By David Blair, in Riyadh, The Telegraph
1:38am BST 28/03/2007 [Hat tip: Joshua Pundit]
The “lords of war” will decide Israel’s future if it rejects a blueprint for peace crafted by the entire Arab world, Saudi Arabia’s veteran foreign minister warned yesterday.
As leaders began gathering in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for today’s summit of the Arab League, Prince Saud al-Faisal told The Daily Telegraph that the Middle East risks perpetual conflict if the peace plan fails.
Under this Saudi-drafted proposal, every Arab country would formally recognise Israel in return for a withdrawal from all the land captured in the war of 1967.
This would entail a Palestinian state embracing the entire West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. Every Arab country will almost certainly endorse this blueprint when the Riyadh summit concludes tomorrow. Prince Saud said Israel should accept or reject this final offer.
“What we have the power to do in the Arab world, we think we have done,” he said. “So now it is up to the other side because if you want peace, it is not enough for one side only to want it. Both sides must want it equally.”
Speaking inside his whitewashed palace, surrounded by luxuriant lawns and manicured flower beds resembling a green oasis in the drabness of Riyadh, Prince Saud delivered an unequivocal warning to Israel.
“If Israel refuses, that means it doesn’t want peace and it places everything back into the hands of fate. They will be putting their future not in the hands of the peacemakers but in the hands of the lords of war,” he said.
Prince Saud dismissed any further diplomatic overtures towards Israel. “It has never been proven that reaching out to Israel achieves anything,” he said.
“Other Arab countries have recognised Israel and what has that achieved?
“The largest Arab country, Egypt, recognised Israel and what was the result? Not one iota of change happened in the attitude of Israel towards peace.”
Israel has numerous reservations about the Arab peace plan – which was previously proposed at a summit in 2002. Israel fears any hint that Palestinian refugees would have the right to return to their homes in the event of a peace settlement.
Prince Saud is the 66-year-old son of the late King Faisal. Relieved of the need to seek re-election, he has held office for 32 years.
Flush with oil money, Saudi Arabia is playing a more assertive role in Middle Eastern diplomacy. As well as securing the Arab peace plan, the Kingdom brokered the agreement between Hamas and Fatah – the two Palestinian factions – to form a unity government.
But western diplomats in Riyadh believe this resurgence in Saudi diplomacy stems from more than the kingdom’s oil boom.
The menacing specter of Iran, the rising Shia power with nuclear-tipped ambitions for regional dominance, looms large across the waters of the Gulf.
Saudi Arabia is quietly moving to contain its bellicose neighbour. Prince Saud offered conciliatory words to Iran, laced with coded criticism. “We have no inhibitions about the role of Iran,” he said. “It is a large country. It wants to play a leading role in the region, and it has every right to do so. It is an historic country. But if you want to reach for leadership, you have to make sure that those you are leading are having their interests taken care of and not damaged.”
Saudi Arabia has privately urged Iran to stop enriching uranium, in compliance with United Nations resolutions and lay to rest any suggestion that it is seeking nuclear weapons. Prince Saud called for a “Middle East free of nuclear weapons” with “no exceptions for anybody, be it Israel or Iran”.
Asked whether the kingdom would consider seeking nuclear weapons of its own if Iran managed to acquire a bomb, Prince Saud replied: “We have made it very clear that we are not going down that road under any circumstances.”
He paused for a moment, before adding, “under any foreseeable circumstances”.
This turns reality on its head, saudi arabia claiming its the arabs who want peace and Israelis the warlike aggressors. saudi arabia is an enemy that should be bombed to kingdom come, the world economy and political fallout be damned. There should not be a muslim country left in existence, they have no right to exist.
This ultimatum by saudi arabia to Israel is a “choice” between which form of its destruction will they accept, this slow-phased destruction under the guise of a “peace” plan, or all out war. The saudis have created a clever trap in which either Israel accepts its suicidal proposal, or be seen by the world as responsible for further unrest in the region and world, and thus be branded a pariah state. The nations of the world will gather against Israel as prophesy says.
This must be music to the ears of the western left and all other anti-Semites the world over. They must be salivating over the predicament Israel is in. Their dreams of the destruction of Israel and a final solution may be coming closer to reality. We can only pray America stands with Israel.
They that bless you I will bless and they that curse you I will curse.
Seems that the Idiots around Israel really want to run head on into God. Well no better time than the present. Just to spice it up a bit-carpet bomb those Arabs into Hell, take back all your land from the River of Egypt to the Great River Euphrates and hold it till Hell freezes over. The world powers be damned–one Jew plus God equals a majority.
Actually, Egypt got the entire Sinai and Israel got perpetual war.
How can Saudi speak for all the jihadists in the ME? Saudi can’t even stop their own jihadists from attacking their own!
Yes, you have done it all right – promoted your backward cult of a religion into the most feared and deadly terror network in the world – forcing the world into war and bringing death to thousands through your preaching of hatred.
Okay, I see, Israel is being forced into a choice between death by peace or death by war through Muslim aggression and inability to live with non-Muslims.
Flush with money to fund Muslim Mosque Massacre training institutes but not enough to find it in them to resettle the Palestinian people into their own large, wealthy countries.
Yes, and Saudis should instead put their efforts into facing their own enemies, the other branch of the cult.
The United States will always resupply Israel – at the last minute, getting everything it can in terms of concessions. Failure to resupply would cause Israel to go into its Masada-mode and use its nuclear weapons, not good for world stability.
As to this being Israel’s last chance, according to the Saudis, they never actually said that it was Israel’s “last, last and final chance cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die.” Arabs are prisoners to their gloriously nuanced language. Perhaps this is why the “truth” tends to allude them.
Remember when bush rejected the ISG recommendations and then immediately started to implement them.
Precisely, Ted. The WH and State are running a subterfuge campaign to avoid a massive confrontation with Jewish groups and Congress. It may be that Rice made a feeble attempt to finagle a better deal from the Saudis but it is obvious that they are very much in the drivers’ seat and Israel will be handed an ultimatum.
Olmert has neither the courage nor the integrity to chance it, but this would be a timely moment for the GOI to consider making a direct plea to the American people via, for example, a series of full-page ads in the WaPo and NYT similar to those run by FLAME. (Assuming the NYT would run them!).
An estimated 60 million Christian Zionists — almost entirely conservative Republicans — in the US; would Bush risk this base by voting against Israel in the UN or refusing to resupply in the event of war?
Crunch time.
Take it or leave it.
Where does the US stand? Does it say, its up to Israel, we’ll back you whatever you decide.
Or does it say “that’s the best we could get” as they did with Res 1701.
Or worse yet are they pressuring Israel to accept.
Remember when bush rejected the ISG recommendations and then immediately started to implement them. Remember also what Bush wrote to enable the Gaza disengagement. That too is gone by the boards. What ever happened to the “moderates” v the radicals. It seems to me that they are in bed together and intend to squeeze Israel out. Remember also that Jerusalem and the wailing wall are part of East Jerusalem that the Arabs want.
Can Israel contemplate war if the US won’t resupply?