[Editor's note :This article was originally printed last week on the Ynet website and is being reprinted with the permission of the author. The writer Shoula Romano Horing was born and raised in Israel. She is an attorney in Kansas City and a national speaker. ]
Finally, Saudi Arabia and Israel have common ground for establishing a temporary strategic alliance, similar to the one that existed during World War II between the Soviet Union and United States against the Nazi regime.
Both countries mistrust President Barack Obama as a reliable ally and fear the prospect of a nuclear Iran.
Despite the major differences in values and a history of enmity, it seems only rational that Saudi Arabia should seek the unthinkable and cooperate with the Jewish state in order to preserve its survival and political independence. Otherwise, the Saudis and other Persian Gulf states will be the first victims of a nuclear Iran, without a capable, strong and reliable ally to come to their aid.
British Defense Secretary Liam Fox told the House of Commons in January that Iran may be capable of developing nuclear weapons by the end of 2012. By then, most US and Western military forces will be leaving the Middle East, and Israel will be the only remaining military power capable and motivated to militarily solve the Iranian problem.
However, Israel needs strategic cooperation from Saudi Arabia to succeed, including permission to fly over Saudi territory and emergency logistical support. Most importantly, Israel needs Saudi Arabia to delay any international or Arab plan to pressure Israel on establishing a Palestinian state. While the world will be dangerously distracted and waste months with on the Palestinian issue, Iran will be off the world radar and much closer to attaining its goal.
The Saudis should be aware by now of the following truths:
First, Israel’s leadership is more loyal to its Arab allies than President Obama. While Israel stood by Mubarak, it took Obama three days to call for Egypt’s president, a long term US friend, to leave office and to threaten him with foreign aid cuts. It seems that Obama only confronts and abandons allies, but prefers not to meddle in the internal revolts of enemies like Syria and Iran.
Second, an ongoing state of war or a campaign of hatred and anti-Semitism against the Jewish state no longer guarantees an Arab regime‘s political survival, we saw in Syria, Libya and Yemen.
Third, Iran is the main danger to Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf states, not Israel, as the WikiLeaks cables revealed, with Saudi King Abdullah repeatedly imploring Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” (Iran) while there was still time.
Fourth, Obama will never advocate a military solution against Iran, as we saw in the last two years with his futile policy of engagement and economic sanctions. Only Israel has the will, the self-interest and the know-how to stop the Iranian menace. Israel already demolished the nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 and a Syrian reactor in 2007. After the US withdraws most of its armies from the Middle East, Obama’s ideology will negate the possibility of sending US troops to eliminate the Iranian threat.
Fifth, establishing a Palestinian state is not in the best interest of Saudi Arabia or Israel. As previously happened after Israel withdrew its military forces from Gaza in 2005, Hamas will be able to take over the new state by winning subsequent Palestinian elections, as it did in 2006, or by militarily defeating the PA, as it did in 2007. Such state would become another Iranian base, threatening Israel but also destabilizing Jordan next door and encircling the Saudis from the northwest.
Instead of considering initiatives to rally Western countries, including the US, against International recognition of a Palestinian state, Israel’s leadership should look into creating new alliances, even with traditional enemies. As the Arab proverb says, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
If you liked the above article you may be interested in this
MY TAKE: BAHRAIN ANNOUNCES PERMANENT OCCUPATION OF ITS COUNTRY BY SAUDIA ARABIA
By Rhonda Spivak, April 20, 2011
There’s an article I read in the Jordan Times this week entitled “Gulf troops staying until Iran 'threat' gone – Bahrain.”
In case you missed it, it seems to me that the government in Bahrain has announced that there will be a permanent occupation of its country by Saudi and United Arab Emirates Forces to support the government and keep protestors in check.
Well-they didn’t quite use the words “permanent occupation” but if you read between the lines that’s exactly what they mean. Imagine that—the announcement of a permanent occupation, and no one in the world seems to be complaining much. It wasn’t even a headline in the West .
It’s interesting that the Jordan Times, a mouthpiece for King Abdullah, picked up this story. Is it a way of reminding the Jordanian people that if the opposition Islamists in his country kick up too much of a fuss, the Saudis and UAE forces might decide to help him out too?
Have a read:
“Bahrain's foreign minister said on Monday Saudi and UAE forces called in to help quell street unrest would leave only when "any external threat" he associated with Iran was seen to be gone”.
Pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain have denied any link with the Islamic republic.
Bahrain's prime minister described the several weeks of anti-government protests by the Sunni Muslim-ruled country's disaffected Shiite majority as a coup attempt and said those who took part would be held to account.
The mostly Shiite protesters in the outpouring of unrest in February and March demanded more freedom, an end to discrimination and a constitutional monarchy in Bahrain, a US ally that hosts Washington's Fifth Fleet.
Bahraini rulers crushed the protests last month, deploying security forces in the capital and calling in troops from Gulf neighbours Saudi Arabia and the UAE under the aegis of a Gulf defence pact, a move demonstrators saw as an act of war.
Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled Ben Ahmed Al Khalifa hinted that Gulf troops could be there for some time, saying they would remain until what he described as a threat to Gulf Arab countries from nearby Shiite power Iran was over.
I also want to point out to readers an article by Simon Henderson “Iran’s Shadow over Reform in Bahrain” on the website for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, notes how the Saudis and Bahrainis aren’t really interested in Obama’s universal freedom policy, as they don’t want Bahrain to be ruled by its Shite Majority and become a client state of Iran. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3347
“Neither Saudi Arabia -- which bankrolls much in Bahrain, from items on the national budget to King Hamad's personal Boeing 747-400 aircraft -- nor the UAE seems amenable to the notion of Bahrain being a test case for the Obama administration's policy of promoting universal freedoms of political expression. Instead, both see Bahrain as a redline in the regional confrontation with a potentially nuclear-armed and hegemonic Iran. Furthermore, as these Gulf leaders consider Washington's sudden dropping of support for longtime ally President Mubarak of Egypt, they wonder whether they might be next to be tossed overboard. For their own part, the Gulf regimes believe they have in-built mechanisms of responding to public pressure. They likewise object to what they see as Washington's refusal to apply pressure to the Iranian regime since the 2009 disputed elections and Tehran's vicious responses to demonstrations in the capital and other cities.”
How might this all play out in regard to Israel and the Palestinians ?
How much support would Saudia Arabia and Bahrain give to the Palestinians seeking a state in the West Bank if they thought that the area would be taken over by Hamas and become a client state of Iran?
And what about Jordan—would a Hamas state in the West Bank under the tutelage of Iran create instability in Jordan leading to King Abdullah’s downfall ? (If Hamas in the West Bank aligns with Islamic forces in the East Bank, won’t that be the end of King Abdullah?).
Would Saudia Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Bahrain really want to see a Palestinian state arise based on national democratic elections, when they themselves don’t want to offer their people democratic elections?
Maybe they will all support the Palestinian cause for independence. But maybe they won’t.
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