Alwaght- On Monday, senior Arab and Muslim officials gathered in Riyadh once again to discuss Gaza and Lebanon developments.
The meeting was another one in a series of fruitless meetings over the past year that ended with an impractical statement and full of empty rhetoric in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese people and without any actions against the Israeli occupation. Actually, its statement will become history like its precedents.
The Monday meeting came a year after the joint meeting of the Arab League and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in which the participants condemned the barbarism of the Israeli regime in Gaza. Since that meeting, not only this barbarism has not decreased, but also under the shadow of inaction and silence of the Arab and Muslim countries, it was intensified and its range broadened, something disappointing the Palestinians and Muslim public opinion about the meetings and strong-toned remarks and statements of Arab officials.
However, the Riyadh meeting, like last year's meeting which was held at the request of Iran, was arranged with the presence of high-ranking officials of many countries to make it a high-profile one from a diplomatic point of view, especially since Saudi Arabia has hidden objectives from holding this meeting that are fundamentally far from its central agenda.
Later in October, the Saudis hosted the first meeting of the so-called international coalition for advancing the two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The meeting highlighted the need to return to the Arab peace initiative of 2002, or two-state solution, to end the crisis, but since the beginning many political analysts translated the meeting as a Saudi preparation to restart and advance the normalization project with the Israeli occupation and a sign of Riyadh's betrayal of demands for an independent Palestinian state.
Over the past year of Israeli war on Gaza and recently Lebanon, the Saudis have openly adopted a policy of tolerance, wait, and inaction in favor of Israeli interests. Even the promises made in the meeting statements about acceleration of aid to Gaza and easing the inhumane blockade on the Palestinians were not fulfilled.
And now in their meeting the Saudis wanted to sieze the opportunity of the conference to follow up and link to the Arab and Muslim agenda what they sought in the two-state solution conference, and perhaps the absence of Iran at presidential level is a sign of Iran's awareness of this Saudi intention.
In a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that he was unable to participate in the Riyadh meeting due to an intensive executive schedule, and for this reason, his Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref represented Tehran in the meeting.
From another aspect, we cannot ignore the shadow of Trump's comeback to the White House on increased Saudi diplomatic activism. There is no doubt that bin Salman will face less challenges to his succession project with departure of Biden, but at the same time the normalization project is a difficult case and under Trump, bin Salman will undergo pressures to approve of this project, and amid Gaza and Lebanon wars and Muslim public anger at Israeli crimes, this is never a simple challenge to him.
Therefore, by aligning part of Arab and Muslim countries to their agenda, the Saudi leaders try to paint their decision to normalize with Israel as a collective decision and happening under an Arab and Muslim initiative in order to minimize the home and foreign opposition to their decision. Also, with this move, Saudi Arabia wants to send a message to the new White House leaders that Riyadh is an actor that holds the initiative in Arab and Muslim developments and Trump's regional strategy has chance of realization only through Saudi company. This serves an aim to gain a heavier weight and higher position in talks with the US to secure more points from selling Palestine.
