Are the Semitic Tribes of the Mideast Uniting at Long Last?

In one of his press conferences in the 80s of the last century, the late visionary King Hassan II of Morocco said that the Semitic cousins of the Middle East i.e. Arabs and Jews will ultimately resolve their feuds and get together as one family. At the time, pan-Arab nationalists chuckled at the idea and called the Moroccan monarch a mad politician, a traitor of the Arab cause and a lackey of Zionism and imperialism and have, even, plotted to overthrow him, but failed.

Today, Saudi Arabia has, unofficially, entered into an alliance with, its hitherto arch-enemy, Israel. For Michael J. Totten, it is a cold alliance:

“The Saudis are congenitally incapable of saying anything friendly about Israel in public—behind closed doors, the Saudis get along with Israel fine…”

However, one wonders, quite rightly, what on earth makes the leader of Sunni Islam accept to seek the friendship of the “ Zionist entity ” al-kiyan as-sahyuni and enter secretly with it into some sort of a league. In the Middle Eastern tribal language this practice can be explained by the sacrosanct maxim of Sanskrit origin: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

The enemy in question is no other than Iran that is duly growing itself nuclear teeth, slowly but surely, and posing an existential threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Sunni world.

Prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Israel was a staunch ally of the Shah’s regime and may have even engaged indirectly, apparently, in some of the sordid acts of torture of the opposition Islamists conducted by the infamous secret police SAVAK (1957-1979).

When Khomeini came to power he adopted the Palestinian cause, for selfish purposes, and called Israel in its official literature and propaganda terminology “little satan.” Initially, all Palestinians were ecstatic about this political changeover, but when the Iranians started making plans to export their revolution to the Sunni world, PLO pulled slowly out of its love affair with Islamic Iran and the latter threw its support behind Hamas and financed generously its military operations against Israel, incurring, for Hamas, the cold shoulder and the ire of the Gulf countries.

President Obama kept his electoral promise made to the American people during his first bid to get elected to the White house on November 4,2008, by disengaging American troops from Iraq and allowing Iran through its militias to fill the vacuum. It was the beginning of a grand design of the Islamic Republic to convert Sunni lands to Shia religion and the last manifestation of that master plan is the open rebellion of the Houthis in Yemen and their control of the country, with the help of the militias of the dictator Ali Saleh, who fell with the Saudis after his dismissal from power.

The last straw in the ailing US-GCC relations was the Obama Administration nuclear treaty with theocratic Iran that has, somehow, allowed it to become a major regional player. In the Middle East this realignment of American policy is synonymous of the weakening of the traditional alliance US-Gulf States. In the face of this new reality, the Gulf monarchies had no other choice but to seek an alliance with their Semitic cousins of the Jewish state, somewhat discreetly. Nevertheless, given that Israel has been playing this “game of discreetness” with its Arab neighbors since 1948, to the extent that it has become an inherent etiquette of its foreign policy, has, wholeheartedly, accepted to stand on the side of the oil-rich sheikhs and defend them from the encroaching Persian danger.

For Kalman Sporn, Obama has achieved the impossible; he has managed to unite Saudi Arabia with Israel:

“Last July, Prince Turki Al Faisal, Saudi Ambassador to US from 2005-2006, published an op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. It did not mention the Palestinian people’s “right of return” to their former homes in current Israel, a key demand of Palestinian activists for decades. Even more surprising, Faisal’s article did affirm the importance of the Holocaust and the Jewish people’s historic claim to Jerusalem.”

So, after all, this Iranian potential nuclear bomb has some positive side effects that are not of the reactive quality but of proactive nature, instead.

For Leon T. Hadar:

“After all, if Iran poses an “existential” threat to Israel and to the Arab-Sunnis, perhaps the time has come for them to reach a deal on the Palestinian issue? Or is that again something that the Americans are obligated to deliver to them? Indeed, an Arab-Israeli peace ceased to be a core U.S. interest. It’s in the interest of the Arab and the Israeli leaders to make peace and work together to secure a stable regional balance of power in face of the challenges posed by an assertive Iran. If they can’t do that, they should pay the price and not expect Washington to get them out of the mess they helped create. From that perspective, the Iran deal may be the first step in a process that would allow Middle Easterners to finally start writing their own histories instead of expecting Washington to continue running the show for them.”

However one wonders what does this cold alliance mean to Israel in the long run and would Israel be willing to pay the price to honor this “Confederation of the Semites?”

Clearly it will mean accepting the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 for the resolution of the Palestinian predicament, with its painful articles, mainly the “Right of Return” of refugees, the return to the pre-1967 borders and the two-state track. In return, the Sunni Arabs will recognize the existence of Israel and sign a peace treaty with it solemnly.

The territorial loss for Israel, in this deal, will be, immediately, compensated by an economic bonanza and the demonization of Hamas, if it persists to stay a strip of land client of Iran.

Realizing that the alliance of the Semites is taking shape slowly but surely, Hamas is acting, accordingly, by siding with Israel as reported by the very reliable and serious Jerusalem Post on May 1, 2016, that sported a catchy title; “An unlikely trio: Israel, Hamas and Egypt align against ISIS in Sinai”:

“Israel, Egypt and Hamas have aligned their strategies and formed an unlikely alliance against the Islamic State in Sinai, who are planning increasingly sophisticated and daring attacks in the region, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.”

In view of these interesting developments in the Mideast, the late King Hassan II is surely reveling in his grave at this, given that he has often called on his Arab peers to marry Arab money with the Israeli genius to develop the area.

Will this happen? Only time can show.

Header Image Credit: http://www.haaretz.com/