Daily Times

Recently in an interview, Saudi Prince Muhammad Bin Salman expressed his view in a candid manner that like other states, the citizens of Israel also have a right of claiming separate nationhood. However, in order to make it happen successfully, it is the sine qua non that both Israel and Palestine should enter into a peace accord so that both live in a friendly neighbourhood. This is the first time Saudi Arabia, which has an eminent status in Islamic countries, has openly accepted the existence of Israel on the Palestinian territory. Before Saudi Arabia, it was Egypt and Jordan which had already recognised the existence of Israel as a state.

In 1950, former president of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, had recommended that in order to bring an end to the hostility between Israel and the Arab world, it is better to enter into a peace accord and give recognition to Israel as a separate state, but the Arab world denounced the former president’s opinion.

Till 1975, Arabs and Israel had fought four wars; no Muslim country recognised Israel except Egypt, Turkey and Jordan. During the reign of Iran’s King Reza Shah Pahlavi, there were informal links between Iran and Israel, yet there was no formal treaty at an economic or political level between the two states.

The recent statement of Prince Salman and increasing military spending of Saudi Arabia demonstrates that it intends to take aggressive measures against Iran and the ultimate beneficiary of this strategy would be Israel

In 1948, under the auspices of the UN, the US, the Soviet Union and other western powers supported the cause of Israel through the partition of Palestine. In the aftermath of such events, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their homes in order to pave the way for the creation of Israel as a separate state.

With the creation of Israel, through annexation of Palestinian territory, the Arab-Israel conflict had become much more complicated, especially in the aftermath of 1967 war, when Israel forces succeeded to wrest control over Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza.

Till then, Arab countries had developed a narrative that Israel would not be recognised unless or until Palestinian refugees’ possession is restored to their homes and Israel withdraws its control from the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights which it has occupied since 1967. Nevertheless, with the recent statement of Price Salman, it has sent jitters across the Arab world because most of the Arab countries denounce construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory and the spate of violence witnessed in Gaza over the past so many years resulting in the killing of innocent Palestinians including women and children.

Subsequently, after the Saudi Prince’s statement, King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz clarified that Saudi Arabia’s policy in support of an independent and autonomous Palestine state is still intact and this policy will never change. Although the Saudi’s king has given a clarification that its basic policy with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict has not changed, the statement of Prince Salman should be seen in a proper context.

At present, three important events are taking place in the Middle East as well as in Persian Gulf region. In an interview, Prince Salman has levelled serious allegations on Iran that it has expansionist aims in the entire Persian Gulf region which need to be curtailed. Saudi Arabia further claims that Iran is supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen to topple the regime supported by Saudi Arabia.

Hence both Saudi Arabia and Iran are at loggerheads with each other. Both Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s governments allege that Iran wants to restore its control over the Red Sea so that it can control the trade route providing access to the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal.

Although Tel Aviv and Riyadh do not have any formal engagement, yet both the governments are in contact with each other. It can be understood by the fact that recently Air–India has commenced its flight service from India to Israel and Saudi Arabia has allowed the Indian government to use its air-space. Previously, in the past seventy years, Saudi Arabia had imposed an air embargo, and no flight service was allowed to use its air-space to travel towards Israel.

Over the past few years, the alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia had further strengthened, and the most important aspect of this relationship is the recent agreement between the two countries regarding the purchase of arms and weapons deal of worth billions of dollars. By this purchase of arms, Saudi Arabia wants to consolidate its military alliance of Muslim countries (Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition) comprising of 41 nations.

Pakistan is also a member of this alliance, and one division of its troops is already stationed there. Pakistan’s government claims that its troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia would not become a part of any such strategy meant to attack Iran or engage in the ongoing civil war in Yemen. However, political experts say that the recent statement of Prince Salman and increasing military spending of Saudi Arabia demonstrates that Saudi Arabia intends to take aggressive measures against Iran somewhere in the future and the ultimate beneficiary of this strategy would be Israel.

Due to this division amongst the Muslim countries, Israel would exploit it to its maximum advantage, and in the future, the possibility cannot be ruled out that more atrocities would be inflicted upon the Palestinians that would result in the killing of innocent civilians. A few days ago, Israel also launched an attack on one of the air bases of Syria.

The Middle East conflict is likely to get intensified with the recent military strikes by the US, the UK and France in Syria against the suspected chemical weapons attack of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime upon its civilians. Meanwhile, Russia, which is supporting Assad regime, had already warned the western powers to abstain from any military strike. It seems that the second phase of the cold war has started, which is likely to bring the US and Russia in a global conflict and Syria has become a hotbed of it; the situation in the Middle East risked spiralling out of control. Syria has become the nexus for regional power plays and the arena for a shadow war between the West and Russia that portend even worse is to come if all involved do not exercise restraint and instead allow the current hostilities to escalate.

The writer is a human rights activist, constitutional lawyer and a teacher. He can be contacted at sheraz.zaka@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, April 20^th 2018.