By Thomas Lifson, AMERICAN THINKER
President Trump’s spectacular reception in Riyadh is a signal to the world (and to Saudi subjects, in particular) that big changes are coming. Elderly and frail King Salman ventured out onto the apron in 110-degree heat and actually shook Melania Trump’s hand as she deplaned Air Force One, thereby touching a female infidel.
Perhaps even more important in terms of Saudi daily life, the women in attendance at functions did not wear head coverings and abayas. The entire nation saw this on television and understands that the fracking-created global oil glut changes everything, that the infidels no longer cower in fear of a cutoff of the oil Allah granted to the protectors of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The old arguments of the fanatics hold less water.
Change is coming. The king signaled that the restrictions declared by the Wahhabi clergy are no longer the ultimate arbiter of personal behavior, and that Saudis are going to have to start respecting the customs of the infidels. Something like his handshake gesture can seem trivial, quaint, or even humorous to Americans, but it is very serious business. The role modeling of the women at the highest and most formal level reaches deep into the culture.
It is now clear that the king and his two designated successors (Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nyef and Mohammad bin Salman) have made a deal to liberalize Saudi Arabia. The deal-maker president has told them that there is a price of continued American support.
This would be against the wishes of powerful factions of the Saudi Royal Family (about 5,000 strong), some of whom are closely aligned with (and fund) the radical Wahhabi clergy. For decades, the (principally) Saudi-funded Wahhabis have poisoned the Ummah (the global Muslim community) with their feudal views. Saudi Arabia became mega-wealthy only in the 1950s, and the world’s Muslims were not violently engaged in much jihad. The Wahhabi clergy and the Saudi-funded mosques they brought with them prepared the soil for al-Qaeda at home and abroad.
Make no mistake: there is every possibility that a violent reaction or a coup within the Royal Family if sufficiently provoked. The clergy are important because they preach to the Saudi masses and could whip them up into an attempt at an overthrow of the corrupt royals, who siphon off so much of Allah’s bounty for their own decadent pleasures, many of them haram. That is why Saudi Arabia has such a large investment in its security forces. The plan is for them to remain loyal in the event of an uprising, but man plans, and Allah laughs.
The royals are in a very delicate position. The dominant faction, the king and his two designated successors, have to loosen things up gradually, step by step, so as to not put their opponents over the edge into a revolt that would brutally slaughter untold numbers, quite possibly including themselves. As with the mythological frog in a pot of water on the stove, they have to increase the heat very slowly.
They have already agreed to a deal to reward President Trump with a massive arms purchase worth $109.7 billion. That’s jobs and profits. But this aspect of the deal, from the New York Times, is important:
On the afternoon of May 1, President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, welcomed a high-level delegation of Saudis to a gilded reception room next door to the White House and delivered a brisk pep talk: “Let’s get this done today.”
Mr. Kushner was referring to a $100 billion-plus arms deal that the administration hoped to seal with Saudi Arabia in time to announce it during Mr. Trump’s visit to the kingdom this weekend. The two sides discussed a shopping list that included planes, ships and precision-guided bombs. Then an American official raised the idea of the Saudis’ buying a sophisticated radar system designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Sensing that the cost might be a problem, several administration officials said, Mr. Kushner picked up the phone and called Marillyn A. Hewson – the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, which makes the radar system – and asked her whether she could cut the price. As his guests watched slack-jawed, Ms. Hewson told him she would look into it, officials said.
Mr. Kushner’s personal intervention in the arms sale is further evidence of the Trump White House’s readiness to dispense with custom in favor of informal, hands-on deal making. It also offers a window into how the administration hopes to change America’s position in the Middle East, emphasizing hard power and haggling over traditional diplomacy.
This is a tangible and personal signal to the factions of the Saudi family represented in the high-level delegation. An Orthodox Jew, married to the favored child of the president (who became a Jew herself), saved them money using his personal connections. Call me suspicious, but I think this was carefully planned theatre. You have to see this against the background of the sudden new confluence of interests between Israel and Saudi Arabia, united in opposition to Iran and Arab radical Islamic terrorists. The two nations already covertly cooperate, a ruse that cannot last forever. Slowly and surely, the Saudis have to turn away from the Palestinians and toward an embrace of Israel. And it turns out that there can be a considerable upside to making peace with Israel and the Jews.
So where do the Saudis go from here? How do they demonstrate to Trump, the world, and their own subjects that things are changing, and that it is acceptable?
My guess is that a symbolic measure that does not affect anyone in Saudi Arabia will be the next step. An easy one would be to end the prohibition against Israeli civilian airliners flying over Saudi airspace when flying eastward toward India, Thailand, and beyond. Israel’s economic and tourism ties with Asia are large and growing, so this restriction, which adds hours and costs, is an irritant to Israelis, as well as a political statement to the world that Israel is illegitimate.
The fact is that President Trump’s planned nonstop Air Force One flight from Riyadh and Ben Gurion Airport in Israel will be the first publicly known flight between the two nations. (There is a decent chance that secret flights have taken place because the governments do talk to each other covertly.) So Trump is already liberalizing their aviation restrictions.
Allowing Israeli airliners to fly over Saudi territory would be a good first step toward eventual direct flights, a sign of complete acceptance of Israel as a legitimate nation, which is the only long-term solution to peace between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. It is a long path, but there is no alternative to a step at a time, given the delicate political situation of the Saudi royals.
It is clear to me that President Trump has made a transformational deal, and that the West has a stake in helping it come to fruition.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
l’esprit d’escalier: Golly, Ghee Willikers!
All right. We have a prediction. Let us see if I Israel is not going to be thrown under the bus.
Big fan of allah, myself. Together with Nicaragua’s former dictator or king or whatever.
allah paratha with somosa. What a dahl. ‘Course some would call him a dip.
@ Philippe:
Was the free ice cream metaphor inspired by Eddie Cantor in “Kid Millions”.
Wishful thinking at the very end of the last sentence of J.Lifson article : ” The west has a stake in helping it come to fruition ” . Who in the WEST ? Justin Trudeau ? Macron ? Merkel ? Laughing out loud , why they will help Trump to sell more US made arms etc.. to Saudi Arabia
? Quite the contrary , they will do what they can to derail it and to take a bigger share in the S.A arms market . How they will perform that trick ? The Palestinian ” just-legitimate-nightmarish-cruel-unjust-forgotten ….” CANARD will raise again its phony circus in the REST of the World : (Europe-China-Russia -Iran – Third world etc.). The ” rest of the world ” would like to see crumble the israeli-saudi De FACTO Alliance lock which sits above the red sea rift and beyond it ,protects Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Because the weaker Saudi Arabia becomes, the more it will purchase arms from the rest of the world ( and not ONLY from the USA ) . The best way to loosen this De Facto Alliance lock is to introduce a palestinian state in-between Israel and Jordan and to let it becomes a snakes nest for the whole area . Iran-Russia-China will stir the flames of this boiling cauldron. The naive public – first and foremost in Israel and he US – will once again swallow the canard . Netanyahu will be under enquiry for some ice-cream parlor scandal ( he received a double vanilla flavor cone from a likudnik in Mahane Yehuda ). BaGatz willl step in , and the Pallywood orchestra will play the nakba melody . Herzog and Lapid will ask Europe to deliver free ice-cream to Gaza .Europe will ask Trump to renounce the saudi arms deal , unless Palestina Rabatit is built over the ruins of Israel .Sounds funny ? Or sounds true ?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
In case, you didn’t have the patience to watch the whole video from “Kid Millions,” the very last line of the song goes: “I like the Sheik, I like his daughter, but I prefer her under water.” With which he pushes the harem girl clinging to his arm into the pool. End.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
What do you suppose “Eddie Bay” would have thought of this deal, or of the way Trump is behaving towards Israel right now?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Sammy Davis Jr. converted to Judaism after Eddie Cantor visited him in the hospital room where he was recovering from the automobile accident in which he lost his eye and inspired him telling him about the similarities between Black and Jewish history and culture.
“In November 1954, while driving from Las Vegas to a recording session in Los Angeles, Davis was in a serious car accident. He survived, but lost his left eye. He was soon back to performing, but wore an eye-patch for some months, until he was fitted for a glass eye, which, together with his jutting jaw and broken nose, lent him a distinctive appearance.
While he was recuperating in a San Bernardino, Calif., hospital, Davis was visited by the performer Eddie Cantor. Cantor spoke with him about the similarities between Jewish and black culture, and this evidently sparked Davis’ imagination. He began reading about Jews and Judaism, and sometime after he began the process of converting. According to Rabbi William M. Kramer, who officiated at the 1961 wedding of Davis and Swedish actress May Britt, although Davis was known publicly and famously as a Jew since the mid-50s, it was only in 1961 that he underwent a formal conversion – quietly, under the tutelage of Rabbi Harry Sherer in Las Vegas. Davis had been referred to Sherer by Rabbi Max Nussbaum, of Reform Temple Israel in Hollywood, who had been asked to officiate at the couple’s wedding and to oversee May Britt’s conversion.”
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/1990-sammy-davis-jr-famous-convert-to-judaism-dies.premium-1.524196
“Arabs Blacklist Eddie Cantor and 6 companies”
Oct. 23, 1961
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1961/10/23/page/6/article/arabs-blacklist-eddie-cantor-and-6-u-s-companies
==
“The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive – “Eddie Cantor in Israel” (1950)”
https://youtu.be/7qNCVYCXeaE
==
$2,616,000 for Israel Bonds Raised at Eddie Cantor Dinner in New York
DOWNLOAD PDF FOR THIS DATE
February 1, 1952
NEW YORK (Jan. 31)
[“$2,616,000.00 in 1952 had the same buying power as $23,833,438.19 in 2017]
Annual inflation over this period was about 3.46%”
http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=100&year=1952
http://www.jta.org/1952/02/01/archive/2616000-for-israel-bonds-raised-at-eddie-cantor-dinner-in-new-york
[Eddie Cantor for Israel Development Corporation of America]
by State of Israel Bonds Organization
Published June 16, 1957
Topics californialightandsound, State of Israel Bonds Organization
https://archive.org/details/cbm_000013
Remember Israel was getting almost no U.S. Aid. and only economic, not military. In 1950, all U.S. aid amounted to $0.00000000. In 1951, Israel gave Israel $35 million in non-military aid. in 1956, Eisenhower suspended economic aid (there was no military aid), as did Obama, Reagan, and George W. Bush with military aid when it was most needed. Ironically, it was the anti-semitic Nixon who was Israel’s best friend.
http://securityassistance.org/blog/us-suspension-military-aid-israel-new-or-old-precedent
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-1949-present
https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/11/exclusive-how-richard-nixon-helped-save-israel-excerpt/
It was mostly from donations by Jews around the world.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-1949-present
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-1949-present
One of our greatest comic geniuses, now mostly forgotten, and one of the first and most influential presidents of the Screen Actors’ Guild, in his brief tenure there. His picture was alone on the wall in a room where I went for an event there.
What would he have said about this deal, do you suppose?
Reposting
Kid Millions (Preview Clip)
https://youtu.be/uh1bSUpFwj8
[Kid Millions (1934) – IMDb]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025347/
“Comedy · A musical comedy about a Brooklyn boy (Eddie Cantor) who inherits a fortune from his archaeologist father, but has to go to Egypt to claim it.)”
Sebastien Zorn Said:
I should really be on the Supreme Court, here or in Israel, deciding what the laws say. With no way of my being removed.
Humor:
it’s GOOD to be the KING.flv
https://youtu.be/StJS51d1Fzg
Here Comes The Judge – Pigmeat Markham (1968) (HD Quality)
https://youtu.be/NRS62nccwmw
And now from a Jewish perspective:
Here comes the Judge!
https://youtu.be/3hIcKkKID8k
Pity Sammy isn’t around to tell Trump what country the Kotel is in.
“Sammy Davis, Jr. Pays Tearful Visit to Israel, Places Note in Western Wall Crevice
DOWNLOAD PDF FOR THIS DATE
July 22, 1969
1SHARE
JERUSALEM (Jul. 21)
Sammy Davis, Jr., the Negro American entertainer who is a convert to Judaism, arrived here Saturday for a one-day trip. He told hundreds of fans at Lydda Airport, as tears poured down his cheeks, that he could not “find words to express my satisfactions at being in Israel, the mother country of my spirit and my religion.” He visited the Western Wall, met with male and female soldiers, and returned to London where he is shooting a film. He told his admirers that he might return in September.
He said that he had been looking forward to visiting the Wall since his conversion in 1955. He placed a note containing a wish in a Wall crevice and told newsmen: “Like every Jew, my feelings at the Wall were deep and personal. This is my religious home. It’s great here. A great thrill. It is a kind of oneness I have with Israel and the Jewish people.””
http://www.jta.org/1969/07/22/archive/sammy-davis-jr-pays-tearful-visit-to-israel-places-note-in-western-wall-crevice
@ honeybee:
How perceptive of you but I figured it out. Same author, more detail. Five minutes ago, I thought it was a good thing but then I thought about it some more and now I don’t like it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-20/trump-signs-single-largest-arms-deal-us-history-saudi-arabia-350-billion-over-ten-ye
You know these defense deals are really aid to our own defense industries which, in turn, fuel the economy as well as keeping us safe, but I hope he got them to pay for it.
Article says they will make other investments here, too.
The downside is more Saudi influence in our culture, our laws. I don’t know if this isn’t penny wise and pound foolish.
Happier about this news:
http://en.prothom-alo.com/international/news/148755/Israel-signs-630m-defence-deal-with-India
Israel is rightly concerned.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/israeli-minister-expresses-concern-over-u-s-saudi-arms-deal/articleshow/58775523.cms?TOI_browsernotification=true
Sebastien Zorn Said:
:
Good old fashioned GOP fascism.