Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Al-Jazeera and the Gulf States

 

One of the places where that fabric of the world is stretched the tightest is along the Persian Gulf with the Straights of Hormuz being at the near breaking-point. The fabric was ratcheted even tighter right before United States President Trump’s recent visit when Qatar backed out of the deal made which made the Trump visit possible. Following right behind Qatar were both Oman and Bahrain, who also backed out of the deal, leaving Saudi Arabia in a predicament which has its problems and its rewards. The problem is now Saudi Arabia must foot the entire approximately four-hundred-billion dollar deal over three years. The good side is Saudi Arabia will be arming themselves to parity if not exceeding the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The next problem is that Saudi Arabian Military is great at marching and wearing fancy dress and intimidating mostly unarmed protesters and putting down any aspirations for the Arab Spring within Saudi Arabia, which took almost five minutes after the Friday launch date when protesters were outnumbered by Saudi Troops in the streets. Then there was the Shiite Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain which was appearing as if they might overthrow their Sunni rulers until, you guessed it, Saudi Arabian armored columns used all six lanes of the connecting causeway sending troops to end the uprising (pictured below). The Arab Spring ended in Bahrain with just the show of force and not one person was killed. Overwhelming force has its place and advantages. So, the Saudis will be the eight-hundred-pound-gorilla with sufficient armaments for two such gorillas. In case these arms are required to defend Saudi Arabia, which includes Mecca and Medina being in Sunni hands, the excess armaments owned by the Saudis will be distributed to well-trained Egyptian troops. Believe it that if the Saudis are in danger from outside forces that Egypt will provide manpower and, if necessary, Pakistan is in agreement to provide the technology to produce along with, some claim, as many as a dozen nuclear weapons. Now we have the chess table set with only a few other necessities which will be revealed as we follow a possible story-line, a scarily possible story line.

 

King Fahd Causeway is the bridge
between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia

 

Currently, Saudi Arabia is less than thrilled with Qatar for their pulling from the deal. There are some who believe they did this as a means of financially testing or even injuring the Saudi Arabian Royal Family who are not as affluent with money overflowing coffers as many in the West believe. Of course, it goes without saying, that Iran was behind this idea for their friend and sometimes, more often than not, ally, Qatar. There are many, ourselves included, who believe that Iran not only asked forcefully that Qatar pull out right before President Trump arrived such that the Saudis would have no recourse but to take up any needs. Then it is thought that Bahrain and Oman were also requested under threat by Iran to also pull from the deal. This has set up a very tense situation in the area around Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and the length of the Persian Gulf with the Straits of Hormuz the shortest distance between the two rivals (see map below). Qatar is using their control over their news service, Al-Jazeera, which combines television, radio, cable, internet and print media. Much of their electronic media is transmitted via satellite making it next to impossible to block. Qatar has been using their visual media to almost constantly show the visit of President Trump and particularly his visiting sacred and sensitive Islamic areas with women not wearing hair cover or burkas. The women were modestly dressed but not to the strict demands of Islam. These pictures are being accompanied with charges that the Saudi Royal Family are not real Muslims and they have disgraced Islam with their reception of President Trump without forcing the women to be properly covered. These accusations and the near constant flow of the pictures are on order from Iran attempting to insult the Saudi Royals before the Islamic world. The divisions as they currently appear to be are as depicted below.

 

Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Gulf States and the
Length of the Persian Gulf with the Straits of Hormuz

 

The problem, and even possibly the intent, is the media assault on the Saudi Arabian rulers by Qatar can only end one of two ways. The first is that Iran orders an end to the constant attempts of insulting and defaming the Saudi Arabian Royal Family and Qatar along with Al-Jazeera move on returning to often broadcasting Iranian attacks on the United States and Israel with occasional mention of Saudi Arabia or Egypt, i.e. regular broadcasting. The other is the attacks on the Saudi Royals leads to their demand they stop or they will be considered as a declaration of war on Saudi Arabia and her allies. The stress of her allies is important. This could result in the Saudis sending troops into Qatar to close down Al-Jazeera and that could result in a reaction from Iran at the request of the rulers of Qatar. This has been the Qatari Ace in the Hole by which they are able to continue to attack their larger neighbor, Saudi Arabia, through their manipulation of their control of the media in the Arab world using Al-Jazeera. This has been their means of bludgeoning the Saudi leadership and governance in service of their Iranian sponsors. The problem is should there begin to be unrest and calls for the end of the rule of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family and things start to become close to a point where the Wahhabi clerics might believe they could take control directly through a popular revolt, the Saudi Royals would act before that point could come to be. This would force their hand and an assault on Qatar, and on the Al-Jazeera headquarters in particular, might become the most viable option.

 

Should things reach the point that Saudi Arabia uses their military superiority to squelch the media assault originating from within Qatar, this might be the flashpoint leading to a far larger military confrontation. Such an attack could result in an Iranian response attacking Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates and counter the Saudi Arabian assault in Qatar. This might not even be the worst result. Should Saudi Arabia respond to such an attack with strikes inside Iran, the response could become a general attack by Iran across the Middle East on the heart of Sunni Islam striking towards Mecca and Medina from both Yemen and western Iraq using Houthis as their shock troops out of Yemen while they strike across Oman to Yemen and possibly land amphibious troops in Yemen for a pincher movement striking Oman from both ends and using Hezballah as their shock troops striking down out of Iraq getting a running start from Syria southward. There might be one feel-good side-effect; the Iranians may find it easier to simply eradicate Islamic State in the process. Jordan may or may not be amongst the targets of an Iranian first strike against Saudi Arabia, but they will be a target if for no other reason as they would allow Iran to surround Israel and Jordan has tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs who might just join Iran if they were given the right promises. This would be the definitive war between Sunni and Shiite Islam with the winner taking all of Islam or at least a huge step towards that goal if Iran wins and the end of Shia Islam if Saudi Arabia proved triumphant.

 

The truth be told, if Iran were to defeat Saudi Arabia, their number one rival and quite possibly the top of the Iranian bucket list ahead of the United States and even Israel, they would control the two most important cities in all Islam, Mecca and Medina, and gain a treasure trove of weaponry. With the good relations that Iran has with the Sudan and the natural enmity between the Sudan and Egypt, almost a sibling rivalry between the two former British colonies and still Arab colonies, truth be told, Iran would have a natural front with Egypt, the sole power between Iran and total domination of all Islam. This would place Iran a stone’s throw from establishing the Shia dream for the past thirteen-hundred plus years, the defeat of the accursed Sunnis who murdered their leaders and actual descendants of Mohammad and true leaders of Islam, or at least that is their story. Of course, the Sunni will tell a different story about renegade Muslims who are merely apostates.

 

This is one of those pressure points upon which the world may turn upside down, or right-side up, depending upon how you view the world’s current state. Where this is but one of the far too many breaking-points where the stretched fabric of the world is measurably thinner than average and which makes it a point where even the smallest disruption could punch a hole in the fabric from which a tear would soon start if the violence spread leading to a series of events insuring an ever larger ring of violence. Leading to World War I there was an assassination which led to a state of war that even before it was declared began tearing the world apart. Each side began calling in their promises of mutual support and before you knew it, most of the world was engaged in a struggle which after the lines settled simply stagnated with intermittent slaughters when one side or the other sent their troops into no-man’s-land rushing from their trenches attempting to reach the other side’s trenches. Both sides had this little invention, though under separate contracts and differing names, known as the Maxim machinegun (see image below). Maxim became wealthy and by the time the war ended and all the treaties were signed and borders established with the movement of populations, the resultant death toll exceeded fifteen-million.

 

Maxim Machinegun
Trenches and No Man’s Land

 

Making matters worse, the impositions, including and specifically monetary, placed on Germany were all but directly responsible for World War II and another approximately eighty-million deaths. All told, an assassination of an Archduke and his wife led to close to one-hundred-million deaths and the toll is still being counted as the Sykes-Picot Treaty is responsible for much of the trouble and dissolution of the Arab world, where things are sensitive and reaching a critical mass. Even if the current crises are calmed, the entire situation will simply rise to another similar point of overt pressure in the future unless a permanent solution which recognizes the individual tribes and allegiances. Even then, who knows, and who can even believe they can know. Until humankind learns to live one with the others despite their differences and when the concept of world conquest is forever laid to rest, we will simply live from one crisis to the next until one ultimate crisis ends the existence of humanity leaving so few humans that all knowledge is lost within two or three generations and humanity has to begin again from square one. Who knows how many times we have come to this precipice and fallen, once, twice, one hundred, how many? There has been evidence found of a former cataclysm and there are the ancient Indian texts telling of weapons with unprecedented destructive powers. The world once again has such power, the power to end all civilized life on the planet and cause an unprecedented extinction event exceeded only once or twice in all of Earth’s history. In the famous T. S. Eliot poem, “The Hollow Men” ends with the following two lines, “This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but with a whimper.” He was close as the last sound will be a whimper but all but immediately before that there will be a series of Earth-shattering bangs of near unprecedented destruction in all of human history combined as all the secondary nuclear powers release their destruction on all who are not fit to live by their definitions, which will be against the others and each other ending all, then the few who survive for a short period will finish with the whimper.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

UN Economic and Social Commission Declares Israel Apartheid

 

According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; after careful, deep, serious and intensive deliberations calmly released their verdict that Israel is an Apartheid nation. In a new report published recently it was claimed after examinations based on key instruments of international law that Israel has established an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinians. The basis for their determination rested on the fact that Israel has had repeated wars. This was stated without any reference to the fact that none of these wars were initiated by Israel and every war had as its cause actions by Arab forces, nations, terrorist groups or other forms of hostility including kidnapping, murder of civilians, cross border violence, weeks of ever increasing rocket assaults across the border and other casus belli for war. Instead the implication is that Israel has initiated these wars in order to enslave the Arab people and subjugate them while stealing their lands. They point to the presumed fact that Israel has annexed lands claiming the lands were not originally denoted by numerous legal treaties, conferences, mandates and even the United Nations Charter was Israeli to start with.

 

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

 

They noted expulsions of Arabs from their homes, businesses and lands presumably because of Israeli violence or threats thereof. There is a small problem here as the only large scale or even documented expulsion or dispossession of Arabs from their property occurred immediately before six Arab armies attacked Israel in May of 1948. This dispossession was caused by the Mufti of Jerusalem who insisted that the Arabs should leave their homes, farms, businesses and lands and escape to safety behind the Arab armies poised on the border of Israel so that their invasion could be simplified and all they need do is murder every person between them and the Mediterranean Sea. That story ended with them losing, not erasing all of Israel. The Arab forces did manage to wrest Judea, Samaria, Gaza and half of Jerusalem from the lands which were rightfully Israeli and because they did not slaughter every single last Jew and the Jews began to actually push the Arab armies back, they had the rest of the world preserve their gains by demanding an end to the war and threaten Israel that their further assaults would be viewed dimly. Israel, the Jews, winning has always resulted in the world demanding Israel cease their belligerence ignoring the small factor that the Arabs began each round of violence. With Israel still in existence, the Arabs decided to retain the Arabs whose lands remained under Israel control and demanded the world recognize these Arabs as refugees of the Israeli war because Israel refused to surrender everything to the Arabs who claim that all of Israel is rightfully theirs.

 

The final point is so ridiculous it is almost an embarrassment to mention. They state the Arabs they have labeled as Palestinians, since the invention of such a people in 1964, have been divided into groups which are treated differently. There are four groups which Israel treats differently and when we list the groups you might notice a particular peculiarity. These groups are the Arabs who are citizens of Israel (they leave out that they are full citizens but why argue over particulars); the Arabs in East Jerusalem; the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; and the Arabs dispersed outside of these areas.

 

Let us take them in reverse order; it will work out shorter this way. The Arabs who once lived within what is today Israel within the Green Line and are now refugees were requested (read demanded) to leave their properties to allow the Arab armies to destroy the Jews and then they could return and enjoy the spoils of the Jew wealth and have been prevented from returning by the Arab nations themselves or the Palestinian authority and Hamas governments in Judea and Samaria, and Gaza respectively. These Arabs were placed into camps and imprisoned there by their own people are not and never have been under Israeli occupation, control and Israel has absolutely no responsibility for the fact that they have never been permitted to settle in the nations where they are presumably refugees. The world is complicit in making these refugees a separate definition and the only refugees whose status is hereditary and passed from father to son and mother to daughter adinfinitum. There are approximately fifty-thousand original refugees left alive from the first Arabs who listened to the Mufti of Jerusalem and suffered for their obedience. The remaining five to six million are their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and so forth. None are in any way caused or the responsibility of Israel. Originally these refugees numbered about seven-hundred-fifty-thousand while the Jews forced from their homes in the Arab and Muslims nations of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) numbered in excess of eight-hundred-fifty-thousand. This should have been an exchange of populations in a similar manner as the exchange between Pakistan and India or Germany and France and other refugee exchanges throughout recent history.

 

The next groups mentioned were the Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. The Arabs living in Gaza are living under Hamas governance which we can safely assume is not about to change despite elections. The Arabs residing in Judea and Samaria live under Palestinian Authority rule as a form of semi-autonomous rule. Currently their leader is a gentleman named Mahmoud Abbas who is in the eleventh or twelfth year of his four year term. The Palestinian Authority has apparently had some degree of difficulty in arranging the overdue election which has nothing to do with Israel. Sorry to upset the theory that Israel refuses to allow them to vote as Israel has nothing to do with the Palestinian Authority’s election schedule, that remains the domain of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party. The sole Israeli responsibility is to protect the Palestinian Authority government from outside attacks and the Israel Defense Force has arrested numerous Hamas teams whose assignment very well could have been to overthrow Mahmoud Abbas forcing elections which they believe they are assured to win. Should they ever succeed and Hamas take over, things still would not be the Israeli’s responsibility.

 

The final two are actually to varying degrees Israeli responsibility. There are two areas which Israel has annexed, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. The Golan Heights, which the Israelis annexed to prevent the Syrians from murdering Israelis farming or people walking in the Galilee using snipers and occasionally artillery fire, was uninhabited; as it was entirely a military zone under the Syrians. With the current situation in Syria and having the Islamic State often taking border areas as a result of the multifaceted civil strife, civil war, the Israelis annexing the Golan Heights now looks like brilliance. Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, thus reuniting the city, should have been a no brainer as it had been formerly illegally held by Jordan whose annexation had been universally rejected even by the United Nations with only Pakistan and Great Britain recognizing the annexation, was performed simply to reestablish and making the Israeli capital city whole once more. The challenge was what should be done with the Arab citizens who previously had been citizens of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority rejected these former citizens demanding that Israel accept them whole. Israel gave the East Jerusalem Arabs citizenship receiving the benefits of healthcare and free movement in Israel and the right to vote in Jerusalem elections. The remaining right to vote in national elections has been left to be addressed at some future time presumably after final status talks have been completed.

 

That leaves one final groups and the easiest group to explain. These are the Arabs who remained in their homes, farms, businesses and land in 1948 refusing to obey the demands of the Mufti of Jerusalem demanding they abandon their homes so the invading Arab armies could slaughter all they met as everyone remaining was to be considered a Jew, even the Arabs and some might claim especially the Arabs as punishment for not obeying the Mufti. After the war they retained their homes, farms, businesses and land plus were granted full Israeli citizenship along with everyone who remained in Israel during the war. This was regardless of religion, race or any other descriptor imaginable. They have equal rights including healthcare, voting, free access to travel, driving privileges with a driver’s license as well as serving as judges, Ministers in the Knesset, doctors, nurses, salespeople or any other profession. The one right the Arabs were not required to fulfill was mandatory military service. They may enlist, do not get us wrong, it is just they are not required to either serve in the military or do community service. But the majority of the Arabs that this group was all torn-up over their treatment are actually honestly mistreated either by being denied proper, free and open elections as the Arabs in Gaza under Hamas and the ones under the Palestinian Authority or are being held in camps within barbed wire and guarded to prevent escape despite many having direct relatives living just on the other side of the barbed wire and fencing.

 

But perhaps we should take a glance at who are the nations making up the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. These nations are Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, The Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, The United Arab Emirates and Yemen. There are a few items of interest. First thing we noted was that Israel is obvious in its omission despite being located centrally within the area. The next item of interest was the inclusion of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and the Sudan as none of these are in any part of Asia; they are all located in Northern Africa. The last thing we noticed, well, all right, the first thing, actually, was that none of these nations are exactly on the best of terms with Israel. Jordan and Egypt both have a cold peace with Israel with over eighty percent of Egyptians polled desire for Egypt to go to war and destroy Israel breaking the treaty which they find demeaning. Almost every, if not every, nation on the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia are also signatories to the Khartoum Conference where the “Three No’s” were established: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.” In reality all of this is simply another declaration by the same mouths from across the Arab world as those at Khartoum. This is the actual truth of this declaration and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia is that it will be similar in nature regarding Israel and will simply be a paper mill grinding out more and more useless denunciation of Israel with nary a dissenting opinion in similar manner as the General Assembly. Simply ask Ban Ki-moon.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

The Grand Deal or Death by Consequences

 

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will do anything necessary to win himself his place in history. He sees that image as coming in the form of a Nobel Peace Prize which he plans on winning on the graves of thousands of Israelis, the majority being Jews of course. But there is another idea which if this is where Prime Minister Netanyahu is going, as he has gone this route before and each time Mahmoud Abbas came through in spades rejecting even the most advantageous of deals because he simply cannot allow anything offered by Israel in particular and the West in general, so Bibi is probably counting on this rejection to save Israel again. With Abbas having his life depend on his being as completely uncooperative as humanly possible, he will continue being uncooperative. When your entire society is built on rejectionism and the people are almost always at a fevered pitch on the verge of full mania, you cannot just turn the switch and they will become calm and understanding. This is the problem he and his allies from Fatah, the PLO and in the Palestinian Authority (PA) have caused. They built this engine of hatred and now they are simply riding the dragon hoping not to get eaten in the process. So this Grand Bargain, which it appears he has agreed to have Trump offer to the Arab World, mainly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which includes the oil sheikdoms of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and considering adding Jordan plus the United States might include some more of the Arab League nations such as Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and maybe also add Turkey though that might be a nation too far, is for the Arab world to press Abbas and we will watch Abbas reject them too. The Grand Bargain will be a promise from President Trump that the United States will defend from Iranian hostilities these nations and in turn they will dictate a settlement to Mahmoud Abbas and Israel will pull back probably to the Green Line with some moderations and possibly even land swaps making the Palestinian State of Palestine a reality. That is our best guess as to the Grand Deal which President Trump will try to sell in the Middle East, remember, this is his first rodeo here in the really wild, wild world of Arab fanaticism.

 

If Prime Minister Netanyahu is depending on the Arab League and the GCC states to reject this bargain then he may have a surprise coming but the ace in the hole is Mahmoud Abbas who even the Arab powers will be unable to budge. They crafted this monster Abbas to be uncooperative and they will see how well their handiwork has turned out. The other side of the equation is the Arab World. They observed with calm panic as President Obama sold Israel down the river and broke every understanding the Arab World had with Washington in order to create his new Hegemonic Iranian Monster (HIM). This HIM will become a nuclear power within a decade if they have not already started building a nuclear weapons stock with which to make themselves near to invulnerable to any outside influence and free to spread their Shia terror arms around the world starting in their own backyard, the Middle East. HIM had designs on the Saudi oil fields as well as the rest of the GCC wealth and knows that if they have the strength to devour the economic heart of the Arab League, they will be capable of replacing the Arab League with one large nation called Iran. The Mullahs of Iran are keyed on using HIM to reconstruct Persia and once again deal a deathblow to Greece except to them Rome is the new Athens and Paris, London, Berlin and Moscow are the other Greek City States and the area that HIM has designs on incorporating into their new world empire. Their conquests also include Israel though they are more likely to attempt to destroy Israel and turn it into a wasteland rather than fight any costly war on the ground. Their attack on Israel will come right before HIM attacks the United States. The Arab States will likely remember this betrayal and realize that Presidential promises are only as good as the length of that President in office and then it will be up to the next President to decide if they desire keeping any previous promises. They will know that somewhere down the line the United States will not be there as promised and will simply sell them out as too costly to defend or actively joining the other side, Iran in this case. Prime Minister Netanyahu may simply be waiting for this Grand Bargain to be rejected which is the most likely outcome. The only real question is how far the bargain will get before falling apart and failing.

 

Still this is a risky maneuver because such opportunities can turn out far different than one predicts. We would not desire to be anywhere near Prime Minister Netanyahu or the Likud Party if such a deal were made and it became the Israelis turn to fulfill their obligation to establish Palestine in Judea and Samaria and then face the Israeli public in the next elections. We can visualize the temper of such an election with Yitzhak “Bougie” Herzog and his Labor Party claiming that they are the solution to the mess Netanyahu created and can protect Israelis from the terror monster on our border with reason and cooperation with the United States and Meretz Party head Zehava Gal-On joining in on how the left has all the answers and mixed in somewhere will be the ever present and Prime Minister hopeful believing she is still relevant and owed her place as Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, clamping onto probably Labor as her ticket to the Big Show. Hopefully the Israeli public will realize and remember this entire scenario was the left’s idea and we have been stuck with this two state solution monster since Peres and company brought it down on our heads with the Oslo Accords and all the violence and the Gaza debacle with it. But this will all depend on what the Religious Zionist Jewish Home Party offers up as an alternative along with Israel Beiteinu and Avigdor Lieberman claim to be offering.

 

Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked

 

There was that interesting bit of news from an interview with Ayelet Shaked, from the Jewish Home Party where she is currently the number two seat and holds the position of Minister of Justice in the current government, who voiced an interest in the future of potentially running for the top spot in Jewish Home and trying to become the first Jewish Home Party Prime Minister, or the second if Naftali Bennett should become their first Prime Minister. We fully support Ms. Shaked as she is a competent, intelligent, energetic and true religious Zionist with an emphasis on Zionist. We can even let the world in on a little secret, though Naftali Bennett was the initial draw for us to become members of the Jewish Home, Ms. Ayelet Shaked was another factor along with Uri Ariel and Eli Ben-Dahan and their platform of recognizing all of Israel as promised in the Mandate system and other treaties and papers. We would support any of these members of the Jewish Home and would further like Jewish Home to try and gain a wider reach by offering the olive branch to other Religious Zionist Parties as we are stronger together than we can ever be competing against one another. The dream of Israeli politics has always been combining like-minded shards to create a single faction, always the dream and seldom the reality. But the point is that should such a Grand Bargain the Likud Party would see many of its more Zionist members fleeing the party like rats from a doomed ship. The Likud would make the next Knesset but would be in no position to be the kingmaker and would simply be scurrying to gain whatever scraps were offered if they were even approached to be in any coalition. For who knows how long they would remain a stained and injured party but rehabilitation would start with the removal of Bibi Netanyahu as he would receive the blame for this Grand Bargain as President Trump would likely never have tried such without Prime Minister Netanyahu onboard. So, apparently Israel, if this Grand Bargain goes through, is once again counting on the Palestinians, this time along with the Arab World, to not miss this opportunity to miss an opportunity, something they have become known for doing. We will all have to wait and see what develops but the ball is in the Trump-Netanyahu side of the court in this dangerous game of doubles.

 

Beyond the Cusp