Will the Saudis formalize their with Israel or not?That’s the $64, 000 question.
Saudi Arabia is unlikely to be about to formalize its relations with Israel, but the kingdom, whose symbol is tarnished by multiple false steps, seeks to ensure that it is not noticed as a man while the small Gulf states identify diplomatic relations with the Jews. State.
Bahrain’s announcement to follow in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates is both an initiative by Bahrain and a Saudi signal that it does not oppose normalization with Israel.
Bahrain, a Shia-majority Muslim nation, which has been heavily dependent on the kingdom since Saudi troops helped suppress mass protests against the government in 2011, reportedly agreed to identify diplomatic relations with Israel without Saudi Arabia’s consent.
Bahrain’s resolution followed several other Saudi movements to sign the kingdom’s approval of Israel’s Arab normalization, even though it will not lead the group.
The moves included opening up Saudi airspace to Israeli advertising flights and releasing a report through a Saudi think tank praising Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s administration in modernizing the kingdom’s devout school formula and encouraging the devoted to the status quo updating “extremist narratives” in textbooks. a moderate interpretation of Islamic rhetoric “.
They also included a sermon through Abdulrahman al-Sudais, the imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, the world’s largest mosque surrounding the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, which highlighted the Prophet Muhammad’s friendship with the Jews.
M. al-Sudais noted that the prophet had “abluted a bottle of polytheistic water and died while his shield mortgaged a Jew,” forged a peace agreement with Jewish citizens of the Khaybar region, and treated a Jewish neighbor so well. eventually switched to Islam.
The imam’s comments, a day before Trump was suspected of being able to convince King Salman to follow the example of the United Arab Emirates, a day before U. S. President Donald Trump was suspected of being a component of an effort to prepare Saudi public opinion for Israel’s imaginable popularity.
The denunciation of comments on social media is an indication that public opinion in the Gulf states is divided.
The expression of the dissent of Emirati has been limited to Emirati exiles as the United Arab Emirates tolerates the expression of dissenting opinions.
However, small-scale protests have epped in Bahrain, another country that restricts freedom of expression and assembly. Bahrain’s political and civil society associations, adding the Bahrain Bar Association, issued a rejection of the status quo of diplomatic relations with Israel.
“The effects of normalization will not enjoy popular support, in line with what generations of Bahraini have been raised in terms of club of the Palestinian cause,” he said.
Bahrain has long hosted a Jewish network and has been the first, and thus far, the Arab state to appoint a Jew as ambassador to the United States.
The complaint echoes recent surveys in The Gulf States that recommend that Palestine remains a major public foreign policy concern.
A vote conducted through David Pollock of the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy found that Palestine has nothing to do with Iran.
Previous surveys through James Zogthrough, a Washington-based pollster with a decade-long record, showed that Palestine ranked in 2018 as the main foreign policy problem, followed by Iran in Emirati and Saudi public opinion.
In the same year, the Arab Opinion Index warned that 80% of Saudis saw Palestine as an Arab issue that was purely Palestinian.
Pollock said in an interview that with regard to Palestine, Saudi officials “believe they will have to be a little careful. They need to move gradually towards normalization, at least Israel’s lifestyles or Israel’s discussion, the choice. “but do not believe that the public is in full club conditions or anything like that. “
Gulf researcher Giorgio Cafiero published in a tweet that “Israel formalizing its relations (with) unelected Arab (governments) is the same as Israel making ‘peace’ (with) the Arab people. Look, for example, at what Egyptian citizens think of Israel Iran and Turkey will benefit from this truth, while America’s friendieslest Arab [governments] will point to agreements [with] Israel.
This year’s Arab Opinion Index suggests that in Kuwait, the only country that has not publicly engaged with Israel, Turkey, the Muslim country that has taken the lead in supporting the Palestinians, ranks first in the public esteem of China, Russia and Iran.
A rupture in a UNITED Arab Emirates-backed Muslim organization created to counter Qatar by political Islam and publicize an edition of state-controlled Islam that preaches absolute obedience to the leader serves as an additional indication that Palestine remains an emotional public issue.
In the case of Mr. Al-Sudais, analysts recommend that the complaint be both about Palestine and a sign that devoted leaders who submit to the whims of government threaten to waste their credibility.
M. Al-Sudais’s sermon stood in stark contrast to the interviews beyond where he described Jews as “murderers of prophets and the scum of the earth” as “monkeys and pigs” and defended Saudi Arabia’s confrontation with Iran as a war between Sunnis and Shiite Muslims.
Criticism, along with previous indications earlier this year that Saudi Arabia’s devout status quo was not satisfied with Prince Mohammed’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, would possibly be one of the reasons why Saudi Arabia is making gestures other than formalizing existing relations with Israel.
Authorities reportedly arrested Sheikh Abdullah al-Saad, an Islamic scholar, in March after posting an online audio clip criticizing the government for banning Friday prayers. M. al-Saad argued that the faithful can ask God for mercy.
A Mecca imam was fired shortly after expressing fear of the spread of coronavirus in Saudi prisons.
Academics Genevieve Abdo and Nourhan Elnahla reported that the council of the kingdom’s senior clerics had drafted a fatwa, or devout opinion, describing the closure of mosques as a violation of Islamic principles. They said government tension had persuaded the council not to factor an opinion.
The concern among ultra-conservative and devout scholars of the kingdom that Al-Saud’s ruling circle of relatives may break the power-sharing agreement with the clergy, reached at the birth of the kingdom, predates the rise of King Salman and the prince. Mohammed.
Indeed, fear of devotees dates back to the reign of King Abdullah and has focused on attitudes expressed through high-ranking members of the ruling circle of relatives who have since been ignored or detained by Prince Mohammed and the princes who continue to exert their influence.
Scholars feared that the ruling circle of relatives would separate the state from the faith, a fear that has likely increased since Prince Mohammed subjected the kingdom’s devoted status quo to submission and minimized faith by emphasizing nationalism.
Saudi ultraconservative devout scholars will also surely take note of Sudan’s recent resolution after the legal elimination of faith from the state kingdom.
Ultra-conservative sentiment poses an imminent risk to the reign of Prince Mohammed’s iron fist in a country where many have welcomed the social reforms that have lifted some of the debilitating restrictions on women, liberalized gender segregation, and the still-unfulfilled promise of greater opportunities. for a predominantly young population.
This, however, suggests an explanation as to why Prince Mohammed, who intends to publicize formal relations with Israel, needs to continue cautiously on a factor that potentially continues to arouse passions.
An earlier edition of this tale first published through Inside Arabia
A podcast edition of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and principal investigator at the S. School of International Studies. Rajaratnam, Nanyang University of Technology, Singapore He is a principal investigator at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore and co-director of the Institute of Amateur Culture at Wuerzburg University in Germany.
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