T. Belman. No doubt he will recognized Jordan as the Palestinian land.
Secondly, don’t fall for Trump’s head fake. He has no intention of withdrawing from east Syria because it is too important in the battle against Iran’s expansionism.
“I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their own land,” the Saudi Crown Prince stated during a current tour in the US.
In an interview by Jeffrey Goldberg published Monday in The Atlantic, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Israelis have a right to their own land.
Apparently pushing for a two-state solution, he said, “I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their own land. But we have to have a peace agreement to assure the stability for everyone and to have normal relations.”
Ties between Israel and the Gulf states have improved over the past year, triggered by the common Iranian threat.
“We have religious concerns about the fate of the holy mosque in Jerusalem (i.e. the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site) and about the rights of the Palestinian people. This is what we have. We don’t have any objection against any other people,” said the crown prince, who is currently touring the US.
“Prince Mohammed’s visit to the US is mainly a hunting trip for investment, and an opportunity for him to sell his so-called Vision 2030, an elaborate, still mainly unexecuted plan to modernize the Kingdom and end its dependence on oil,” Goldberg said.
‘Iranian supreme leader makes Hitler look good’
“I believe the Iranian supreme leader makes Hitler look good. Hitler didn’t do what the supreme leader is trying to do. Hitler tried to conquer Europe. … The supreme leader is trying to conquer the world,” bin Salman said in the interview.
Furthermore, according to Goldberg, he had not a bad word to say about Israel.
Last month, in a surprising turn of events, Saudi Arabia permitted Air India, which launched a direct flight to Tel Aviv, to fly over Saudi airspace, ending a decades-long ban on Israeli commercial flights over its territory.
@ Ted Belman:
One of the forgotten things about this new alliance, is that the Saudis and the Hashemites were (and presumably still are-even if hidden) mortal enemies. Ibn Saud chased Sherif-later King- Hussein 1st (and last) out of Hejaz and into exile as soon as he could gather a group of tribes together, which was in the late 1920s Then, later proclaimed Saudi Arabia (incorporating Hejaz) with himself as King.
They had been having wars against one another for many years before this. Probably blood feuds going back centuries, which is the way primitive Arabs operated. They would be born into the war.
So I don’t think that the Saudis regard the Hashemites with any love. Which makes Ted’s assertion all the more possible, in his mention of the NEW Jordan.
Just let it happen.
Oh, ok. I must have misunderstood. I would value hearing your thoughts on that book. So much in there. I’m sure not all of it is correct. But I do suspect that a lot of it is. The first time I read it I found the discussion of the American and British governments spying on each other’s citizens to be unlikely. By the second and third time, it seemed very likely and was being borne out by actual current events (e.g. NSA spying scandal). Anyway, the sections on Dulles, Philby, Forrestal and others — shocking.
@ Abu Maven:
I thought i’d made clear that I was not thinking about any minister who turned atheist. I know nothing about this. It must have been that my misty memory about Eichmann and Nazis connected with Loftus was actually correct, and the one I was thinking about was the one you mean.
I hadn’t even heard the name mentioned for at least 20-25 years until now when you brought it up.. It was not important to me, but I still want to read that book.
@ Michael S:
Why isn’t Israel involved in this “hatching”….Are the Arabs too “chicken” to make it public….?
@ Bear Klein:
Our fingers are crossed.
So in June 2018 the middle east will be different!
@ Michael S:
The Hashamites will be discarded in two months. Jordan is Palestine will emerge.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, the New Jordan, Egypt and Israel will form a strong relationship aligned with the US
It had great impact on me. It opened my eyes.
@ Ted Belman:
What do you make of that book, Ted? I’ve read it three times (over a period of many years) and find it astounding each time I read it.
I met Loftus many decades ago. He and Aarons are famous for writing The Secret War against the Jews.
Yeah, the Loftus talking about Nazis and Eichmann is probably the same guy who wrote Secret War. The Loftus you were thinking about — the minister turned atheist — is this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Loftus
@ Abu Maven:
I think it must be the guy Since you brought it up, I’ve been casting around trying to recall where and/or when. It irritates me when my memory is shaky. It just dawned on me that it’s about 25 years since I switched on a TV. so it may have been radio. I would listen and read at the same time, often. I had (still have in storage, probably ruined) a very powerful double cassette radio with 2 detachable sides, each with 2 speakers,
I even heard the Rush Limbaugh show soon after it came on the air nationally. He was very amusing, and the skits were very inventive.
Loftus was usually on with someone else. Can’t recall who. He seemed an expert the way he talked. Earlier I had put in something about Eichmann or top Nazis, but it was very vague and I wasn’t sure it was he. So I erased it.
You’re thinking of a different John Loftus. The author I’m referencing actually was a US prosecutor specializing in prosecuting Nazis. His review of highly confidential materials in that capacity is what inspired him to write the book (and a few others covering similar ground). Here is more background on him:
John Joseph Loftus (February 12, 1950) is an American author, former U.S. government prosecutor and former Army intelligence officer.
A top Justice Department official, Loftus has held the highest security clearance in the United States, and was exposed to some of the most classified National Security programs and secrets at the Pentagon.
He is the president of The Intelligence Summit and president of the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. Loftus also serves on the Board of Advisers to Public Information Research. Loftus is an author of numerous books on the CIA-Nazi connection including The Belarus Secret and The Secret War Against the Jews, both of which have extensive material on the Bush-Rockefeller-Nazi connection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Loftus_(author)
@ Abu Maven:
I remember John Loftus, was he was some sort of political analyst that I think I used to see on TV. and was a very smart man into a lot of things too,but on the right side. Maybe I read something about him in Time, (or another magazine) which I used to get weekly for many years. It seems to me that he came up a lot on TV. At least I seem to recall something like that. .It’s all a long time ago and I didn’t pay much attention to it. But from what you say, I’ll certainly keep it in mind and have a look at it’s reviews at least.
Thank you for letting me know.
@ Edgar G.:
Secret War Against the Jews was not written by Philby. It was written by John Loftus and Mark Aarons. https://www.amazon.com/Secret-War-Against-Jews-Espionage/dp/0312156480
It is highly critical of Philby and many others. Not an easy book to read, but absolutely mind-blowing. I’ve read it a few times, actually. Based on your posts, I think you would enjoy reading it.
@ Abu Maven:
I really only began reading up on St. John Philby when Kim Philby came under public scrutiny. I actually knew about St. John before this, but only the earlier part of his career when he was still relatively “honest”: When I read more, later, as I said, I saw that he was nothing but an Arab loving plotter, traitor and Jew-hater, so I wouldn’t ever read anything by him, although he wrote many books, His stuff was bound to be tainted and slanted to his own benefit. He became a Muslim, which for a man to do, is like jumping off the edge of the Grand Canyon, although it’s nothing but a large hole in the ground. Alternately, of course, he could just have been a perverted sex maniac…
Sorry.
@ Michael S:
Here’s something for you Michael. I don’t suppose you’ll like it, but at least it’ll give you pause to reflect and consider other possibilities. It’s a description of the Book of Revelations that you always seem to quote. …… which might make you aware of the attitudes of those of us who read your posts, as I do.
“It was written in either Ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Latin, and copied by hand many times, and then translated into Elizabethan English and printed, with opportunities for confusion and error at every single stage. The End Times are perpetually imminent. It’s like listening to a Beatles record backwards as to meaning. A completely red calf born in the Holy Land is involved, and all over the world they are combing through ranches, trying to match pairs who appear more auburn than normal, and send them to Israel so that they can procreate there. Those who believe are in a hurry, don’t want to wait because they are sure that THEY will be among the righteous who will be saved.
Sane people no longer know what it means.”
This was written by an Anglican priest. I know that you will not agree, but I must say it has a certain flair-if a bit exaggerated..
@ Edgar G.:
Thanks, Edgar. I’d be curious to hear what you think of Secret War Against the Jews if you ever get a chance to read it.
@ Abu Maven:
Philby was a very murky character all round. I wouldn’t be surprised at anything he was up to. The whole fault of the situation from then to the present day lies at the feet of the British, who were not referred to as “Perfidious Albion” by the French for hundred of years…for no reason.
The reason I know about what I posted above is that I got the book when it came out in the mid 1960s and read it a couple of times. He was a very good and engaging writer as well as being a historian. I haven’t read it since but the details are engraved on my mind, they were so rivetting.
For example, Sykes says that Amman, where Abdullah stopped to rest -for a few months-, was merely a police post, and the area then was called Moab. It was run by 2 British policemen and 7 subordinates. There was little else there. You couldn’t make this up if you tried. His description of Churchill, worried, bundling himself into an open cockpit in a rickety WW1 plane (his exact description) and fly out there was so good that I could almost see Winston flapping his arms to help the plane go faster As well as the stumbling camel loads of gold sovereigns in leather sacks….etc.
It was a sort of whimsical writing in spots, but has been recognised as the definitive book on the subject, and recommended reading for anyone studying the period.
There are certain phrases in other books that have stuck in my mind for my whole life..like Meinertzhagen, Allenby’s Chief Intelligence Officer (and much much more), who shared a tent with Lawrence of Arabia for months and knew him closely, with his well advertised modesty and supposed hiding from publicity. Lawrence was a guy who walked around places like London and Paris dressed as an Arab sheikh, bare feet, curved dagger and leather sandals too, with a bent head and a shy smile. Attended the big Peace Conferences the same way. But he didn’t object when Lowell Thomas made him world famous with his slide shows all through America and Europe. His auto-biography (which I got as a bar-mitzvah present) was full of a kind of deprecating self-praise.
Meinertzhagen, in his Diaries wrote about him;
“he had a fine talent for slowly backing into the limelight’….
@ Edgar G.:
Wow. That was impressive, Edgar. I’m wondering if you’ve read Secret War Against the Jews and what you make of it? It goes into some detail on the conflict in the Hejaz between the Saudis and the Hashemites and asserts that St. John Philby played a pivotal role in tilting the balance of power in favor of the Saudis in violation of official British policy.
@ Cathy:
Thank you Cathy. I hope you are as accepting to what follows here. Saudi Arabia did NOT put Abdullah’s father in place in Jordan. This happened in the very early 1920s caused by treachery (Britain’s), bravado and opportunism (Abdullah 1) and just plain chance. How it all happened is very well described by Christopher Sykes in his defining book “Crossroads to Israel”. He was the son of Sir Mark Sykes, who, with Francois Picot, arranged the Sykes-Picot secret agreement on the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after the War. So he must have had access to many authentic records on hand.
I’ve written this so often that I don’t know why I don’t dream of it.
The Balfour Declaration is well enough known not to detail it. After WW1, France and England were awarded (mostly because they had the most influence of the victor nations) with Mandates, The British to Mesopotamia and Palestine and more, The French to Syria and Lebanon and more. The Sharif (religious leader) of Mecca then was Hussein. His sons included Feisal (Lawrence’s buddy) and Abdullah. They had assumed, partly from Sykes-Picot, and Lawrence, that Hussein would become King over the whole Arab world stretching from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean, and for this, he supported an Arab Revolt. The “revolt” was barely a drop in the ocean, but the Arabs thought it won the war.
Feisal made himself king in Damascus in late 1918, and was kicked out by the offended French in early 1919. Abdullah, down in Hejaz, decided to “avenge the family honour”, and gathered a mob of 900 bandits with which he straggled up as far as Amman, and “rested” there. It’s doubtful whether he ever intended to move on, as he was there for months.
In the meantime, Winston Churchill got the news and, because of the always uneasy situation between the British and French, he, in a panic, got into a rickety WW1 bomber and flew directly out to Egypt, and then on to Amman. As a bribe to Abdullah, actually a lazy, unambitious man, he offered him the Emirate of Trans-Jordan which was a part of Palestine, as we all know, reserved to the Jews.
Abdullah eagerly accepted. Britain installed him as a puppet, gave him a subsidy of leather sacks full of gold sovereigns yearly, and British officers to form, train and command an army. The top officer was named Glubb, later Glubb Pasha.
So, Cathy that’s how it all happened. Nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. Hejaz was declared a kingdom, so there was a King Hussein the 1st…and last.. His mortal enemy was Ibn Saud the leader of a large clan, with whom he was in intermittent war. Ibn Saud gathered other clans with him, and the ensuing conflict caused Hussein to flee the country. Ibn Saud, in 1827 declared the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, had about 40 sons all of whom ruled in succession of age, the present king, Salman, being # 32 …….and so here we are ……………
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar, I agree with your comments on Jordan being the Palestinian state, and this is why I have a problem with the Prince. He of all people should know that his country put King Abdullah’s father, a Saudi, in place in Jordan, even though the people are mostly Palestinian and Jordan was created as the Palestinian Arab state to separate the Jews and the Arabs. Because the king is not Palestinian, he has a lot of opposition and therefore refuses to take in more Palestinians. Many of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) are Jordanian citizens. Jordan could solve the Palestinian conflict if the leader allowed the Palestinians to all live in Jordan and choose a new leader who represents them.
I think there is too big a dose of “pie-in-the-sky…to quickly, too easily. He is completely wrong about a few things. As the writer points out “Islam” means “submission”, and it’s implication could be that if one doesn’t submit, he can go his own way. He doesn’t say this of course, but to me it’s a dose of tackhiya or however it’s spelled. In Asia fierce wars and major battles were fought in which Islam triumphed. The Khazars were in intermittent but fierce conflict with the Muslims. It seems that everyone was, until one of the other side won….until it flared up again.
And a forgotten period of the Barbary Coast”., Tangiers, Algiers, Tunis Tripoli etc. Every major port along Nth. African coast had it’s force of Corsairs in bitter struggle against every and any “non-believer”, for hundreds of years raiding for slaves as far afield as Ireland and Britain., until the US Navy finished them off in the first third of the 19th cent.
In India I have read that there were about 75 million Hindus killed before the Great Mughal Empire was firmly established. And it ruled for centuries with a soft-gloved fist of steel until it’s invasion fervour slowly ebbed coincident with the Maratha and Hyderabad ascendancy.
Also in his small rundown of allies and friends, bin Salman not only includes Jordan, which unceasingly hates |Israel like a disease, but references the “Palestinians” as if a nation, and desires the infamous long out-of-date “2 States” etc. , For ME that ruined his sweet-talking effort. There is NO Palestinian People, and unless he regards Jordan as the Palestinian State, his approach means nothing. But It seems obvious that he regards it as a separate entity, as per the Saudi “Plan” of 2002. . Which means that he supports murderers, bandits, criminals, Jew-haters, female mutilation, honour killings, and much, much more.
As for the Air India flight …great. I seem to have read somewhere a few days ago about a return trip to India from Israel via Saudi Arabia, but I may have missed that it might have been a “prophetic” projection.
I sound pessimistic, but in fact I’m not. I believe Israel will overcome all our obstacles, with some taking longer than others,.And indeed Mohammed may be genuine , or feel genuine “at that moment”. But being an Arab, coming from the most repressive society in history, ….well…
Assuming he is genuine for the long haul, I’d say that there are already about 50 assassination plots well in the making right now.
What do you think, Ted?
I think Mohammed bin Salman may be Saudi Arabia’s Gorbachev. In beginning to set the women free, he is really uncorking a bottle. Recognition of Israel seems a minor matter, by comparison. The man has been absolutely revolutionary!
Among his notable changes, I count the allowing of Air India to use Saudi airspace for flights to Israel, as a real game changer. Having done that, what stands in his way against letting Israeli bombers traverse the kingdom to attack Iran?
The crown prince mentioned Jordan in favorable terms:
“The crown prince stressed that: “This triangle is promoting an idea that God and Islam are not asking us to promote. Their idea is totally against the principles of the United Nations, and the idea of different nations having laws that represent their needs. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Yemen—all of these countries are defending the idea that independent nations should focus on their own interests, in building good relations on the foundation of UN principles. The evil triangle doesn’t want to do that.”
Last Update: Tuesday, 3 April 2018 KSA 16:28 – GMT 13:28”
— https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2018/04/03/Saudi-Crown-Prince-Evil-triangle-is-Iran-Muslim-Brotherhood-and-extremist-groups.html
He wouldn’t have done this, without much consideration. This seems to indicate a firm alliance between the Saudis, the Hashemites and Al-Sisi — in other words, between the Kingdom and what John Bolton describes as the major players in Israeli-Palestinian affairs. That seems to be one leg of a great plan being hatched by President Trump and the ME leaders. The US leader is still trying to find a solution to the Kurdish/ Syrian problem, and has been trying to get Bin Salman on board. If I’m not mistaken, this was followed up by a Saudi visit to Baghdad. Up until now, the Russians have been setting the pace in the Middle East; but this new rush of diplomacy by the Trump crew might portend a change in that. We may soon see what’s afoot, say, circa May 18.