ABDUL Aziz bin Saud has been extensively quoted from his marathon talks with American President Franklin D. Roosevelt during their meeting in 1945 on board US cruiser Quincy in the Suez Canal. Roose­velt, the greatest American president of the 20th century, took a liking to the Saudi monarch. He was impressed by his personality; his grasp of the geopolitical situation as World War II drew to a close; his quick understanding of how Roosevelt expected him to help in furthering their common interests as oil prospecting had become a major American concern; and Abdul Aziz’s distaste for dissimulation. He found the monarch to be an agreeable interlocutor — trustworthy and easygoing.

Britain was also in the oil race, and Churchill had presented him with an air-conditioned Rolls Royce with a built-in water tank and enough space for obligatory prayers. However, Abdul Aziz had made up his mind. It was the US he would settle for. Roosevelt was delighted and thought it was time to take up a subject that has been a US obsession, without which no American would be in Congress, much less in the White House. He finally raised the issue of Palestine and the Zionists’ aim for a Jewish state in the holy land.

Suddenly, to Roosevelt’s astonishment, Abdul Aziz was a changed man. He was still courteous and his face showed no anger, but he told the American president: “What injury have Arabs done to the Jews of Europe? It is the Christian Germans who stole their homes and lives. Let the Germans pay.”

Nearly 80 years after Abdul Aziz spoke the obvious truth, no Arab leader, including Abdul Aziz’s progeny, has the courage to speak the truth their kingdom’s founder uttered to a flabbergasted occupant of the White House.

Will the Arabs reduce themselves to a life under Pax Zionica?

True, Saudi Arabia has not recognised Israel yet, but the process of the enslavement — yes, that is the word and deserves to be repeated; the process of the enslavement of the Arab people from Morocco to Oman — would not have begun with such brazenness without a Saudi wink.

What is despicable is the Arab sheikhs’ surrender in return for not even a symbolic gesture of reciprocity from the Israeli leadership. In diplomacy, the success of the process of rapprochement requires give and take. Maybe the scale of give is not commensurate with the take, but it is there if the détente is to succeed.

Anwar Sadat, the greatest Egyptian in modern history since Gamal Abdel Nasser, epitomised this quality when he recognised Israel in exchange for the return of the Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. What have the sheikhs gained in return for abject servility to Israel? Now there are joint naval exercises. Who is the enemy? Iran? Then yes, the Israelis can truly rejoice on the 75th anniversary of their country’s creation out of a land that didn’t belong to them.

On his last visit to the Middle East, President Joe Biden met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and had the decency to speak of a two-state solution. For most Arab leaders today, referring to a two-state solution is blasphemy. No wonder in a situation like this, an Israeli minister should deny the very existence of the Palestinian nation. Speaking at a conference in France, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said there was no Palestinian history or culture and no such thing as a Palestinian people. He also exhibited the Israeli obsession with lebensraum when the conference podium flaunted a map that showed the West Bank and Jordan as part of Israel.

What is the future of the Arab world? Will the sheikhd­oms reduce the­m­­­selves to a life of guarante­­ed se­­c­u­rity und­er Pax Zionica?

The Middle East transited from a British-French condomi­nium after WWI to American hegemony after WWII. Recently, however, as demonstrated by the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, a new power is casting its shadow over the Middle East. The China factor is unprecedented in Middle Eastern history. A power neither Middle Eastern nor European/Western has never called the shots in the region, especially in the blood-drenched Levant.

The Chinese have a civilisation that developed within a country cut off from the world on all sides, except through the Tian Shan mountains in the west and in the south through the legendary Silk Route. Within that vast landmass, the Chinese people developed a philosophy of their own, one that governed all aspects of collective and individual life. More unfortunately, it considered its own way of life as the ultimate and the only life system, and often exhibited contempt for non-Chinese civilisations.

How China will affect the region only history knows, but one thing is obvious: the long era of Western hegemony is coming to an end, and Israel will be fighting for survival.

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2023