Saudi Double Talk: Excuse-making and blame-shifting

National Review Online ^ | April 23, 2002 | Rich Lowry

[xsysmgr]

How will the conversation go between President Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah if Bush actually challenges the Saudi prince with any tough questions during their meeting later this week? We got a preview Sunday, when a Saudi spokesman on Meet the Press danced around nearly every question thrown to him by Tim Russert.

The Saudi answer to just about everything is that it's Ariel Sharon's fault — Palestinian terrorism, Saudi anti-Semitism, Saudi celebrations of suicide bombings, any nastiness or backwardness evident in Arabian society.

This is quite an accomplishment for an Israeli prime minister who barely has control of his own government and was only elected a little over a year ago.

It constitutes a prime exhibit of Arab excuse-making and blame-shifting, against which the Bush administration will have to steel itself if it's not going to be distracted from what should be the main issue at hand: the Saudis' attempted obstruction of a U.S. move against Iraq, and the Saudi role in promoting Islamic radicalism around the globe.

President Bush is famous for having a low tolerance for BS, so it is easy to imagine Abdullah trying his patience unless the crown prince is more forthcoming in private than his spokesmen are in public.

Tim Russert asked Adel al-Jubeir, foreign-policy adviser to Abdullah: "As a way to bridge the path to peace, why won't Saudi Arabia today unilaterally say, 'We recognize Israel's right to exist and we urge all other Arab nations to do the same'?" Al-Jubier — who, to his credit, is an extremely soft-spoken and articulate dodger — replied, "We've done that at the Arab summit."

Uh, no, not really.

At the summit, the Arabs said that if Israel complied with the maximalist Arab demand — withdrawal from all of the West Bank and Golan — the Arabs would respond by giving Israel the bare minimum of what any state should expect from its neighbors: recognition of its right to exist.

So, even if we accept the sincerity of the Arabs' offer at the summit, it is still only a conditional recognition of Israel's right to exist, and in no way tantamount to the kind of statement Russert is asking about — a distinction that the very bright al-Jubeir surely understood and purposefully tried to obscure.

Obfuscation, apparently, is one of al-Jubeir's talents.

Russert asked about the Saudi ambassador to Britain who wrote a poem praising suicide bombers. Q: "Has that ambassador been reprimanded or recalled?" A: "The ambassador is a very well-known poet."

Good answer!

Al-Jubeir went on to say that the ambassador "has been writing poetry for decades, and when he writes poetry, he does so in his personal capacity. He was expressing the anger and the frustration that people feel. I believe, Tim, that the important thing here is to focus on the big picture. The goal is to arrive at a peaceful solution and peaceful settlement. We cannot get there if we keep pointing fingers."

We cannot get there if we keep pointing fingers! Why, then, does al-Jubeir relentlessly hammer away at the Israelis?

Al-Jubeir is just trying to say that the Saudis are blameless, that no attention should be brought to bear on the Saudis and their society (such scrutiny will necessarily be unflattering), and instead all the fingers should be pointed toward Ariel Sharon.

Consider the next exchange. Russert asked about a Saudi religious authority who recently endorsed the exterminationist option. Q: "He prayed to the Muslim God to 'terminate' the Jews, whom he called 'the scum of humanity, the rats of the world, prophet killers, pigs and monkeys.' That's a problem." A: "That's exactly why I was saying it's important to keep the focus on the larger picture."

Oh.

Al-Jubeir then said, "If there were a seriousness on the Israeli side in terms of a commitment to withdraw from all of the territories, I think the peace process would pick up, and we wouldn't have to listen to views like this."

So, it's Sharon's occupation that makes Saudi clerics think Jews are pigs and monkeys. Al-Jubeir doesn't say whether the end of the occupation would mean Saudi clerics would upgrade Jews to less lowly animals, or if they would actually begin to consider them fully human. Bottom line, either way: Saudi anti-Semitism is Sharon's fault.

This line of argument is behind the oft-repeated Saudi formulation on terrorism. The Saudis won't say that suicide bombers are murderers, but that they condemn the killing of innocents on both sides, which is a condemnation of terrorism that neatly contains within it a justification for terrorism — i.e., the Israelis kill so many innocent Palestinians that it is understandable that Israeli women and children should be blown up at supermarkets.

Watch al-Jubeir at work:

Q: Do you believe, as President Bush has said, that the suicide bombers, the homicide bombers, are murderers, not martyrs?

A: Well, let me put it this way. We have condemned terrorism in all of its forms, regardless of where it occurs and regardless of what the reasons are behind it….

Q: But are the suicide bombers murderers or martyrs?

A: I think that our grand chief mufti has condemned suicide bombing a year ago and it was very clear. I believe that we have to look at also the cause of what causes it. Palestinians are desperate. They're taking desperate measures. I can't sit and tell them and tell you this is correct or not correct. Anything that results in the killing of innocent people is wrong on both sides, and we've made our views clear on this.

Al-Jubeir seems to condemn terrorism, but then takes it back in the same breath: "I believe that we have to look at also the cause of what causes it. Palestinians are desperate. They're taking desperate measures. I can't sit and tell them and tell you this is correct or not correct."

The Saudi position is that terrorism is to be condemned, but they can't tell anyone not to use this condemnable tactic (in other words, it's not really condemnable, no matter what they technically say).

Let's treat ourselves to one last al-Jubeir dodge, since he is so good at it. Q: "Will the crown prince tell President Bush that Saudi Arabia is prepared to say to Yasser Arafat, 'Cease and desist all terrorism, cease and desist all suicide bombers, cease and desist anything that will cause this situation to spiral out of control and be a full partner for peace'?" A: "Well, Tim, we have weighed in with President Arafat on a number of areas."

Thank you, Mr. al-Jubeir — you were more enlightening than you could have imagined, and certainly more enlightening than you intended.

[swarthyguy]

they're certainly making it tough for dubya to keep up the charade of them being our 'friends' and 'allies'.

[Mel Gibson]

Email the President of the United States at: president@whitehouse.gov
and tell him to give the Saudis an Ultimatum.

Time to give Saudis an Ultimatum

[etcetera]

I vote to attack Saudi first, secure the oil, then take on Saddam.