Saudi Patience Is Running Out

By Turki al-Faisal

Financial Times
January 23 2009

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/65b122b6-e8c0-11dd-a4d0-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

In my decades as a public servant, I have strongly
promoted the Arab-Israeli peace process. During recent
months, I argued that the peace plan proposed by Saudi
Arabia could be implemented under an Obama
administration if the Israelis and Palestinians both
accepted difficult compromises. I told my audiences this
was worth the energies of the incoming administration
for, as the late Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru
Pandit said: "The more we sweat in peace, the less we
bleed in war."

But after Israel launched its bloody attack on Gaza,
these pleas for optimism and co-operation now seem a
distant memory. In the past weeks, not only have the
Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000
Palestinians, but they have come close to killing the
prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US
administration takes forceful steps to prevent any
further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the
peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the
stability of the region are at risk.

Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told
the UN Security Council that if there was no just
settlement, "we will turn our backs on you". King
Abdullah spoke for the entire Arab and Muslim world when
he said at the Arab summit in Kuwait that although the
Arab peace initiative was on the table, it would not
remain there for long. Much of the world shares these
sentiments and any Arab government that negotiated with
the Israelis today would be rightly condemned by its
citizens. Two of the four Arab countries that have
formal ties to Israel - Qatar and Mauritania - have
suspended all relations and Jordan has recalled its
ambassador.

America is not innocent in this calamity. Not only has
the Bush administration left a sickening legacy in the
region - from the death of hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis to the humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib -
but it has also, through an arrogant attitude about the
butchery in Gaza, contributed to the slaughter of
innocents. If the US wants to continue playing a
leadership role in the Middle East and keep its
strategic alliances intact - especially its "special
relationship" with Saudi Arabia - it will have to
drastically revise its policies vis a vis Israel and
Palestine.

The incoming US administration will be inheriting a
"basket full of snakes" in the region, but there are
things that can be done to help calm them down. First,
President Barack Obama must address the disaster in Gaza
and its causes. Inevitably, he will condemn Hamas's
firing of rockets at Israel.

When he does that, he should also condemn Israel's
atrocities against the Palestinians and support a UN
resolution to that effect; forcefully condemn the
Israeli actions that led to this conflict, from
settlement building in the West Bank to the blockade of
Gaza and the targeted killings and arbitrary arrests of
Palestinians; declare America's intention to work for a
Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, with a
security umbrella for countries that sign up and
sanctions for those that do not; call for an immediate
withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shab'ah Farms in
Lebanon; encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations for
peace; and support a UN resolution guaranteeing Iraq's
territorial integrity.

Mr Obama should strongly promote the Abdullah peace
initiative, which calls on Israel to pursue the course
laid out in various international resolutions and laws:
to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967,
including East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June
4 1967; to accept a mutually agreed just solution to the
refugee problem according to the General Assembly
resolution 194; and to recognise the independent state
of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital. In
return, there would be an end to hostilities between
Israel and all the Arab countries, and Israel would get
full diplomatic and normal relations.

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote
a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi
Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and
calling on him to take a more confrontational role over
"this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children"
in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de
facto recognition of the kingdom's primacy from one of
its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has
united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further,
Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad
against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented
chaos and bloodshed in the region.

So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every
day this restraint becomes more difficult to maintain.
When Israel deliberately kills Palestinians,
appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots
their farms and imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and
as the world laments once again the suffering of the
Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of
the world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the
kingdom will not be able to prevent its citizens from
joining the worldwide revolt against Israel. Today,
every Saudi is a Gazan, and we remember well the words
of our late King Faisal: "I hope you will forgive my
outpouring of emotions, but when I think that our Holy
Mosque in Jerusalem is being invaded and desecrated, I
ask God that if I am unable to undertake Holy Jihad,
then I should not live a moment more."

Let us all pray that Mr Obama possesses the foresight,
fairness, and resolve to rein in the murderous Israeli
regime and open a new chapter in this most intractable
of conflicts.

__________________

Prince Turki is chair, King Faisal Centre for Research
and Islamic Studies, Riyadh. He has been director of
Saudi intelligence, ambassador to the UK and Ireland and
ambassador to the US

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