To Make Peace with Saudi Arabia Possible, Israel Needs a Decisive Victory against Hamas

Oct. 27 2023

The Iran problem is also at the heart of whether the Israel-Hamas war will torpedo normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh. While there is reason to believe that the terrorists launched their assault with that goal in mind, John Hannah and Blaise Misztal don’t believe it is an inevitable outcome. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman (known as MBS) has indeed halted the normalization process, but he might also resume it after the fighting ends:

Prior to October 7, MBS thought he was moving into alignment with an Israel whose deterrent power was overwhelming and whose military was the most competent in the Middle East. Hamas’s slaughter blasted a hole in that assumption. Instead, it’s the kingdom’s most dangerous foe, Iran and its terrorist allies, that appear ascendant and capable of inflicting massive harm on all those who defy them.

Whether MBS’s pause turns into long-term postponement now depends critically on . . . Israel’s success in reestablishing its deterrent power by crushing Hamas’s military capabilities in Gaza while limiting, to the extent possible, the impact on Palestinian civilians. When the dust finally settles, what needs to be clear is that Hamas’s so-called victory of October 7 was at best short-lived and Pyrrhic, ultimately resulting in a devastating defeat for both the terror group and its Iranian sponsors.

Specifically, MBS must come away reassured that his original thesis for normalization—one based on a combination of overwhelming Israeli power and American security guarantees—remains the best bet for securing the kingdom’s future stability and prosperity. Achieving that outcome depends first and foremost on Israel, of course. But it won’t happen without the kind of unequivocal U.S. backing that Biden has superbly provided since the crisis erupted.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Abraham Accords, Gaza War 2023, Israel-Arab relations, Joseph Biden, Saudi Arabia

Donald Trump’s Plan for Gaza Is No Worse Than Anyone Else’s—and Could Be Better

Reacting to the White House’s proposal for Gaza, John Podhoretz asks the question on everyone’s mind:

Is this all a fantasy? Maybe. But are any of the other ludicrous and cockamamie ideas being floated for the future of the area any less fantastical?

A Palestinian state in the wake of October 7—and in the wake of the scenes of Gazans mobbing the Jewish hostages with bloodlust in their eyes as they were being led to the vehicles to take them back into the bosom of their people? Biden foreign-policy domos Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken were still talking about this in the wake of their defeat in ludicrous lunchtime discussions with the Financial Times, thus reminding the world of what it means when fundamentally silly, unserious, and embarrassingly incompetent people are given the levers of power for a while. For they should know what I know and what I suspect you know too: there will be no Palestinian state if these residents of Gaza are the people who will form the political nucleus of such a state.

Some form of UN management/leadership in the wake of the hostilities? Well, that might sound good to people who have been paying no attention to the fact that United Nations officials have been, at the very best, complicit in hostage-taking and torture in facilities run by UNRWA, the agency responsible for administering Gaza.

And blubber not to me about the displacement of Gazans from their home. We’ve been told not that Gaza is their home but that it is a prison. Trump is offering Gazans a way out of prison; do they really want to stay in prison? Or does this mean it never really was a prison in the first place?

Read more at Commentary

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict