Crown Prince Abdullah visited the United States last week to pitch the Saudi peace proposal, which was presented to, and accepted by, the Arab states at the Arab Summit held several weeks ago in Lebanon. The basis of the proposal is land for peace, yet it actually offers much more. It offers Israel and its Arab neighbors an opportunity to turn back the clock to 1967 and to forgive, forget, and move on. It calls upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories in Palestine, and other illegally occupied Arab lands, in return for complete recognition of its right to exist, and normalized relations with its Arab neighbors. More importantly, it offers the world an opportunity for peace, and also hope that this century will not be plagued, as was the past century, with an Arab-Israeli conflict that kept one of the world’s most significant regions bogged down in perpetual turmoil, and the rest of the world polarized by Zionist demands that the world be aligned according to each nation state’s level of cooperation with Israel and submission to Zionist dictates.
Rather than support the plan, or the meeting, pro-Israeli media pundits in the United States went to work discrediting Saudi Arabia, and counterbalancing any possible gains from the meeting that might soften the impression that the Bush administration has good reasons to be unequivocally behind Israel. Perhaps, the most bitter and hateful example of the pro-Israeli media’s attitude, is the Washington Times editorial, "More Saudi Lies" (April 24). The editorial begins, saying: " As President Bush prepares for the visit of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah, the administration must free itself from the platitudes and talking points ordinarily used to describe the "strength" of US Saudi relations." The editorial goes on to say: "Few regimes have done more to undermine US foreign policy interests in recent years than the regime in Saudi Arabia." The author of the article, thought to be someone from the Israeli lobby rather than an actual Times reporter or editor, proceeds to note that Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to England penned a poem in which he says Palestinian suicide bombers, "died to honor my God’s words." He then refers to an NBC interview with Saudi foreign policy advisor, Adel Al-Jubair, as a "peppering" of tough questions, to which Jubair did not adequately, or appropriately respond.
When the NBC interviewer questioned Al-Jubair about the poem, and asked if the ambassador’s sentiments reflected the Saudi position on suicide bombings, Jubair answered that these were the personal reflections of an individual who was outside Saudi Arabia when the poem was written. The Time’s editorial claimed that Jubair’s statement was as an attempt to justify "Arab terrorism and Saudi anti-Semitism." When asked whether the recent Saudi telethon, which raised $92 million for families of Palestinian martyrs was a statement of Saudi support for suicide bombings, Jubair answered that the Saudi people see the Palestinian suicide bombers as desperate, and driven to such action. He also said that he was not able to determine whether or not, considering the circumstances, such action is morally right or wrong. The editorial writer was obviously disappointed that Al-Jubair had refused to be dragged into making statements that would cause Saudi Arabia to be pinned to the mat for opinions, and actions of private Saudi citizens, something that most Americans can understand and appreciate. The Saudi people, same as American people, have the right to express their sympathy, or to extend monetary relief to impoverished families, and this seems appropriate considering that poverty and hopelessness have been identified as two of the primary elements of despair that lead to suicide bombings.
Interestingly, though predictably, the editorial did not offer a single criticism or question regarding Israel’s historic behavior towards the Palestinian people, the suspected massacre in Jenin, or the fact that Israel is in fact the illegal occupier of Arab lands, which is the cause of the conflict. Instead, the editorial offers a very distorted and disturbing assessment of the situation, saying: " If Saudi Arabia had not sought to destroy Israel in 1948, there would never have been a Palestinian refugee problem," and "had the Saudi’s been willing to use some of their petrodollars to resettle (emphasis added) Arab refugees, instead of inculcating them with hatred and leaving them to rot in fetid refugee camps, peace with Israel would have become a reality a long time ago."
As if this obvious attempt to reclaim the moral high ground was not enough to confuse and anger readers, the Times delivered what it no doubt believed would be the death blow to any positive outcome from the meeting, or positive public opinion of Saudi Arabia, saying in its conclusion: " The German newspaper Die Welt has reported that Saudi Arabia financed the escape of 4,000 agents of Osama Bin Laden from Afghanistan and to Lebanon, and has offered 5,000 for each Al-Qaeda member who resettles (emphasis added) in the West Bank and Gaza." It is possible that this statement sets the stage for increased Israeli violence in the territories, and a further delayed Israeli withdrawal, under the pretense that Israel is this time in pursuit of Al-Qaeda, in both Palestine and Lebanon. Whenever Israel wants to attack any of its neighbors, or murder anyone, it claims to be in pursuit of terrorists, or reacting to security threats.
Proponents of peace in the Middle East are waiting to see whether the Bush administration will be able to move forward on any peace proposal, whether Saudi sponsored or not. All signs seem to indicate that the closer we get to peace, the more desperate those opposed to peace become, and in their desperation they can, and do say just about anything, true or untrue. They are desperate to make the case that Israel is justified in its redeployment into Palestinian-controlled lands, and that murdering civilians is also justifiable since Israel was the scene for several suicide bombings, forgetting that Israel began its war against the people of Palestine as far back as 1948 in the Deir Yassin massacre, which has been followed by numerous other crimes against the Palestinian people that went unpunished.
The United States is a diverse nation, and a nation of people who mostly believe their country can and should have friends among all the nations of the world, while those who wish to isolate the United States, attack and condemn any friend, or potential friend of the United States that is opposed to the Israeli occupation in Palestine, to the extent that friends are becoming increasingly hard to find. Nevertheless, Israel’s repeated claim that it is a friend of the United States is more and more being disproved, and the people of the United States are beginning to say quietly, that with friends like Israel, who needs enemies?
