Reports of secret Saudi-Israeli meetings surface from time to time in the international press. Over the past 30 years there have been quite a number of reports and now, it has happened again. The UK’s Sunday Times published a report three days ago claiming that the Kingdom had agreed to allow Israelis use of Saudi airspace in the event of an Israeli airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The story is a complete fabrication. Even the Israelis say it is false. That is it nonsense — with its claims that the head of Mossad had been in secret talks with Saudi officials and that Mossad is in regular contact with Saudi intelligence — would have been evident to anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the Kingdom and its policies. Sadly not to the Sunday Times, whose publication of hoax Hitler diaries in 1983 remains a landmark for journalistic gullibility.
The reality is far more prosaic but quite simple — and quite fixed: The Kingdom has no contacts with Israel, direct or indirect. There will be no contacts until peace is established in the Middle East. That will only happen when Israel agrees to withdraw from all the lands it has occupied since the 1967 war, including Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and recognizes an independent, sovereign Palestinian state. At that point Saudi Arabia, along with the rest of the Arab world, will recognize Israel and establish normal diplomatic links with it. But only then. Until that time there will be — and is — no contact. That is official Arab policy; it is de facto Arab policy and it is Saudi policy.
Moreover, it is Saudi Arabia that is behind the policy. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, as crown prince, developed it. It was then adopted by the Arab League at the Beirut Summit in 2002. It was again restated by the league at the Riyadh Summit in 2007. Until Israel withdraws and accepts Palestinian independence, the only Arab states that can negotiate are the two that already have diplomatic relations with it: Egypt and Jordan — and, of course, the Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas. That was also a decision of the Riyadh summit — and Saudi Arabia is sticking to it.
Apart from that, the Sunday Times fantasy is at odds with other fundamentals of Saudi foreign policy. The Kingdom does not allow its airspace to be used by other countries to attack a third. It maintains peaceful relations with its neighbors, including Iran. But the most crucial point that has been ignored is that it is not Iran that is the enemy — it is Israel.
The Internet has given conspiracy theorists unlimited scope to broadcast their deluded drivel. What is sad, though, is the extent to which sections of the international media have joined in the fray, allowing themselves to be infected by the Da Vinci Code theory of politics in which behind simple facts lurk hidden explanations. Being realistic, these flights of fantasy are not going to stop. Some reporters are never going to let mundane reality get in the way of a good, sensational story. Conspiracies, backroom deals and secret meetings make so much more exciting reading than the plain truth. That being so, there will probably be more shock-horror reports of Saudi-Israeli schemes and plots before peace finally comes to the Middle East. Most intelligent people, however, will be able to see through them.
