Date: 25/10/2023 Time: 09:52
By Pinhas Inbari
Is Saudi Arabia returning to normalizing relations with Israel? Will Saudi Arabia enter into the secret of the preparations for the day after the elimination of Hamas and participate in efforts to rebuild Gaza from the ruins? There are encouraging signs that it is, and in recent days we have witnessed a series of Saudi statements against Hamas, and so far Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country that attacks Hamas almost officially. The person who set the tone was Prince Turki Al-Faisal in a lecture in Washington, one of the most senior members of Saudi Arabia. He was ambassador to Washington and former head of the intelligence services. In the past, he expressed pro-Palestinian positions and created ties with the Israeli left.
He now accuses Hamas of giving Israel the justification to destroy Gaza, and that the atrocities it committed on the kibbutzim detract from its pretension to speak in the name of Islam. Then Saudi TV, Al-Arabiya, ambushed Hamas senior, Khaled Mashaal. He thought he had come to give his well-known replicas about the Muqawama, and instead was exposed to a surprise attack by the interviewer who blamed him for the Gaza disaster, and asked difficult questions about Hamas’s very ideology about the Muqawama.
This line preceded the very important meeting that took place earlier this week between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, and reports in Saudi newspapers indicate that they also discussed the situation in Gaza and issues related to normalizing relations with Israel, such as the nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes, and it turns out that the US senator supports this on condition that American experts work inside the reactor and the uranium rods are removed from it.
Why did Saudi Arabia decide on this new line? It must have understood that Israel is serious about its declarations to eliminate Hamas, and is impressed by the American determination to come to the aid of its most obvious ally, and it immediately makes the consequences for itself, which has been pretty much abandoned by the United States, and has gone out against its will to graze in foreign fields: China, Russia and Iran, and is really interested in returning home to the warm embrace of the historic alliance with the United States, where it is its natural place.
But in order for that to happen, Israel must take into account several matters that are important to Saudi Arabia, besides what the United States will give it in the form of modern weapons and a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes, matters related to it and Israel.
First of all, to calm the Palestinian arena. To give the Palestinians something good, to stop the rampant hilltop boys in the West Bank, and of course to calm the tension surrounding the Temple Mount, which Israel is the main factor causing it.
Second, in view of the tent cities in the southern Gaza Strip, displaced Gazans should be allowed to return to their homes in the north when the fighting ends. When Saudi Arabia sought a way to reconcile with Assad, it demanded that he allow Sunni refugees to return to their homes. He promised, but did not promise to keep, and the process of reconciliation was cut short at this point.
Saudi Arabia sees itself as the Sunni Arab power that remained standing after the Arab storm as responsible for the Sunnis. They will not be able to get closer to Israel if a new Nakba is initiated, especially in light of the positions of the key ministers in the government, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. If Simcha Rothman sees the goal of the war as that he can ride his bicycle in Gaza, Saudi Arabia will not enter if Israel does not leave the day after the war. Second condition, that Qatar will leave Gaza. Saudi Arabia and Qatar will not coexist, and if Qatar was the Gulf body that was the link between Hamas and Israel, the day after Hamas should include the replacement of Qatar with Saudi Arabia, and the rest of our friends from the Gulf.
It is still not clear that this is a Saudi condition, but reconstruction efforts will include not only Gaza but also the West Bank. Perhaps it is no coincidence that just these days an article by a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, Gaith Al-Omari, who settled in the United States, appeared and published an article title says it all: How did the Palestinian Authority let its people down? I know Gaith al-Omari, a man who was close to Abu Mazen, And Abu Mazen is the one who connected us. He represents an entire generation of talented intelligentsia that left Palestine because it did not find its place in the Palestinian Authority. They did not want to join the militias, and as soon as they realized that the PA was not building statehood, but militias, they dispersed in exile.
After Abu Mazen insulted the new Saudi ambassador, Nayef al-Sudairi, when he sent him to present his credentials not to him, as required by the protocol, but to the pro-Iranian foreign minister, Riad al-Maliki, then if Saudi Arabia thought of renewing aid to Ramallah, now not only will it not renew, but will also disqualify the PLO as a partner in Gaza’s reconstruction.
Does Ghaith Omari represent the lost, educated and high-quality Palestinian generation that will return from the Diaspora voluntarily to rebuild the ruins of the militia regime?
Pinhas Inbari is a veteran Arab affairs correspondent who formerly reported for Israel Radio and Al Hamishmar newspaper, and currently serves as an analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
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