[Peace-discuss] Israel lobbyists smear Khashoggi as terrorist so as to maintain Saudi alliance — and plans for Iran war

[David Green]

Israel lobbyists smear Khashoggi as terrorist so as to maintain Saudi
alliance — and plans for Iran warUS Politics
<https://mondoweiss.net/us-politics/>
Philip Weiss <https://mondoweiss.net/author/philweiss/> on October 19, 2018 14
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Josh Block


Even as headlines around the world say that it murdered a critical
journalist, Saudi Arabia has some friends in the U.S. The Israel lobby is
going to bat for the theocratic dictatorship over the alleged killing
of Jamal Khashoggi.

Last night on i24 news, EJ Kimball, an Israel advocate at the Middle East
Forum, suggested that Khashoggi deserved to die. The journalist’s “ties to
al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood” raise “a whole lot of other issues”
about the Saudi tradition of exporting terror, Kimball said. The much
bigger picture, he said, is the new Saudi Arabia taking on Iran.

Josh Block of the Israel Project made a similar allegation about Khashoggi
two nights back. Pro-Al-Qaeda media are pushing the Khashoggi story, Block
said, “because Khashoggi was a radical Islamist terrorist ally who was
close to Osama Bin Ladin, ISIS, Hamas & wanted to overthrow the Saudi
ruling royals, who oppose both the Sunni terrorists, sponsored by Turkey &
Qatar, as well as Irans’s Shia terrorist armies & allies.”



Josh Block’s tweet on Jamal Khashoggi, preserved by Remi Brulin

Meanwhile, Israeli leaders have been staying quiet about the Khashoggi
murder, as James North has repeatedly pointed
<https://mondoweiss.net/2018/10/mainstream-ignoring-alliance/> out on our
site. That’s because Israel and Saudi Arabia are now allied against Iran,
evidently seeking an American-led war against the country, and all the
attention to the rubout of a journalist is throwing a wrench in the works.

A former US ambassador to Israel who now lives in the country and serves as
an Israel advocate explains the silence
<https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilytamkin/kashoggi-disappearance-israel-quiet-saudi-arabia?bftwuk&utm_term=4ldqpgm#4ldqpgm>
:

The Israelis are “in a very difficult position,” Dan Shapiro, the US
ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, told BuzzFeed News.
“They count very much on Saudi Arabia,” which is “central to their
strategic concept of the region.” Saudi Arabia, after all, is their partner
in arms in countering and isolating Iran and Israel’s “strategic anchor” in
the region.

Max Blumenthal explains
<https://twitter.com/maxblumenthal/status/1053097984123158529?s=12> the
importance of Saudi Arabia:

For the Beltway’s Israel lobbyists, it’s all hands on deck this week for
Saudi Arabia and MBS [Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman]. Their war on Iran
party has been unexpectedly disrupted and a natural ally is on the brink.

Israel and the Saudis have been quietly cooperating in the last couple of
years as they face a mutual enemy/regional rival in Iran; and Jared
Kushner’s much-anticipated peace plan surely involves an Outside-In approach
<https://mondoweiss.net/2018/10/outside-administrations-remake/>, in which
Saudi Arabia and its friends would seek to force Palestinians to accept
Bantustans on the West Bank as supposed sovereignty, and put quibbles over
Jerusalem and refugees behind them forever. It’s reminiscent of what
American elites were able to overlook in the Egyptian dictatorship for
decades, just because Egypt recognized Israel. Saudi Arabia surely wants
the same treatment.

A lot of the press heralding Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as a great
reformer–the man now accused of ordering Khashoggi’s elimination– must be
revisited now and seen as an effort by Israel’s friends to prepare
Americans for the new alignment. For instance, the crown prince of Israel
lobbyists, former peace processor Dennis Ross (who says American Jews “need
to be advocates for Israel”
<https://mondoweiss.net/2016/06/american-advocates-palestinians/>), went to
Saudi Arabia twice to watch bin Salman in action and wrote a piece in the
Washington Post
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/02/12/america-should-get-behind-saudi-arabias-revolutionary-crown-prince/?utm_term=.efcff309c749>
last
February, calling the prince the “driving force for change” and a
“revolutionary” the U.S. should support.

His efforts to transform Saudi society amount to a revolution from above…

if it was not for the turmoil and conflict that are consuming the region,
the big story in the Middle East would be the transformation taking place
in Saudi Arabia.

Ali Gharib noted:
<https://twitter.com/ali_gharib/status/1053275474091298816?s=12> “This line
from Dennis Ross should live in infamy, as a testament to his incredible
wrong-headedness on so many subjects: ‘Ironically, the skeptics are
primarily outside Saudi Arabia and not in it.'”
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