The ultimatums keep getting better and better. So this is what the Saudi princes think are negotiations: Telling Israel that she must accept the 2002 initiative as is, with zero changes, no matter what—and if she doesn’t accept, then obviously, she wants war, not peace.
Prince Saud said Israel should accept or reject this final offer.
“What we have the power to do in the Arab world, we think we have done,” he said. “So now it is up to the other side because if you want peace, it is not enough for one side only to want it. Both sides must want it equally.”
Speaking inside his whitewashed palace, surrounded by luxuriant lawns and manicured flower beds resembling a green oasis in the drabness of Riyadh, Prince Saud delivered an unequivocal warning to Israel.
“If Israel refuses, that means it doesn’t want peace and it places everything back into the hands of fate. They will be putting their future not in the hands of the peacemakers but in the hands of the lords of war,” he said.
Now that’s negotiation! That’s giving Israel a reason to want to agree to the initiative—because if she doesn’t, the Arabs will lob rockets at her, blow up her citizens with nail bombs, shoot them, stab them, and otherwise cause harm to them.
But wait. It gets worse.
Prince Saud dismissed any further diplomatic overtures towards Israel. “It has never been proven that reaching out to Israel achieves anything,” he said.
“Other Arab countries have recognised Israel and what has that achieved?
“The largest Arab country, Egypt, recognised Israel and what was the result? Not one iota of change happened in the attitude of Israel towards peace.”
The Egyptians got the Sinai back, but that isn’t enough. The Egyptians are legally at peace with Israel, but that isn’t enough. Apparently, the Saudis want—well, I don’t exactly know what they want, because nothing that Israel has done has stopped the cross-border rockets, kidnappings, murders, and aid to terrorists from the Arab and Muslim world. But Saud doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with that. He and his family fund the murderers.
This current “peace” initiative is nothing less than another media attack on Israel by the Arabs, with the complicity of the mainstream media.
Saud’s words will not get wide play. Watch. Now imagine if an Israeli leader had said the same thing about, say, the Road Map. There’d have been at least hree thousand screaming headlines: “Israel wants war!”
Update: Forgot to add this earlier:
You and what five armies, Saud?
As I indicated here, perpetual conflict is what they have right now. They even pulled all of the Israeli settlers out of Gaza and turned over greenhouses that employed many Arabs, to see if the Palestinians would set up a peaceful state, and found the greenhouses used as terror bases with which to attack Israel. If Israel goes back to borders that are harder to defend against, they will be recognized by every Arab Country. Will those Arab countries all live in peace with Israel, or just recognize where they are, and attack like in 1948 and 1967?
Your question answers itself Don, they will attack.
Israel will have to hunker down and realize that there is no chance right now of peace, not in any real sense. More agreements with the PLO are useless, agreemnts with the Wahhabist Entity, which won’t even pronounce the name Israel, are futile. The Arabs do not negotiate in good faith, their ultimata called “peace proposals” are evidence of that. Experience with the PA shows that. Israel must convince the USA that there is no progress to be made until the Muslims finally come to what passes for their senses. It will be a long wait.