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November 24th, 2020 
Awake Goy 
The big news overnight is that Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly flew to the Saudi Arabian city of NEOM on the Red Sea in order to meet with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the behest of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
If true, this is obviously a meeting of great historical importance–an Israeli leader has never visited Saudi Arabia. Pompeo signaled this with a cryptic tweet:
Constructive visit with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in NEOM today. The United States and Saudi Arabia have come a long way since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz Al Saud first laid the foundation for our ties 75 years ago.
Pompeo is referring to a famous meeting at which the king told Roosevelt there must not be a Zionist state in nearby Palestine, and Roosevelt promised him the U.S. would not support such. Then Roosevelt died, and Truman changed the policy.
And look, now the Saudis too are coming around on Zionism, the Israeli press is trumpeting.
Let’s consider the power politics of this visit. It is a win-win-win for Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pompeo too. Though a lot of other folks lose!
Israel surely gets the most out of this. Another normalization deal with an Arab neighbor is under way. The Palestinians have been thrown under the bus again; hey, you Palestinians need to say Uncle. Jared Kushner told you you’re a defeated people.
Israel gets to tie Joe Biden’s hands even more against reentering the Iran deal, which it hates. Netanyahu told Biden yesterday that he can’t reenter the deal before he went to Saudi Arabia. Israel’s lawyer Dennis Ross sent that message in a tweet this morning.
The Netanyahu-MbS meeting is not a small move in the Middle East. One can bet that their discussion focused heavily on how to approach the Biden Administration, with an eye toward coordinating messages on Iran.
The message to Biden, just as he’s assembling his foreign policy team of Washington insiders, is, You’re going to have to use all your political capital to sign a deal with Iran, because Israel with the help of the Trump White House just upped the price. It’s not worth it.
Martin Indyk, a center-Dem Israel lobbyist, sees that’s the message and warns Israel to be nice to Biden.
If the @netanyahu-MBS meeting was intended as an attempt to coordinate positions against what they both might see as a new common threat from the incoming Biden administration it’s a big mistake. Working with Biden rather than against him will produce much better results for all.
Good try. But Israel doesn’t care.
Let’s turn to the Saudi monarchy’s angle. Saudi Arabia didn’t oppose the Iran deal in 2015 (and gained Obama’s support for the Yemen war), but it obviously shares some of Israel’s interest in isolating Iran. Now it is selling out the Palestinians, but that’s not such a big price to pay when you think what it gains. It now has the most powerful ambassador of all in Washington: the rightwing Israel lobby and Netanyahu, to help prop up the corrupt murderous regime as a Democratic administration comes into the White House talking human rights.
Centrist Jewish organizations like the Conference of Presidents and AIPAC are going to go to bat for Saudi Arabia and tell Joe Biden to forget about Jamal Khashoggi’s murder — peace in the Middle East is more important.
Excuse me as I recite an old sermon. But, Saudi Arabia knows that making nice to Israel opens doors in Washington. The most powerful men in the world, such as Putin, Modi and Obama, have all gone to the Israel lobby to try to do business in the Capitol. Obama cleared his secretary of state appointment with the lobby in 2008; then in 2015, he had to fight the rightwing lobby to get the Iran deal, but at least he had the liberal Zionists to cover his flank.
Lastly, there’s Pompeo. He’s done all he can for Israel in the last few days, at the end of the Trump administration. BDS is a “cancer,” he said as he shuttled off to illegal colonies in the West Bank. The biggest Republican donor, Sheldon Adelson, loves every bit of that. As Nick Schifrin said on PBS News Hour the other night, Pompeo has good photos ready to demonstrate his suitability for a presidential campaign in 2024. Aaron David Miller said it too:
Pompeo’s West Bank winery and Golan excursions have nothing to do with America’s ambitions but his own in 2024.
Chumming up to the Israeli right wing is still very good politics in the U.S. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg called Netanyahu a racist out on the trail during the Democratic primaries, but that awareness is yet to penetrate Washington.
Just look at it this way: Joe Biden is seeking an ambassador to Israel who will make Netanyahu feel comfortable. The names in the mix are Dan Shapiro, Michael Adler, and Robert Wexler, all Jewish and Zionist. The idea that a U.S. ambassador to Israel is someone who would make the Palestinians under apartheid feel hopeful is out of the question. And do you think Netanyahu thought about making nice to Obama when he appointed Michael Oren and Ron Dermer to be his ambassadors to D.C.? Not for one second. He was putting a burr under Obama’s saddle. “If an extraterrestrial arrived and looked at the US-Israel relationship he/she/it would be right to think the US is a client state of Israel,” says one expert.
In sum, Netanyahu still wields great power in D.C. And Saudi Arabia has got him on its side. Everyone else just got more to worry about.
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