When then-Crown Prince (the King now) Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz threatened the Bush administration that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would pursue an independent policy to serve Saudi interests, away from U.S. policy in the Middle East, Bush's fanatical administration, ran by the neocons, caved in immediately to the Saudi threat. George W. Bush thus sent a message to the Crown Prince, in which he proclaimed that it is U.S. policy to pursue two independent states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side, and this in fact remains the only official U.S. policy with regards to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The corresponding Arab policy is the Arab Peace Initiative, which the Saudi Crown Prince declared in 2002 and which was approved by the Arab Summit convening in Beirut at the time unanimously. In a few days from now, the Palestinians will go to the UN General Assembly to ask the world to recognize the independent state of Palestine. The declared American position is in opposition to the Palestinian bid, i.e. is in support of the criminal occupation and the fascist extremist Israeli government that has completely ruined the peace process. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz did not lose the courage to threaten the United States, and I hope he will not forget the governments of Western Europe either, which have sided with Libyan oil against the Libyan people. The King would indeed threaten them, if the Barack Obama administration and European governments seek to encourage other countries to oppose Palestinian statehood. In truth, a Saudi threat today is a thousand times stronger than it would have been in 2002. In those days, the United States was in the early stages of an economic boom that has since been proven to have been false, and no more than a bubble. Today, the threat would come at a time when the United States, Europe and the rest of the world are facing a severe economic crisis caused by the war policies pursued by the former U.S. administration, and which ended with America's defeat in every one of those wars and its bankruptcy. For this reason, I believe that a hint of a threat alone is sufficient to increase America's economic woes, while carrying out such a threat would indeed aggravate the crisis. Saudi Arabia is not alone when it comes to its position on those who are opposed to the independent Palestinian state, especially the United States. For one thing, all Arab and Islamic countries, along with other countries in the non-alignment movement and Latin America, support the Palestinian right to an independent state. Personally, I am particularly grateful to Turkey and her Prime Minister Recep Tayyop Erdogan, for their brave and clear position on Israel and the criminal gang otherwise known as the Israeli government. While I still assume that President Barack Obama has all the good intentions in the world, I am more and more convinced every day that he is incapable of playing the role of an honest, or impartial, mediator in the Middle East, because the Israel lobby has bought up the majority of Congress members. This majority has in turn sold the United States and its crucial interests, and now only serves the interests of an extremist occupation state in an exclusive fashion. There are many stark examples, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, of such Congressmen and women who represent Israel alone and even work against ‘their own country'. The person who is better than all these people is former President Jimmy Carter. In an article published in the New York Times two days ago, Carter reminded us that the peace treaties between Egypt and Israel, which he himself had brokered, have stipulated that all articles of resolution 242 be respected. This resolution had clearly stated the illegality of the occupation of territory by force, and stressed the need to build a just peace in which all countries in the region live safely. Among these countries is the Palestinian state. The Palestinians are the rightful owners of the entire land, from the Sea to the River, and they have accepted a state on 22 percent of their land, but the neo-Nazis who rule Israel did not… In other words, we have satisfied ourselves with pain but pain has not satisfied itself with us. The fact of the matter is that resolutions 242 and 338 included more than the proposed resolution the Palestinians intend to submit to the General Assembly. But in truth, the Palestinians would not have gone to the UN if the negotiations and the peace process had any chance of succeeding, because peace with the Netanyahu government is impossible, and the call by the Obama administration to return to negotiations at the 11th hour is self-deception, and deception of the entire world. It is impossible that the U.S. President does not know that the negotiations with the Israeli government are doomed to failure before they even start, as the worst relationship he has with any leader around the world is the one with Netanyahu, who managed to clash with him in every single meeting that took place between the two men. Israel's advocates, i.e. the advocates of occupation, murder and destruction, know that Israel is in a severe state of isolation, and that the outcome of the vote at the General Assembly is already settled. For this reason, I have read delirious analyses by them which concluded that Saudi Arabia cannot threaten the United States. I ask here, why is that? Saudi Arabia needs nothing from the United States, and by contrast, the latter needs the flow of oil to be maintained and at high levels, so that prices would not soar. And no one is able to meet such a U.S. demand except Saudi Arabia. Meeting this demand in fact means that Saudi Arabia is producing more oil than its own economy needs, and this translates into denying future Saudi generations access to a depleting resource. Subsequently, if the Obama administration does not comply with Saudi sacrifices to save the world economy, including the U.S. economy, it has no one to blame by itself when it pays the price. [email protected]
