{"id":15367,"date":"2018-11-13T03:23:14","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T03:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=15367"},"modified":"2018-11-13T03:23:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T03:23:14","slug":"why-is-israel-tossing-a-lifeline-to-jamal-khashoggis-killers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/why-is-israel-tossing-a-lifeline-to-jamal-khashoggis-killers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is \u201cIsrael\u201d Tossing a Lifeline to Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s Killers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jackson Diehl<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Saudi Arabia\u2019s Mohammed bin Salman tries to escape consequences for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it has been revealing to see who has stepped forward to help him out. There have been fellow Arab dictators, such as Egypt\u2019s Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. There have been cynical opportunists, like Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of an entity whose right to exist has yet to be recognized by Saudi Arabia. You wouldn\u2019t think \u201cIsrael\u201d, in contrast to every Western democracy, would be explicitly endorsing a latter-day version of Saddam Hussein \u2014 a man so toxic that even K Street lobbyists are rejecting his money. And yet Netanyahu is emerging as Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s friend-in-need.<\/p>\n

For a month after Khashoggi disappeared inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, the \u201cIsraeli\u201d government was conspicuously silent. Then, a day or two after it was reported that Netanyahu had phoned the White House to lobby for Mohammed, he spoke up: While \u201cwhat happened in the Istanbul consulate was horrendous, and should be duly dealt with,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s very important for the stability of the world.\u2009.\u2009. that Saudi Arabia remains stable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In case there is some doubt what it means to \u201cduly deal\u201d with the strangling and dismemberment of a journalist by a team of 15 thugs, \u201cIsrael\u2019s\u201d ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, was clearer: It means, he said, that the United States should \u201cnot throw out the prince with the bathwater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why throw a lifeline to this killer? For Netanyahu, the Khashoggi crisis threatens to undo a carefully constructed regional strategy built around the 33-year-old Saudi crown prince \u2014 and President Trump. The idea is to forge a de facto alliance between \u201cIsrael\u201d and the Middle East\u2019s new generation of Sunni dictators, united against Iran \u2014 and to enlist the United States to provide muscle. As a side benefit, Mohammed would support a Trump Middle East peace plan that, while yet to be unveiled, seems to amount to coercing Palestinians into accepting \u201cIsrael\u2019s\u201d terms.<\/p>\n

Until Khashoggi\u2019s disappearance, everything was going smoothly: Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran and restored economic sanctions; cut off US aid to Palestinian refugees in Gaza while moving the US Embassy to al-Quds; and resumed US support for a Saudi bombing campaign against Yemen that has killed tens of thousands of civilians. Netanyahu was meanwhile invited to visit Oman, a Saudi ally.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu also has made a show of identifying himself with Trump. He has been the Mike Pence of the Middle East; he even called out CNN for \u201cfake news.\u201d When Trump visited Tree of Life synagogue following the Pittsburgh massacre, against the wishes of local leaders, just one official was there to welcome him: Dermer. Naftali Bennett, a Netanyahu cabinet member who also flew in, spent the next few days vigorously defending Trump against charges that his support for white nationalism had encouraged US anti-Semites. On the eve of the midterm elections, Bennett, who aspires to succeed Netanyahu, took to Twitter to heap still more praise on the president \u2014 in English \u2014 for \u201cMaking The Ayatollahs Scared Again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, \u201cIsrael\u201d has a long history of cultivating nasty dictators, as well as occupants of the Oval Office. Netanyahu\u2019s problem is that in betting so heavily on Mohammed and Trump, he took a large risk with two very unstable actors, each of whom has polarized their political systems. If Mohammed survives \u2014 something that for now seems more likely than not, given that the Trump administration remains committed to him \u2014 he will be weakened and wary. He won\u2019t be able to deliver the Palestinians for Trump\u2019s peace plan. There\u2019s a good chance Congress will cut off aid for bombing Yemen. Saudi Arabia\u2019s support for the coalition will amount to pumping oil.<\/p>\n

Trump, too, has been weakened by the Democrats\u2019 capture of the House of Representatives \u2014 and so has Netanyahu. What was once bipartisan US support for \u201cIsrael\u201d disappears when it comes to its current leader, who feuded with Barack Obama and all but campaigned for Mitt Romney in 2012. According to a Pew Research Center poll released this year, only 18 percent of Democrats had a favorable view of Netanyahu; twice as many regarded him unfavorably. That compared with 52 percent of Republicans who approved of the \u201cIsraeli\u201d leader.<\/p>\n

While key Democratic leaders in the incoming House, including likely speaker Nancy Pelosi [Calif.] and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot L. Engel [N.Y.], are staunchly pro-\u201cIsrael\u201d, many of their new rank and file will not be. And a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats will be repelled by Netanyahu\u2019s appeals on Mohammed\u2019s behalf. Instead, the spectacle of an \u201cIsraeli\u201d leader lobbying to excuse an Arab dictator for murder will only compound the damage he has done to his country\u2019s relationship with the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackson Diehl As Saudi Arabia\u2019s Mohammed bin Salman tries to escape consequences for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it has been revealing to see who has stepped forward to help him out. There have been fellow Arab dictators, such as Egypt\u2019s Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. There have been cynical opportunists, like Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin. Then there\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[432],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-supreme-leader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15369,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15367\/revisions\/15369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}