Saudi Arabia heads the Arab League of Nations, whose charter, adopted in 1945, calls for the liquidation of the Jews in Palestine. Notably, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League launched total war on Israel in 1948 – a war that remains in effect until today.
Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel; Syria and Lebanon agreed to an armistice with the Jewish state; Saudi Arabia, however, loyal to the Arab League, has never agreed to any armistice or any peace whatsoever with the Jews.
What should Saudi peace normalization look like?
Begin with four steps:
1. Since the Saudis continue to finance PA education, the Saudis could demand removal of violent PA texts, teachers, youth clubs and summer camps in the Saudi-financed curriculum, which promotes full- scale war against Jews. It would fly in the face of normalization for peace if the Saudis continued to underwrite the PA war curriculum. The Saudis refuse to reconsider their financing of UNRWA schools, which indoctrinate the next generation of Palestinians for total war.
2. Saudi Arabia remains a key funder of UNRWA, which maintains 6.7 million descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 war in the squalor of 59 “temporary” UNRWA refugee camps, under the premise of the “right of return” to 1948 villages that no longer exist. If the Saudis truly sought normalization for peace, they would advocate the dignified resettlement of Arab refugees. Yet, the Saudis refuse to do so.
3. The Saudis help finance the unprecedented PA statute: Murder a Jew, get a salary for life. How can there be normalization for peace so long as the Saudis underwrite the enforcement of an incentive for murdering Jews?
4. The Saudis could demand the removal of PA maps that delete Israel in Saudi-financed PA schools. The PA has recently replaced names of all Jewish communities in Israel with names of Arab villages in all Saudi-funded schools of the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.
Saudi normalization in the context of peace would necessitate the presentation of maps in all schools that would depict all UN members of good standing, including Israel.
These four steps would provide normalization that would lead to peace with Saudi Arabia.
Yet normalization for peace is not on the agenda of Saudi Arabia, whose genocidal war launched at the dawn of Israel in 1948 continues to this day.
For the Saudis, normalization is a tool of war.
Those who support such normalization focus on business opportunities. Why would veterans of the IDF support such a policy? Look no farther than their handsome Saudi investment portfolios.
Nothing like a little bakshish, a gratuity, to sweeten the deal.
Bakshish is acceptable in Arabic society. Everywhere else, bakshish is defined as a bribe.
People must remember that Israel is the land of prophets, not the oasis of their profits.
David Bedein moved to Israel in 1970 and founded Israel Resource News Agency in 1987, now operating as the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research, at the Beit Agron Center in Jerusalem. David and his wife, Sara, are proud parents of six adult children and 12 grandchildren, all sabras who live in Israel.
