliance). What the Saudis want or don't want is irrelevant; they are as scared of the Alliance as Western politicians are. The Alliance is STILL FIGHTING THE WAR OF 1948 AGAINST ISRAEL, USING THE PHONY PALESTINIAN CAUSE. LET'S STOP GIVING IT CREDIBILITY!
Note the following quote from PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 31, 1977. "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.... [T]he moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."