According to a report from The Times of Israel, Israeli officials have cautioned their counterparts in the Biden administration against heavily criticizing Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli concern is that if the US puts too much pressure on the Arab nations, they will become more friendly with Tehran.
An Israeli source told the Times that while Israel is mainly concerned with the Arab nations forming friendly ties with Iran, they also fear US pressure could make them more reliant on Russia and China.
While Israel has had diplomatic ties with Egypt for decades and doesn’t have formal relations with Saudi Arabia, a major aspect of the recent US push for normalization between Israel and Arab states was to isolate Iran. Trump administration officials frequently cited Iran as a reason to broker the Abraham Accords, which normalized ties between Israel and several countries, including the UAE and Bahrain.
Earlier this week, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett suggested to President Biden the idea of forming a NATO-style alliance in the Middle East against Iran. Bennett’s proposed alliance would include Israel, Jordan, and the Gulf Arab states.
The Times report said the matter of Saudi Arabia and Egypt was not discussed during last week’s Biden-Bennett meeting, likely because Biden hasn’t really put any pressure on the Arab nations. The source told the Times that Despite Biden’s rhetoric, he has “thus far avoided upending US relations” with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
As a candidate, President Biden vowed to press Riyadh and Cairo on human rights. In February, Biden said he was ending support for Saudi Arabia’s “offensive” operations in Yemen, but months later, it was revealed the US was still servicing Saudi warplanes, and the war is still raging. For Egypt, Biden has made no changes to the amount of military aid the US provides Cairo.
After Afghanistan, the lessons are clear – we need to cut our military to the bone; become Island America; and keep our “values ( selfish capitalistic greed)” to ourselves.
As such, Israel does not matter one iota to America’ s role in the World. Until, we become a more “civilized” country and dedicated to peace and good will to all, we need to absolutely ignore moral pariahs like Israel, that will only encourage our own evil tendencies.
Shame on u. u wanna put teddy bears like Bolton out of their jobs and privileges, u r a bad man
Plus the carbon footprint of the Warfare State is probably the single biggest contributor to global warming.
When the USSR collapsed in ’91 making the “red menace” defunct we expected “swords to ploughshares”, plenty of freed-up budget money to do the next round of New Deal social democracy and all those “civilized” things; but the Neocons succeeded in pre-empting that with the new war cry, The Global War on Terror.
Now Biden has declared an end to The Global War on Terror (i.e., presumably, all the substance -global hegemony, neoliberalism, and full-spectrum military dominance- covered under that camo code name); but, it’s hard to know how much of that is aspirational.
All the big money institutions (and they own the Congress) will ferociously oppose. And as usual Israel is first out of the blocks demanding the US stay put and continue the destruction of the Mid-East. I doubt if sanctioning the Saudi’s and Egypt on Human Rights was even mentioned.
Once again the ZioState dictates to Amerikkka what “should be done”. Until we flip our parasite Israel off, we won’t be making many friends in the Middle East.
And Bye-den has the unmitigated gall to “ press Riyadh and Cairo on human rights issues”?! When the world’s most egregious human rights offender is staring him right in the face?
Israel, your time is coming. You rely on a bunch of old white Amerikkan pols to fund your genocide, and the times they are a-changin’.
The Arab/Israel NATO would never materialized because Iran would not let it happen…!
Israel at it again, dictating or attempting to dictate what the US can and cannot do.
It will be successful. AIPAC is watching, you know.
Israel wants Trump’s policy to continue and be extended. Abraham Accords plus more.
Will Biden do that? Maybe. He’s always done it before, but then he did stop the Afghan War, so we won’t know until we see it. I won’t hold my breath, but I see it is not a foregone conclusion either.
Iran, Iran, it is always about Iran for Israel. Always.
And it would be somebody else if not Iran. It all for a while looked like a game. First Iraq then Iran. Then Cairo happened, and Egypt was slipping out of control. Then Libya had to happen to put Egypt on notice. Middle East was suddenly slipping into disorder, Iran still further out of reach. With Saudi Arabia’s internal structures lead by Mohammed Bin Nayef, a new architecture was put in place. Salafi Sunni Islamic fundamentalism was to reshape weak Sunni states by internationally minded true believers, all turned to Saudi Wahhabi leadership for directions. A Sunni Vatican if you will. But in Egypt military quickly put on notice both Brotherhood AND Salafi movement. Brotherhood payed high price, but Salafi movement understood not to take on the military.
In Libya, it was easy to get Ghadafi, as man was an easy target. Being charmed by the likes of Sarkozi and Blair, he cut ties with Russia, and had nobody to turn to when the rug was pulled underneath his state. Islamic militants and chaos were brought to Egypt’s borders.
Soon, Salafi successful formula was brought to Syria, destroying yet another state in Egypt’s Eastern neighborhood, Saudi by then Crown Prince MB Nayef threatened Egypt by withholding delivery of paid oil. Squeeze was put on Egypt to get its military government to capitulate. And by then consolidation of disparate Salafi movements resulted un ISIS. At this point, success seemed guaranteed — a Sunni territory taking pieces of Iraq and Syria was to revive a concept of Caliphate. And with Kurds controlling parts of Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish borders — a veritable iron curtain was being raised between Levant and Gulf, keeping all major players isolated. Turkey in Anatolia, Syria divided in half, Lebanon without regional trade, and all isolated from Shia Iraq and Gulf.
This is why Russia entered Syria. And it was not just at Syria’s urging. Egypt was surrounded by militancy, terrorists were coming from Libya and attacking Christian communities, causing sectarian tensions. Turkey saw the open US support of Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, and an increasing number of attacks by Kurdish militants in Turkey. And obvious desire by US and EU to keep Turkey isolated from Gulf, and dependent on EU.
Iraq also realized that flawed intelligence led many of its units straight into ISIS traps.
Russia started by pushing ISIS tentacles from Central Syria outward across Euphrates. US by then staked out air control of the region beyond Euphrates.
Three thins happened simultaneously. First, Iraq started to attack ISIS independently of US and made progress. Independent Shia militia was formed and operated under Iraqi command but outside US area of control. Second, Turkey stepped in and destroyed ISIS along its border at Jarabulus, then proceeded to cut through ISIS all the way to their last stand — Al-Bab. This ended expansion of ISIS along Turkish border.
And US — in a desperate move, used Turkish PKK to remove ISIS from Sinjar and Kirkuk. Did not trust Iraqi Peshmerga. It became clear that US was sacrificing ISIS to advance Kurds.
This rang alarm bells in Riyadh. US was abandoning the idea of Caliphate as territory between Iraq and Syria,
Trump ran on that platform. Obama was already letting Kurds take over ISIS positions in Syria. With Iraq moving on Mosul, Turkey clearing its border, and Syria and Russia eliminating ISIS from area of their control — it was clear that US was abandoning the project Saudis heavily invested in. There is really a question whether US consulted Saudis at all before changing course.
As a result, a major shakeup in Kingdom occurred shortly after Trump’s visit to Riyadh. In June 2017 Mohammed Bin Nayef was relieved of all functions, and MBS became Crown Prince. King leading the delegation of 2000 visited Moscow.
And we saw a steady stream of bludgeoning all three — Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for a variety of sins, mostly all purpose human rights complaints.
And we saw steady movement of countries into SCO, at first Eurasian organization. Last month Saudi Arabia and Egypt joined. With Egypt, organization is no longer limited to Eurasian geography.
It is WAY too late to ease up on Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. All three of them are now committed to regional stability, meaning, there will be no supporters for war on Iran. Does Israel think that this is just a matter of being nice to KSA and Egypt? This train left the station long, long time ago.