Visit to Israel, scandal for Saudi

Qodsna; Ahmad Kazemzadeh:

Only Israelis have ever given their blessing to a visit by a Saudi delegation led by retired general, Anwar Eshqi with opposition to the visit having gathered an increasing momentum.

The latest personality to join the call was the prominent Lebanese politician, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah who considered the trip as a free of charge gift to Israel.

The anti-occupation movement, Hamas too slammed the visit and urged the Saudi to prevent the trend of normalization.

Criticism was even took place inside Saudi Arabia with social media activists challenging the idea of normalization with Israel, showing how a strong ground opposition to Israel ties has in the region.

Facing the waves of criticism, Saudi took distance from the visit and claimed it was not informed about the trip plan and like in the past, it preferred to keep the likely plans secret.

Saudi would have apparently sought to decriminalize ties with Israel by openly sending a delegation to Israel but later backtracked from its initial project.

The developments however would help explain why Saudi has simultaneously pursued an iranophobia project; it sought to make rational their ties with Israel and encourage other regional countries to follow the suit.

Nevertheless, the visit was a scandal for Saudi as it breached even its own red line stipulated in a 2000 peace plan that conditioned any normalization of ties with Israel to the latter’s withdrawal to the 1967 borders as well as the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with the occupied al-Quds as its capital.

The visit however has served as a leeway for Israel to expand its settlement projects. Tel Aviv considers the visit a green light from Riyadh.