Saudi Arabia is one of the most influential players in Arab-Israeli peacemaking. But given its pivotal position in international energy markets - and the fact that it has no need of US financial aid - it is almost immune to American pressure.
WASHINGTON - Pro-Israeli lobbyists here won the support of 77 senators (out
of 100) for a letter sent to President Barack Obama that urged him to "press
Arab leaders" to consider making dramatic, upfront peace overtures to Israel.
But one key Arab state, Saudi Arabia, has already clearly communicated
its refusal to make any such gestures at this time.
On July 31, Saudi
Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told journalists in Washington that,
"Confidence-building measures will not bring peace. What is required is a
comprehensive approach that defines the final outcome at the outset and launches
into negotiations over final status issues."
Saudi Arabia is one of the
most influential players in Arab-Israeli peacemaking. But given its pivotal
position in international energy markets - and the fact that it has no need of
US financial aid - it is almost immune to American pressure.
In their
role as "Guardians" of two of Islam's three holiest cities - Mecca and Medina -
Saudi Arabia's monarchs have always had a strong concern for the welfare of the
Muslim institutions in Islam's third holy city, Jerusalem - and a desire to see
a fair and durable final peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
However, like the vast majority of other Arabs, Saudi Arabia's rulers
are currently very wary of getting drawn into any diplomatic process that aims
not at securing the final peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors
but rather at further, possibly lengthy, "interim" moves.
From the Arab
perspective, that focus on endless "interim" steps dominated the eight years of
former US president Bill Clinton's Arab-Israeli diplomacy - and meanwhile,
Israel continued to implant scores of thousands of additional settlers into East
Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank throughout those years.
Israel's
implantation of additional settlers into the West Bank continued under former US
president George W Bush. Now, there are 500,000 settlers in the West Bank -
including more than 200,000 in East Jerusalem alone.
Their presence
considerably complicates the quest for a fair and sustainable peace. It is also,
under international law, quite illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949
forbids any government military occupying land that is not its own from
implanting its own civilians into the occupied area.
The Saudis argue
that Israel deserves no special "rewards" for stopping its continued
perpetration of this illegal act. They say that the US, which gives substantial
financial and military aid to Israel, should work to ensure that this stoppage
occurs forthwith - and that later, in the context of the final peace accord, the
vast majority of the illegally implanted settlers should return to Israel along
with Israel's occupation army.
Many Americans "have said if the Arabs do
something nice for Israel this will somehow get you something in terms of an
Israeli gesture - progress towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians",
noted Chas W Freeman, a distinguished former US diplomat who was ambassador to
Saudi Arabia (1989-92) and has a deep knowledge of the kingdom's affairs.
"In fact absolutely none of the gestures that have been made, including
the very important one of the Arab League's Beirut Declaration of 2002 - the
so-called Arab Peace Initiative - has resulted in any positive response from the
Israelis. They have been content to pocket whatever has been offered and to do
nothing in return."
Freeman observed that, "There is no predisposition
whatsoever - in fact a lot of predisposition to the contrary - on the Arab side
to pay for what Israel, in its own interest, ought to do."
The strength
of the Saudis' opposition to additional interim-focused confidence-building
measures in the Israeli-Arab arena - like the kingdom's views on several other
issues, including Iran - seem not to have been well understood by all members of
the Obama administration.
In April, Dennis Ross, an administration
official with a shifting and fuzzy - but apparently high-level - portfolio,
visited the kingdom and attempted to lecture King Abdullah ibn Abdul-Aziz about
the need to confront "the Iranian threat". But New York Times columnist Roger
Cohen has written that when Abdullah got a word in edgeways and asked some
reasonable questions about Washington's policy, Ross was unable to answer and
appeared "a little flustered".
Ross was the man who throughout Bill
Clinton's presidency had been in charge of all Israeli-Arab peace negotiations,
and presumably dealt closely with the Saudis and other Arabs. Observers noted
that it therefore seemed strange that he did not know how to deal effectively
with the man who, before he became king in 2005, had already been the power
behind the Saudi throne for more than a decade.
In early June - the day
before the much-publicized address Obama made to the Muslim world from Cairo -
Obama made a quick visit to Saudi Arabia and had his first meeting with
Abdullah. There are some indications that during that meeting he may have asked
Abdullah to undertake some confidence-building steps towards Israel in return
for an Israeli halt on settlement-building.
In the Cairo speech, Obama
said, "The Arab states must recognize that the Arab peace initiative was an
important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities." He called on
the Arab states to act "to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions
that will sustain their state, [and] to recognize Israel's legitimacy".
The clear implication was that he was asking the Arab states to
undertake these actions now, or in return for an Israeli settlement-building
halt, rather than as an eventual reward after the conclusion of final peace
treaties.
On July 22, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia's tiny neighbor
and ally Bahrain published an opinion piece in the Washington Post in which he
called on his fellow Arabs to start sending help to Palestinian institutions and
to reach out to the Israeli public - though notably not, at this point, to the
Israeli government.
Analysts noted that that initiative from Bahrain was
most likely encouraged by the Saudi government - or at least, was cleared with
Riyadh.
George Mitchell, the US envoy for Middle East peace, was in
Cairo on July 27. He told reporters that Washington was eager to secure a
"comprehensive" peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. He also asked all
the countries in the region to set the "context" for starting these
negotiations.
"By comprehensive I mean peace between Israel and
Palestinians, between Israel and Syria, between Israel and Lebanon and the full
normalization of relations between Israel and the countries of the region," he
said.
"We're not asking anyone to achieve full normalization at this
time. We recognize that will come further down the road in this process." But he
added that Washington did want to see "meaningful steps by individual
countries".
However, the statements the Saudi foreign minister made in
late July seemed like a clear indication that Saudi Arabia would not be taking
such steps in the near future.
Three days later, Kuwait's ruler, Sheikh
Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, met with Obama at the White House. He, like the Saudis,
spelled out that normalization with Israel would come about after the conclusion
of the final peace, rather than as a lead up to it.
The Saudis meanwhile
seem to have given serious thought to how exactly they might help the
still-struggling Palestinian institutions in the occupied territories.
The biggest problem there has been the stark conflict between the
US-based Fatah party, which administers Palestinian institutions in some
portions of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Islamist Hamas party, which
governs in Israeli-besieged Gaza.
In February 2007, King Abdullah
brokered a brief reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. But the George W Bush
administration in Washington conspired with some Fatah strongmen to break the
terms of that Saudi-brokered deal, which then fell apart.
Now, as Fatah
winds up its important Sixth General Conference in Bethlehem, King Abdullah has
once again issued a clear call for unity among the Palestinians.
As a
few thousand pious Muslims now prepare to leave both Gaza and the West Bank to
travel to Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage, there is some expectation their
Saudi hosts may be able to do some good reconciliation work while they are
there.
Helena Cobban is a veteran Middle East analyst and
author. She blogs at www.JustWorldNews.org.
(Inter Press Service)
