Former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Turki al-Faisal offers Peace for the Mideast. Subtitled “How Our Plan Could Aid Barack Obama’s Efforts” the op-ed is ostensibly a demonstration of how magnanimous the Saudis are in the efforts to seek Middle East peace. After reading through it and getting to the end, the final paragraph is quite amusing.
Stabilizing the Middle East will require patience, determination, tough diplomacy and empathy. The effort, however, will be well worth the result. As the late Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit said: “The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.”
That saying that ends the op-ed is pretty ironic. For in the article, al-Faisal mentions very little that Saudi Arabia will commit to. Maybe it will require great effort to achieve peace in the Middle East, but the Saudis (and Arabs) won’t be making any such effort. It’s kind of like Tom Sawyer getting all of his friends to whitewash the fence and then pretending that he expended a great effort in doing it himself. Here’s what the Saudis (and Arabs) offer from their end:
The Arab world is willing to pay a high price for peace, not only recognizing Israel as a legitimate state but also normalizing relations and putting a permanent end to the state of hostilities that has existed since 1948.
What a great sacrifice! The Arabs offer to recognize and normalize relations with Israel. Normally negotiations start from the premise that both sides recognize the legitimacy of each other and proceed from there. In this case the Saudis (and the Arab world) offer to recognize Israel’s legitimacy based on the conclusion of Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians – on the Saudis terms!
And it’s also quite generous of him to consider “normalizing relations” with Israel. Again it is an amazing sacrifice to consider. Given Israel’s technological advances and its ongoing efforts to help other nations, it seems that normalization would help the Arab world. The sacrifice being made by the Arabs right now, is by boycotting Israel.
The idea that Israel’s legitimacy should be determined by the approval of a group of countries that routinely deny or severely curtail basic freedoms and equality to their citizens would be funny if it were not so perverse.
But let’s go to the substance of Prince Turki’s article, shall we?
First of all there’s some false history here.
The Oslo Accords of 1993, the first direct agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis, marked a turning point. There was a true spirit of cooperation, expressed through the mutual desire of Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 tragically ended this hopeful development.
After PM Rabin was assassinated Israel withdrew from six cities handing over all responsibilities including security to Yasser Arafat and the PA in late 1995. At the beginning of 1996 Israel was struck with a series of devastating terror attacks over a ten day period. Arafat had been more than happy to receive land, but utterly failed to take responsibility for the territory he was in control of. He allowed Hamas to organize attack Israel. Those terror attacks convinced Israelis that the peace process was too dangerous and were decisive in getting the Israeli electorate to vote for Binyamin Netanyahu. And despite Netanyahu’s reputation of being a hard liner he withdrew Israel from most of Hebron.
What ended the “peace process” was the bad faith of the Palestinians. Arafat continually violated the terms of the agreements he signed with Israel. And after Arafat torpedoed the Camp David summit in 2000, he prepared the “Aqsa intifada” in an attempt to shift blame from his own refusal to make peace onto Israel.
So what does Prince Turki demand from Israel in return for such magnanimity?
In return, we ask Israel to pursue the just course laid out in various international resolutions and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4, 1967; to accept a just solution to the refugee problem according to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194; and to recognize the independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
East Jerusalem? Yes that means that Israel must cede French Hill, Ramot, Ramat Eshkol and other neighborhoods to the north and Gilo to the south of Jerusalem for example. Prince Turki obviously knows that no Israeli government is going to this.
For years the mantra was that peace had to be based on resolutions 242 and 338, in recent years though the Arabs have hearkened back to 194. Part of the problem is that Israel was moving close to 242, so it became necessary to move the goalposts. (Why 194 should be the basis for anything is crazy.) Also 194 contains specific language about refugees:
“the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible”
I suppose the way that Prince Turki interprets this is that it grants all Palestinians the right to return. He would have no problem if Palestinians became the majority in Israel and finished Israel demographically, which is what the “right of return” is code for.
But let’s say he’s serious. We then must remember that there were likely more Jewish refugees from the Arab world than Arab refugees from what was until 1948, Palestine. So why doesn’t Turki offer to start a compensation funds for the Jewish refugees who were forced from their homes by Arab countries in 1948 and the years following the war? Perhaps he could even sweeten the pot by offering to compensate the descendants of Jews who were expelled by Saudi Arabia when it conquered two provinces from Yemen. Of course the answer is that in the Turki’s mind there are only “Palestinian” refugees. No other refugees resulted from Israel’s War of Independence.
If peace is truly the goal, Israel must cease all provocative actions, such as continuing the building of settlements on Palestinian lands, which is a clear violation of international law. If it does not, the world will conclude, as has former president Jimmy Carter, that Israel is interested only in increasing its power and its bargaining position.
Building settlements is provocative? Importing Grads and firing them on civilians isn’t? It is not a clear violation of international law, but rather a selective application of international law, as Dore Gold writes:
As noted above, in many other cases in recent history in which recognized international borders were crossed in armed conflicts and sovereign territory seized, the language of “occupation” was not used — even in clear-cut cases of aggression. Yet in the case of the West Bank and Gaza, where no internationally recognized sovereign control previously existed, the stigma of Israel as an “occupier” has gained currency.
Shimon Peres has offered to discuss the Arab peace initiative anytime, anywhere, and we welcome this response. At this point, the Saudi government is constrained from direct talks with Israel. Egypt and Jordan have been commissioned to meet with Israel on behalf of the Arab world. Once agreements between Palestine, Lebanon and Syria are reached with Israel, Saudi Arabia will join fully in ending hostilities and establishing diplomatic and normal relations with Israel.
The Saudi government “is constrained” from talking turkey with Israel? Please, no need for a passive voice here. The Saudi government refuses to talk with Israel. Please note the Saudi response to President Peres’s offer:
“The disappointing side of President Peres’ comment is that he chose parts of the Arab peace plan and left other parts untouched,” Faisal told reporters on Thursday.
The Arab peace plan is an all or nothing deal. It isn’t a “peace plan” then, but an ultimatum.
Peace will require worldwide efforts. The United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United Nations must embrace the Arab initiatives and pressure Israel to do the same. As Barack Obama takes office, he should not miss this critical opportunity to steer the region toward peace. Obama ought to pursue a comprehensive policy that deals with all the hot spots in the Middle East.
Notice what’s essential here: “pressure Israel.” This is the essence of the “Saudi peace initiatve.” It is a lot of nice sounding words and concepts, which offer little to Israel in return for substantial material concessions by Israel to be forced on Israel by international pressure. The Arabs offer insubstantial initiatives, Israel is supposed to relinquish land. It doesn’t sound all that equitable to me.
Here are a few of the initiatives that Prince Turki recommends:
Call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shebaa Farms in Lebanon. This would remove the issue of “national liberation” from the arsenal of Hezbollah’s propaganda and mitigate Syrian and Iranian interference in Lebanon.
The “national liberation” issue was supposed to have been resolved by Israel’s withdrawal to the international line between Israel and Lebanon in 2000. It was a withdrawal that was endorsed by the UN. That Israel’s occupation of Lebanon is still an issue is because the Arab world is changing the terms of the agreement. Shebaa Farms was Syrian territory and its status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and Syria. Syria ceded Shebaa Farms to its vassal state Lebanon strictly to maintain the “national liberation” issue for Hezbollah. In fact the first sign that the Saudi peace initiative (other than its source) was a fraud from the start is when then Crown Prince Abdullah changed it to demand that Israel withdraw from Lebanon too. That was not originally part of Abdullah’s plan. He only added it after meeting with Bashar Assad as he tried to gin up Arab support for his ultimatum.
Encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations for peace. This would engage Syria and diminish Iranian obstructionism. It would also force Palestinian groups based in Syria to follow the Syrian example.
Would it? Syria has demonstrated time and again that it is interested in being viewed as essential to peace in the region but that it is unwilling to act in any way to promote peace. It teases with its promises and works towards more violence. As Danielle Pletka put it recently:
Herein lies the fatal flaw of this transformational vision. It assumes that Syria’s leaders want Syria to become a normal state, when in fact, it is essential to the regime’s survival that it remain a pariah. Mr. Assad and his mafia have made an art of extorting subsistence assistance from the outside world, most recently by holding out prospects for better relations with the West and Israel. But a new Middle East would mean the end of Mr. Assad, which is why he will always turn back to Iran, and why the road to peace in the Middle East will never run through Damascus.
If you look through this document there is one word you don’t see and that’s “terrorism.” That’s because Prince Turki doesn’t believe that violence against Jews is problematic. Sure he uses the language of “occupation” to justify his vilification of Israel and implicitly justify terror against Israel. But that’s because he realizes that openly stating that killing Jews because they’re Jews isn’t acceptable in polite circles. He understands that some Jew killing is acceptable for the right reasons though.
There is nothing in this op-ed to suggest that Saudi Arabia or the Arab world is any more committed to peace with Israel than it was in 1948. For all the importance that Prince Turki claims to attach to peace, there is no getting around the arrogance and intolerance of the op-ed. This is a document that shows the continued Saudi offense at the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. It betrays an unseriousness about peace and reconcilliation. Recognizing Israel as a “legitimate state” is a steep price? At what bazaar? It’s only a steep price for someone who doesn’t believe that non-Muslims should be allowed sovereignty anywhere in the Middle East.
Instead of words from a blowhard like Prince Turki, what the Middle East needs is some action. Perhaps he could take charge of changing the Durban II conference from an Israel bashing forum to one which actually promotes understanding and coexistence.
It won’t happen, because Prince Turki is used to getting his way without expending any effort. This op-ed reflects a selfish and unproductive outlook. I suppose this is better than giving an actual terrorist forum, but not by much.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
