Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain Denounce Israel’s Ties With ‘Racist, Islamophobic’ Europe, US

“The soft bigotry of low expectations that Muslims face in Europe, the US, and the West in general is not something we want to encourage.”

Riyadh, November 26 – Persian Gulf states in the process of rapprochement with the Jewish State voiced their misgivings today over the latter’s diplomatic relations with various other countries whose reputation for tolerance and diversity have long been questionable, and express grave concern that maintaining such relations will only further enable those regimes to continue in their prejudiced ways.

Reports emerged Sunday that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had met in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, in what most observers interpret as indication of the impending establishment of formal diplomatic and economic ties between the two nations. The development comes on the heels of similar events in the region, with Israel and several other states announcing normalization over the last two months: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman, plus several others with quieter, parallel outcomes, such as Sudan. At the same time, officials in those countries made their dismay known over the fact that Israel still has ties to Islamophobic societies such as France, Poland, the US, and others, and that recent normalization can only appear as condoning Israel’s relations with those distasteful regimes.

“It’s diplomacy, which is to say, politics, so no one is expecting only to encounter pristine interlocutors,” allowed Saudi minister Prince Tur Nabout. “Still, we must not turn a blind eye to the implications of establishing ties with a country that also keeps close ties with some of the most Islamophobic places on the planet, as even their own media have reminded us again and again since 2016. We must conduct a balancing act of sorts, pursuing our interests vis-à-vis Israel while maintaining an insistence that we do not accept their acceptance of the unacceptable.”

“European societies at large were complicit in the Holocaust,” added Bahraini official Chiqqi Fellah. “That bloodthirsty, greedy hate didn’t disappear overnight in 1945. It came from somewhere, and still erupts every now and then – most often sublimated in public demonstrations of ‘anti-Zionism,’ but we all know what really animates them. And the soft bigotry of low expectations that Muslims face in Europe, the US, and the West in general is not something we want to encourage.”

“And oh, by Allah, don’t get me started on NGOs,” continued Prince Nabout. “Establishing diplomatic relations with Israel does not mean we are happy that Israel tolerates the distasteful activities within its borders of such problematic and biased organizations as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. I mean, Human Rights Watch took money from us to ignore our depredations and to focus on Israel, so we know just how problematic they are.”

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