tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post8337095783604037847..comments2024-03-29T04:06:37.402-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Israel and Saudi Arabia: Reluctant DiplomacyStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-21184892302966874872015-06-06T23:49:02.474-07:002015-06-06T23:49:02.474-07:00How many white European people in different costum...How many white European people in different costumes does it take to convince the rest of the world that the holy sites of the Abramic religions actually belong to white European people who wear different kinds of headgear? <br /><br />What a silly notion, that those cosplaying white people are enemies! France, Britain, and the U.S. have invaded the entire Middle East except for two magically special countries that are always protected from international blowback or world-policing. High Arkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14723123626955733759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-51407415994070413852015-06-06T22:34:50.873-07:002015-06-06T22:34:50.873-07:00Chris Mallory said... "Judeo-Christian" ...Chris Mallory said... "Judeo-Christian" There is no such thing.<br /><br />Stuart said "Judeo-Christian civilization", a common history. And even by religion Christianity shares the old testament with the Torah. <br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Bible#Hebrew_Bible.2FOld_Testament<br /><br />But from what I learned from the history of Christianity from my church's orientation, many Christians don't consider other Christians as legitimate either, so there's lots of disapproval to go around as pleases you. Everyone can play the piety game, and the only rule is everyone else is playing it wrong.<br /><br />Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-4918643151393413642015-06-06T18:33:51.559-07:002015-06-06T18:33:51.559-07:00Maybe this was Obama's secret plan all along?
...Maybe this was Obama's secret plan all along?<br /><br />As long as America is trying to hold everyone's hand, all the competing players stay self-interested and divided, while as you say Iran gives the Saudis and Israel a common threat, and also gives a bridge between Jewish and Muslim common cause.<br /><br />Not to suggest the Saudi royalty are an ideal partner beyond common security, but they used to be our best friends, until they decided to allow religious fundamentalists free reign to cause 9/11. But maybe Israel can take a turn trying to moderate the kingdom?<br /><br />I'm not that interested in decoding the politics, but here's one perspective below. <br /><br />I do disagree with the idea the Saudis are bad friends for playing price-hardball, just honest rivals, choosing to expand oil production in a oil glut, and really I don't see the new shale oil production in the U.S. surviving the low prices that the Saudi's can afford, but its hard to guess what breaks first.<br /><br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/saudi-arabia-is-no-friend-to-the-united-states/2015/05/29/64f24bac-0588-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html<br />-------------------------<br />In my Post colleague Charles Krauthammer’s May 21 op-ed column, “You want hypotheticals? Here’s one,” former Saudi Arabian intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal was quoted approvingly as complaining: “We were America’s best friend in the Arab world for 50 years.” Note the past tense.<br /><br />As Oscar Wilde is credited with saying, “True friends stab you in the front.” <br />...<br />In 2001, then-Crown Prince Abdullah, then the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia and a backer of the Palestinian intifada, didn’t think the United States was doing enough to oppose Israeli action in the Palestinian territories. So when he was invited to visit the White House to meet with newly elected Bush in May 2001, Abdullah chose to stay at home, haughtily announcing, “We want [the United States] to consider their own conscience.”<br /><br />A few months later, Abdullah fired off a letter angrily warning Bush that “A time comes when peoples and nations part. We are at a crossroads. It is time for the United States and Saudi Arabia to look at their separate interests.” Remember that, Prince Turki?<br /><br />Today, the Saudis are in a tight spot, but it’s not because of the United States. The roiling Islamic struggle, pitting the Sunni Saudi and Persian Gulf states against their Shiite rivals in Iran, is of the Islamic world’s own doing. The United States can’t save them from themselves.<br /><br />Still, some good has come out of the Saudi oil blackmail. It woke us up to the vulnerability caused by dependence on foreign oil. The oil shocks forced a succession of U.S. presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon, to initiate efforts to raise fuel-economy standards, increase conservation measures and double down on other power sources. <br /><br />Now, shale production has propelled the United States way up the ladder as an oil producer, making us far less dependent on the kingdom than we were when we got blindsided in ’73.<br /><br />And the response from our “best friend”? <br /><br />The Saudis have been pumping up oil production to cause prices to fall, preserve their market share and thus undermine U.S. shale oil development.<br /><br />What a friend we have in Saudi Arabia.<br />-------------------------Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-29616058290405268642015-06-06T15:54:19.586-07:002015-06-06T15:54:19.586-07:00The key hypothetical question is always dodged: Wo...The key hypothetical question is always dodged: Would you want to be captured or ruled by the Israelis or by Hamas or any other Middle Eastern state? <br /><br />You know your answer. Why do you think that is?<br /><br />We say everyone should have an ancestral homeland and be ruled by their own. That's what the whole post-Wilsonian view is. The Jews have documented claim to their ancestral land... it's not some sham fiction. They also want to be ruled by other Jews. Israel is a Jewish state, and was founded as such.why is this strange? It's an accepted concept for every other nation, as are rights to territorial defense from avowed enemies.<br /><br />Why do we think the Jews are different? Many do. They have to look at them as super-human (Zionist conspiracy) or sub-human (the final solution to the Jewish question). But they are an undeniable nation. They have water scarcity, and they create their way out of it. On a little strip of land they were allowed at the time of partition. The Jews are different than their neighbors, and we are wise to acknowledge that with our support.Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18222603717128565302noreply@blogger.com