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Jewish World Review Dec. 5, 2006 /14 Kislev, 5766 Olmert's motive for providing the Saudis with an unwarranted propaganda victory in the US and Israel is understandable By Caroline B. Glick
As the Palestinians push forward with their Iranian-sponsored, Arab supported jihad, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responds by announcing his intention to release thousands of terrorists from prison and throw thousands of Israelis out of their homes while giving their lands to Hamas.
While Saturday found the Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh meeting in Teheran with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and applauding his plan to annihilate Israel, Olmert decided Sunday that, in the interest of peace with the Palestinians he would forbid the IDF from attacking terrorists positions in Gaza even if doing so would prevent imminent rocket attacks against the Negev.
And now, according to Britain's Sunday Times, Saudi Arabia is becoming the "principal peace broker" between Israel and the Palestinians.
Reportedly since meeting in Amman in September with the former Saudi ambassador to the US, Saudi Prince Bandar, Olmert has been seriously considering embracing the so-called Saudi peace plan from 2002. Senior Israeli officials told the Times that the plan, which would establish a Palestinian state, "could lead to a formal peace deal between Israel and seven Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the Emirates, Morocco and Tunisia."
IT WOULD really be terrific if Israel could have peace with Saudi Arabia and the rest of those Arab countries. A true peace with Saudi Arabia would mean an end to the illegal Arab economic boycott of Israel and their boycott of companies that do business with Israel.
Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia would mean that the Saudis would stop financing Islamic terror groups dedicated to killing Jews in Israel and around the world.
Since having peaceful relations with Israel would presuppose Saudi acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, obviously a Saudi peace with Israel would mean an end to Saudi financing of mosques, schools and media organs throughout the world which indoctrinate hundreds of millions of people to believe that Jews are dogs and pigs and vermin and must be annihilated.
Peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel would mean an end to Saudi pressure on Europeans to criminalize Israel and marginalize the Jewish communities in their countries in exchange for a stable oil supply.
The calls by professors who teach in Saudi-financed US and European universities to boycott Israeli academics and end the US alliance with Israel would be muted if Saudi Arabia was at peace with Israel. Similarly, former US officials employed by the Saudis would stop calling American Jews traitors for supporting the US-Israel alliance.
So if there were a possibility that the Times report that "The Saudi Arabian government is emerging as a key player in talks to broker a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace agreement," were true, it would be a true cause for a celebration in Israel.
BUT OF course, like the view that the turmoil in Lebanon is an internal Lebanese affair; and the view that a US retreat from Iraq could be anything other than a strategic victory for the global jihad, the belief that the Saudis are interested in brokering peace with Israel is a complete fabrication. Indeed the "deal" that the Saudis are "brokering" is nothing less than a blueprint for Israel's destruction.
The 2002 Saudi "peace plan" requires Israel to agree to be overrun by millions of hostile foreign Arabs in the framework of the so-called "Right of Return." Moreover, the text of the initiative, "Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian partition which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries." That is, the Saudi plan prohibits Arab states from granting citizenship to these millions of Arabs and so leaves them no choice other than to destroy Israel.
Saudi Arabia's "peace plan" also demands that Israel surrender east Jerusalem - including the Temple Mount, all of Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the entire Golan Heights to the Palestinians and the Syrians. This Israeli surrender would enable the formal establishment of a Palestinian terror state. It would also strengthen Iran's principal ally - the Syrian Ba'athist regime.
HERE TOO, the Saudi plan is a recipe for Israel's destruction. Without these territories, Israel would be rendered indefensible. Without Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights, Israel would be so vulnerable to missile and artillery attack that it could be overwhelmed even before conventional invading Arab armies set foot on its remaining territory.
As a reading of the Saudi plan makes clear, it would only be after Israel surrendered all this land and allowed itself to be overrun by millions of hostile Arab immigrants that the Saudis and their Arab brethren would "establish normal relations with Israel." That is, the Saudis will be ready to talk to Israelis only after Israel is destroyed.
The Times' report claims that Olmert's speech at David Ben Gurion's grave last week where he offered to surrender to Hamas, "was not Olmert's own initiative but a dictate given to him last month when he met George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice in Washington." The Americans reportedly were acting at the behest of the Saudis who wanted proof that Olmert is truly committed to capitulation.
IT MAKES some sense that the Bush administration would express such devotion to the Saudi plan. The most glaring Achilles heel of Bush's entire war against the global jihad has been his refusal to contend with Saudi Arabia's central role in fomenting the jihad.
Bush's father's secretary of state James Baker III is the senior partner of Baker, Botts law firm which is representing Saudi Arabia in the lawsuit filed against the kingdom by the relatives of the victims of the September 11 attacks. As the co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, Baker is about to recommend that Bush pressure Israel to capitulate to Hamas and Syria in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights order to facilitate the US's capitulation to Syria and Iran in Iraq. Prince Bandar, Olmert's reported interlocutor is a personal friend of Baker and the Bush family. After 15 Saudis and four Egyptians carried out the attacks on the US on Sept. 11, it was Bandar who persuaded Bush to become the first US president to ever make the establishment of a Palestinian state an official US policy goal.
Olmert's motive for providing the Saudis with an unwarranted propaganda victory in the US and Israel is similarly understandable. Quite simply, Olmert will do anything to take the Israeli public's attention away from his failure in office. And to successfully "spin" the public, he needs the support of the Israeli media.
Olmert's embrace of a new imaginary "peace process" will win him the support of Haaretz and the other radical leftist elements in the Israeli media. These media organs will then work to prevent the opening of police investigations into Olmert's alleged criminal activities.
Friday, Haaretz columnist Gideon Samet made clear that in exchange for the media's support, Olmert must release thousands of Palestinian terrorists from jail even without securing the release of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit; scale-down IDF counter-terror operations in Judea and Samaria; facilitate the free flow of goods from Gaza into Israel and so render Israel even more vulnerable to terrorist penetration from Gaza; destroy Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria; and provide free medical services to Palestinians in Israeli hospitals.
OLMERT'S SPEECH at the gravesite of Israel's founding father was a signal on his part to the radical leftist media that he is accepting their terms. And in exchange the media ignores the ever escalating allegations that Olmert has been involved in criminal activity. More importantly, the media makes light of the fact that by losing the war this summer and adopting a strategy of total capitulation to all external forces Olmert has placed the country in the greatest existential danger in its history. Similarly, the media hides the ideological bankruptcy of Olmert's Kadima party - whose platform of capitulation has failed completely, and ignores the fact that Kadima has no clear constituency.
It is a Faustian bargain these leaders of Israel and the US make when they prefer good press to good policies. What the self-satisfied grins on the faces of the leaders of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other "moderate" countries these days clearly signals is that it is a bargain we cannot afford.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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