ISRAEL - Conditions for Saudi Arabia Ties
A region-shaking deal normalizing ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh would likely be underpinned by US defense guarantees for Saudi Arabia but will also require Israel agreeing to establish a pathway to a future Palestinian state. Talks have faltered with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen as hamstrung by far-right coalition partners ideologically opposed to a two-state solution.
The US is working to convince Israel not to further expand its offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city. Washington has received assurances from Jerusalem that the IDF won’t widen the campaign before US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s visit, the official added.
For most of the war, the US has urged Israel to plan ahead of time what body it wants to replace Hamas in Gaza. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cautioned that pulling out of Gaza without a power structure in place would leave the Strip “a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again.”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said [the] US and Saudi Arabia are “very close” to reaching a deal that would provide Riyadh with security assurances from Washington while moving the Gulf kingdom away from US rivals.
The US is also working to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas that would see an initial weeks-long truce in Gaza and hostages freed in exchange for prisoners. But the talks hit an impasse, and they have yet to pick up since Israel began limited military operations in Rafah.
-www.timesofisrael.com, 15 May 2024
Arno's Commentary
Israel again finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Politics and diplomacy require certain risks, but in the end, Israel stands alone regardless.
It is of interest that Yom Ha’atzmaut—in which Israel has reached its 76th year—is always translated as “Independence Day,” but upon taking a closer look at the Hebrew alphabet, it can be translated “stand alone.”
Incidentally, that describes Israel’s beginning in 1948. Outside the Soviet Union, no one was willing to openly supply the Jews with weapons to defend their lives. Here an excerpt from the current prime minister’s speech:
Netanyahu met with the torchbearers and told them that just as Israel now faces a U.S. arms embargo amid the war against Hamas, so, too, did it when Arab armies tried to destroy the infant state in 1948.
“You represent the heroes of the spirit and of action among our people. … In the War of Independence [in 1948], we were the size of a grain of sand—600,000 people along the coast, with our backs to the sea, without weapons,” Netanyahu told the honorees.
“By the way, there was a US embargo then, [we were] without means, and opposite us were five Arab armies—and we won.
-www.israeltoday.co.il, 14 May 2024
Despite the amazing diplomatic progress Israel has made, it will not change the prophecies of the heathen prophet Balaam: “How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations” (Numbers 23:8-9).
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
