Oil and the Saudis

On Friday, President George W. Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia from Israel to meet with King Abdullah and commemorate the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Washington and Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia is probably the only country in the world named after the family that controls it. Abdul Aziz ibn Saud headed the puritanical Wahhabi movement, which founded the country in 1932. Oil was discovered in 1936. Commercial production began two years later.
The Saudis have come a long way from the days, after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when they orchestrated the 1973 Arab oil embargo; and 1979, when they opposed Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Some of the changes are traceable to the regime's battle with homegrown fanatics, for instance, the November 1979 assault by dissident Wahhabis on Mecca's Great Mosque. Riyadh-born Osama bin Laden openly broke with the king in August 1995 - not over "Palestine," as he claimed in a Web posting Friday, but because of the royal family's profligacy, perceived religious hypocrisy and what he saw as the galling presence of "filthy Crusaders" - aka US troops - on Arabian holy land.

Since 1979 and the overthrow of the Shah, the Saudis have also faced an ever-growing threat from Iran. From their perch across the Gulf, the Persian Shi'ites view the Sunni Arab custodians of Mecca with theological and political disdain.

The historic March 2007 visit to Riyadh by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad notwithstanding, tensions between the two countries have hardly abated. Last week Prince Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, accused Iran of staging a coup in Lebanon which would affect Teheran's relations with the Arab and Islamic world. And next month, former Iranian president Ali Rafsanjani, an Ahmadinejad critic, is expected to visit the kingdom.

WE DO not know what Bush and Abdullah talked about during their time at the king's horse farm outside Riyadh, but we can guess it was mostly oil and Iran.

The White House announced a series of agreements on energy, civilian nuclear cooperation, nonproliferation and the fight against global terrorism. Not much was said about Bush's plans to push through Congress a $1.4 billion arms sale to the kingdom.

The Saudis, the world's biggest oil exporter, agreed to sell an additional 300,000 barrels per day, raising their daily output to 9.45 million barrels; Bush responded that the Saudi move wouldn't solve the problem of skyrocketing oil prices.

He was right in saying that America's energy problem would be ameliorated only when domestic exploration increased and refining capacity expanded; when alternative energy sources were better developed, when conservation was robustly pursued and safe nuclear energy promoted.
Meanwhile, oil stands at $128 a barrel. US consumers are paying $4 a gallon. Of course, we Israelis pay substantially more - roughly $7 a gallon (or about NIS 6.58 a liter).

While energy costs are not solely to blame, oil prices have been slowing consumption and putting a drag on the world's economy. America is in a recession, unemployment is up. In Israel, the April cost-of-living index jumped 1.5%, the highest in six years. Annual inflation stands at 5%.

GONE ARE the days when the Saudis could singlehandedly bring down oil prices and solve such problems. Nor can we expect them to contain Iran by themselves. Still, they could be far more helpful on Lebanon, Hamas and Arab-Israel relations.

Israel's have applauded Saudi efforts to tear down the edifice of religious justification for Muslim terrorism. And the king is to be applauded for recently launching an interfaith dialogue among monotheistic religions. But what good are such efforts if representatives from Israel are not invited to participate.

With Lebanon's rivals meeting in Qatar, I'd like to see the Saudis leveraging their clout within the Arab League, against Hizbullah. And with Hamas again seeking a rapprochement with Fatah, the Saudis should insist the League embrace the Quartet's conditions for including Hamas in the Palestinian Authority.

Of course, the Saudis still need to overhaul their own fundamentally flawed 2002 peace plan to make it a genuine starting point for improving Arab-Israel relations.

Given the regime's origins, it is ironic that the inheritors of Wahhabism are today uniquely positioned to help bridge the civilizational gap between Islam and the West.

Failing to do so will ultimately cost them, and us all, dear.

Is it about borders?

Border: A part that forms the outer edge of something... The line or frontier area separating political divisions.

The Bush administration would like Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a border so that everything else - Jerusalem, settlements, the "occupation," refugees, whatever - can then fall into place. This presupposes that the Palestinians see their conflict with Israel as primarily a border dispute.

Would it were so.

A 1921 British Mandate map showed Palestine's borders already divided between a Jewish homeland west of the Jordan (today Israel, the West Bank and Gaza), and an area to the east closed to Jewish settlement (today Jordan).

The Arab response to that map was: This isn't about borders.

In 1937 the Peel Commission offered another set of borders. Transjordan would, of course, remain in Arab hands, and virtually all of what was left west of the Jordan would also be Arab. The Jews would be given land from Tel Aviv running northward along the coastal plain and parts of Galilee. The Arabs said: It's not about borders.

A third map, proposed by the UN in 1947 as General Assembly Resolution 181 - the Partition Plan - divided Palestine west of the Jordan River (the eastern bank now being Transjordan): The Jews were to be given an indefensible, checkerboard territory, the biggest chunk of which consisted of the then arid Negev. Jerusalem, the epicenter of Jewish longing since 70 CE, would be internationalized; a tiny corridor would connect Israel's truncated parts. To get to Galilee, Jews would have to traverse Arab Palestine.

The Jews took the deal. The Arabs said: It's not about borders.

On May 15, 1948 - 60 years ago today - the Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Syrian and Lebanese armies, along with Palestinian irregulars, sought to throttle the birth of Israel. Their failure to do so created the 1949 Armistice Lines. The West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and east Jerusalem were all in Arab hands. There was no "occupation."

The Jews said: Now, can we live in peace? The Arabs said: It's not about borders.

TODAY, 41 years ago, Egyptian troops moved into the Sinai as Gamal Abdel Nasser declared "total war." The Syrians, for their part, promised "annihilation." Even King Hussein figured the time was ripe to strike. But, instead of destroying Israel, the Arabs lost more territory. The heartland of Jewish civilization, Judea and Samaria, was now in Israel's hands, as was Jerusalem's Temple Mount.
Even so, the Jews said: Let's trade land for peace.
In August 1967, Arab leaders assembled in Khartoum gave their reply: No peace. No negotiations. No recognition.

Ten years later, with the election of Menachem Begin, the courageous Anwar Sadat came to the Knesset with a message: "We really and truly welcome you to live among us in peace and security." Egypt and Israel then agreed on a border and signed a peace treaty.
The Arabs ostracized Cairo and Sadat was assassinated. The peace never really blossomed, but the border holds.

THEN IN 1993, Yitzhak Rabin took an astonishing strategic risk, turning over parts of the West Bank to a newly-created Palestinian Authority. Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Jericho, Tulkarm and Kalkilya all came under full Palestinian jurisdiction. Other territory was placed under the PA's civil control, and the PA took charge of Gaza's Arab population centers.
The sight of green PA license plates became commonplace throughout Israel. Checkpoints were minimized. The international community poured money into the Palestinian areas.

At last, the Palestinians had the parameters of a state-in-waiting - a political horizon. The parties still had tough issues to tackle, but the reality on the ground had dramatically improved.

In 2000, Ehud Barak offered at Camp David his vision of a viable Palestinian state. Yasser Arafat's "counter-offer" was the Aksa intifada, an orgy of suicide bombings nationwide and drive-by shootings in the West Bank that would claim over 1,000 Israeli lives. Clearly for Arafat, the issue wasn't borders.

For Israelis to now take the idea of a "shelf-agreement" about borders seriously, the Palestinians would have to declare - once and for all - that their dispute with us really is about borders. And that they accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.
If they do that, the rest will fall into place.

Bush & the Palestinians

Yesterday, President Bush gave a gracious interview in the Oval Office to The Jerusalem Post and three other Israeli journalists. Today, the president embarks on a hectic farewell trip to the Middle East that will bring him to Israel tomorrow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of this nation's founding.

On Friday the president will head to Saudi Arabia to mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of ties between Washington and Riyadh. And on Saturday, he will travel to Sharm e-Sheikh to meet Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad, and Jordan's King Abdullah II. He is also scheduled to see the Afghan president, Iraqi leaders and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. Finally, Bush will participate in a World Economic Forum gathering before heading home.

Presidents come and go - figuratively as well as literally - but America's stance toward the Arab-Israel conflict remains remarkably consistent. Support for Israel is balanced against Washington's energy and strategic interests in the Arab world, tending to leave neither Israelis nor Arabs completely satisfied.

When Israel not only survived but captured vast amounts of territory in the 1967 Six Day War, America saw an opportunity to pursue a policy of "land for peace." Arguably, few Arab leaders can bring themselves to accept the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the region. Nevertheless, land for peace has remained the unwavering American policy approach. The personalities, daily headlines and controversies change, but not America's fundamental direction. It is in this context that the pattern of Bush's decisions must be understood.

Recall that Yasser Arafat launched the Aksa intifada just months after Bush took office, even though Ehud Barak had offered him both land and statehood. Bush gave up on Arafat, refusing to ever meet with him, but stuck with the land-for-peace idea.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the US, Bush sought to garner support among Arab and Muslim pragmatists. Thus on June 24, 2002, he articulated his "vision" of a Palestinian state predicated on Palestinians electing reformist leaders. Bush sidelined Arafat and championed the more pragmatic, if ineffectual, Mahmoud Abbas.

Though the violence continued, in March 2003 Bush unveiled "a performance-based and goal-driven road map," to Palestinian statehood, calling for an immediate, unconditional cessation of Palestinian violence. But it also said, "As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end." As Palestinian attacks went on to kill more than 1,000, Israel had little incentive to freeze Jewish life in Judea and Samaria. Still, repeated and unfulfilled promises to dismantle non-authorized settlement outposts continue to undermine Jerusalem's credibility.

Convinced that Abbas would not take risks for peace, Ariel Sharon proposed unilateral disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank. Bush chose to interpret this as being in harmony with the road map. And on April 15, 2004, he wrote Sharon to say that in light of new realities it would be unrealistic for final-status negotiations to result in a withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines.

Israel pulled out from Gaza in August 2005, giving the PA the perfect opportunity to create a nascent state. It was tragically squandered.

Hamas's victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections held in January 2006 exacerbated an already volatile environment, and in June 2007 Abbas was ousted from Gaza. Today he hangs on in the West Bank due in no small measure to the IDF's presence.

No one can blame President Bush for not having ended the Arab-Israel conflict. And yet there are steps he could take to leave our region better off than when he took office.

He could unambiguously tell the relative moderates among the Palestinians that their demand for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines is unrealistic; that their claims to a "right of return," which would spell the demographic destruction of Israel, should be abandoned; and he could press Abbas to use his Western-trained and -equipped forces to tackle the terrorist infrastructure right under his nose.

Finally, Bush could point out that no progress will be made until Abbas prepares his people for genuine reconciliation with Israel.

Bush in context

Of all the US presidents over the past 60 years, it is hard to think of a better friend to Israel than George W. Bush. No president has been more committed to steering the Middle East toward the values of liberty and tolerance which Americans naturally cherish, and presuppose to be universal.

Bush combines a personal affinity toward Israel with policies that are generally responsive to its concerns. His performance as president is best understood in historical context.
Harry S Truman courageously recognized Israel against State Department advice, but was personally prejudiced against Jews. Dwight Eisenhower rolled back Israel's 1956 Sinai Campaign victory and unintentionally solidified Nasser's hold on Egypt. John F. Kennedy pushed hard to keep Israel from developing an atom bomb.

Only Lyndon Johnson rises above his predecessors for opposing unilateral Israeli withdrawal after the 1967 Six Day War and establishing the "land for peace" principle which specified that the extent of Israeli concessions would have to be directly negotiated.

Richard Nixon was both personally prejudiced against Jews and the force behind the Rogers Plan that called for Israel's unilateral withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines. His Machiavellian secretary of state has been accused of delaying arms shipments during the Yom Kippur War. And it was also under Nixon that secret contacts between the US and an unreformed PLO began.

When Israel balked at making strategic concessions in Sinai, Gerald Ford ordered a "total reassessment" of US policy toward Israel. Jimmy Carter's unsympathetic attitude to Israel is now widely understood, notwithstanding his having facilitated the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.
Like his predecessor, Ronald Reagan sold advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia. He also stymied Israeli battlefield achievements in the 1982 Lebanon War. George H.W. Bush sought to make US loan guarantees for the absorption of Soviet Jews contingent on Israeli concessions at the negotiating table.

And a well-intentioned Bill Clinton helped broker the 1993 Oslo Accord, which inadvertently set the stage for the second intifada.

BUSH ARRIVES here today with a little over seven months left in his presidency. Though his policies in Iraq were paved with good intentions and Israelis are grateful that Saddam Hussein is dead and buried, we are left with the lingering sense, albeit informed by hindsight, that the Iraqi campaign was a strategic blunder of historic proportions. Meanwhile, the al-Qaida leaders who masterminded 9/11 remain free, and parts of Afghanistan are in turmoil. The "real and present danger" facing Western civilization, Iran, is unchecked.

It turns out that Saddam was not the greatest enemy of civilization; he did not have weapons of mass destruction and was not directly tied to 9/11. Yet, so far, America has lost over 4,000 troops; suffered tens of thousands of wounded and spent billions of dollars in treasure in an Iraq which shows little sign of coalescing. Consequently, it is today doubtful whether the American people have the political will (or the US military the wherewithal) to confront the Iranian menace.

STILL, WHILE Bush may have been wrong on Iraq, he is dead right about Iran - though an ungrateful, sometimes spiteful world appears in denial. Iran is blatantly pursuing destabilizing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them beyond the Middle East, even as key international players stoke its economy.

Teheran exploits America's dilemma in Iraq by encouraging chaos in a manner beyond the ability of most Westerners to fathom. On the Palestinian front, the mullahs are championing Hamas with financing, weapons and training. Mahmoud Abbas can strike no workable deal with the Islamists looking over his shoulder. Hizbullah-occupied Lebanon is looking increasingly like an Iranian satellite.

The president told The Jerusalem Post yesterday that before leaving office he wants a structure in place for dealing with Iran. Washington already has a strong security commitment to Jerusalem. Now we would urge the president to work for an upgrade in Israel's relationship with NATO. Europe must understand that Iran is pivotal; that there will be no stability, no progress - not in Iraq, not in Lebanon and not on the Palestinian front - until Teheran's advances are first contained, and eventually rolled back.

Shmuel Katz, Zionist hero, dies at 93

Shmuel Katz, one of the last remaining links to the Zionist Revisionist icon, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and himself a towering figure and a mighty pen of the Zionist Right, died in the early hours of Friday morning, soon after Yom Ha'atzmaut, at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital. He was 93.

Well over a hundred people attended the funeral Sunday afternoon at the Hayarkon Cemetery in Petah Tikva.

Among the mourners were Likud Party chair and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Moshe Arens, former MK Uzi Landau, former Knesset Speaker, MK Ruby Rivlin, Jabotinsky Institute director Yossi Achimeir and MK Gideon Sa`ar.

Katz was born in South Africa in 1914 and first came to Israel in 1936, joining the Irgun.
Jabotinsky sent him to London in 1939 to represent the Revisionist Zionist position. He soon found himself virtually stranded after Jabotinsky died suddenly in upstate New York in 1940. Katz subsequently made a living as a journalist working for a number of London newspapers while also founding a Zionist Revisionist weekly.

In 1946 he managed to return to Palestine and joined the Irgun High Command. He was the movement's de facto foreign minister and its last Jerusalem-area commander prior to statehood.

Katz was elected to the First Knesset on the Herut list. He is believed to have been the last surviving member of that First Knesset. A Knesset honor guard placed a wreathe on his grave.
Highly principled and often uncompromising, he quit politics and established a publishing house.
After the Six Day War he became a leader of the Land of Israel movement.

When the Likud Party won the 1977 elections and broke Labor's stranglehold on Israeli politics, Menachem Begin asked Katz to serve as his adviser on information, tasked with explaining the new government's position to a hostile media and an unfriendly Carter administration.

But Katz soon came to feel that Begin was too accommodating in the face of US pressure and in January 1978 left the premier over his peace negotiations with Egypt.

Katz opposed the notion of land for peace, championing the formula of peace for peace.
A prolific writer, essayist and historian, Katz had a regular column in The Jerusalem Post for many years and continued to publish occasional op-eds until very recently. Among his most important books are Lone Wolf: A Biography of Vladimir Jabotinsky; Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine; and The Aaronsohn Saga about the Nili spy ring, whose English edition was published late last year by Gefen.

Though a fierce ideologue, Katz was soft spoken, with a twinkle in his eye and a winning self-deprecating humor. As recently as several weeks ago, he was planning a new series of short op-eds for the Post in opposition to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's policies.

Katz is survived by his son Yuval who recited the kaddish memorial prayer and nephew Dr. Leonard Bliden who delivered a moving eulogy.

May his memory be for a blessing.