A week ago the Neocons had come up with a scheme for peace in Palestine. It hinged on a variety of unlikely contingencies—such as Saudi Arabia (KSA) agreeing to normalize relations with Israel on the basis of a Palestinian state that would only appeal to Israel. Today KSA shot down that scheme in no uncertain terms. It did so to refute US imputations that KSA was agreeable to the scheme, and the KSA statement was phrased in terms that Israel will never accept:
Blistering Saudi Statement Slams Door On Normalization With Israel
A hoped-for 'deal of the century' involving a permanent Saudi Arabia-Israel detente diplomatic recognition based on Trump's Abraham Accords looks to be effectively dead, at a moment that a hoped-for Hamas-Israel truce also looks dead.
Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry has issued a new statement confirming the kingdom will not participate in deal with Israel until an "independent Palestinians state is recognized".
Riyadh has made it clear in the Wednesday statement that Saudi-Israel peace off the table until an "independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital."
The statement included a demand for a full Gaza retreat on the part of Israeli forces. The Saudis say there can be no detente until "Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip."
It further calls for east Jerusalem to be established as the capital of a Palestinian state, "so that the Palestinian people can obtain their legitimate rights and so that a comprehensive and just peace is achieved for all.”
Crucially it was only on Monday that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Riyadh as part of his new Gaza-related tour. Blinken met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in Riyadh. The top US diplomat is currently in Tel Aviv.
Obviously KSA knows they can’t ignore the outrage on the “Arab street”. This is a huge setback for the Zhou regime—even if it was entirely predictable. It leaves the US joined at the hip with a genocidal and pariah Israel, bombing the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Iranian border.
Megatron @Megatron_ron
BREAKING:
 The US and the Iraqi military are facing a direct clash
The US has targeted members of the Iraqi army in Baghdad. Calls for US Embassy seizures.
Several explosions are heard in Baghdad, according to reports, the US is targeting members of the Popular Mobilization Forces which are part of the Iraqi armed forces.
Iraqi-resistance affiliated groups are calling on supporters to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
All roads and checkpoints leading to the Green Zone in Baghdad have been closed.
Imagine the impression that would be made throughout the region if US embassy guards fire on Iraqis to prevent an embassy takeover.
The Neocon run US is effectively going it alone in the world except for an Israeli proxy, mongering war on a global scale, with a presidential election in the offing and the Dem base looking somewhat shaky. There’s time before the election for a political movement to stop the war lust to take shape. We need that to happen before a major war begins. Who will lead?
“It leaves the US joined at the hip with a genocidal and pariah Israel, bombing the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Iranian border.” Sums up our foreign policy: in the words of J Sachs, it’s “mayhem.”
A while back commenter History Lass asked if anyone could recommend a book on Palestine. I offered an old Encyclopaedia Britannica entry, ha. In that entry, the growth of Jewish settlement since the 19th century was fairly described -- farms, schools, hospitals, factories -- up to 1946, but never any details about how land was acquired.
I recently watched a PBS documentary "1913: Seeds of Conflict" which answers the question: who sold the land to the Jews for the Zionist project in Ottoman Palestine, and why. The focus of the documentary is on conditions as they developed in Palestine before the Balfour Declaration and British Mandate period. Jerusalem seems to have been at ecumenical peace. It is based on the book "Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict" by Amy Dockser Marcus.
https://1913seedsofconflict.com/