“No, the surprising cooperation and doors that might open to which Netanyahu referred, seems an allusion to key Sunni countries in the region, particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Just a day before the prime minister’s comments, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah issued a statement read out on Saudi television about the situation in Gaza. Incredibly, Abdullah decried the “collective massacre” in Gaza, but did not pin it on Israel………… Abdullah’s words were real-time proof of what American political scientist Walter Russell Mead wrote last week, that “the battle between Sunni Arabs and Israelis is no longer the most important issue on the table for key Arab governments as well as for Israel……………”
The alliance, I called it a coalition, is in place. It has been forming for some time, it was awaiting the advent of Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi to return Egypt to it. Now that the Egyptian Tahrir Uprising has totally failed: he is in place. The Al Saud and their Al Nahayn sidekicks had wanted Egypt back, which they have now bought back. They have also wanted Iraq back (demographically not possible) and Syria back (their chances were ruined by their Wahhabi militia allies) and Lebanon back (demographically not possible).
A coalition of convenience, between arguably the most democratic (it still is, even with the plight of the Palestinians under occupation) and most aggressively militarized country in the Middle East and two of the least democratic countries in the Middle East, possibly in the world (Saudi Arabia and the UAE).
Egypt is now another traditional Arab military oligarchy, its fate sealed with Al Sisi engineering a victory of 97% out of the few Egyptians who bothered to vote earlier this year. The goal: on the one hand aimed at maintaining the status quo of pre-2011, and on the other aimed at pushing back the eastward expansion of the mullahs away from the Mediterranean.
Don’t expect Netanyahu to land at Riyadh anytime soon: no such invitation is likely. If he did, he might bring along a bunch of lawyers with claims to Jewish property confiscated at Madinah and Khaybar some fifteen centuries ago. The Saudi king is unlikely to fly anywhere other than Morocco, or maybe to some medical facility in the West.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum