Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia Is Possible—with American Help

After a week of closed-door meetings in Riyadh, John Hannah sums up the kingdom’s position on relations with the Jewish state thus:

“It makes sense for us to normalize with Israel. We share the same threats, enemies, and allies. But it will be difficult because for 50 years we’ve filled our people’s heads with hatred of Israel. We still have extremists. They will attack us. The Iranians will stir up instability. Our economy could suffer. Our standing as the leader of the Islamic world could suffer. The risks are real. We’re prepared to take them, but we need several things from the United States first to help us balance the risks.”

After explaining what exactly the Saudis want from the U.S., Hannah asks two obvious questions:

Isn’t progress on the Palestinian issue a prerequisite for normalization? The answer we got was an unequivocal “no,” followed by a vivid description of a Palestinian leadership incapable of making peace with Israel for fear of being killed by its own people. The Saudis will continue to press for a solution, but the Palestinian track is now separate from the normalization track. The latter will no longer be held hostage to the former, provided the Saudis can get what they need from the United States.

Are the Saudis serious? My impression was that they are, but skepticism is warranted. Are their demands for major improvements in the U.S.-Saudi bilateral relationship being presented as a take-it-or-leave proposition, or are they more an opening gambit subject to the give-and-take of negotiations? I’m not sure, but my hunch is that the bazaar is open.

Given the huge geopolitical stakes at play, it would behoove the United States to put the Saudis to the test. Making peace with the Arab and Muslim world’s richest and most influential state would obviously be a tremendous boon to Israel, America’s most important regional ally. It would also be a major victory for U.S. diplomacy, . . . one that neither of America’s great power adversaries, China or Russia, could ever hope to pull off.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Israel-Arab relations, Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Foreign policy, U.S.-Israel relationship

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society