A defining moment for U.S.-Arab relations

Rarely has the attention of the Arab and Islamic world been so much focussed on a single visit. Or for that matter, raised as much hope. Amid a growing feeling that options for peace in the region are fast closing, much hinges on today's meeting between Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and U.S. President George W. Bush.

Analysts in Saudi Arabia see the Texas summit as a "last step towards peace," with intellectuals, columnists and academics spelling out that the repercussions of Bush's intransigence on Palestine could have far reaching consequences on the Middle East as a whole.

The visit itself is a pointer to Crown Prince Abdullah's reaffirmation of his nation's lead role in the peace process, laying claim to space vacated by leaders in the region, discredited for their inability to deliver on Palestine.

Abdullah's landmark peace initiative, endorsed at the OIC summit in Beirut, offered the Israelis a "full peace in return for withdrawal to 1967 boundaries," a reiteration of the land for peace formula.

"We are ready to go all the way," political science professor and columnist for the Arabic daily Okaz, Dr Waheed Hamza Hashim, said, including by implication and some speculation, the hotly contested issue of opening an Israeli embassy in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The Israeli genocide in the Jenin refugee camp, disregarding the Saudi initiative, has given rise to both anger and shock. Officials close to Abdullah are therefore setting the stage for a less than successful summit, by lowering the benchmark of expectation. They stress first that it is not a summit. Two, the meeting will be in Texas, and not in Washington, and therefore does not fall into the category of a state visit.

Three, that it will last only for four hours, at the most.

However, other Saudi intellectuals believe, that the opportunity that is opening, must be seized. It is after all, the first high-level contact between the two administrations since September 11.

"This time, Prince Abdullah will deliver a very tough message," said Turki Al Sudairi, the editor-in-chief of the powerful Al Riyadh newspaper. "He's going to tell the Americans, take a firm stand against Sharon, otherwise the region will descend into chaos, it will become explosive."

Sudairi is pointing to U.S. plans to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain and the alarm bells in the region as Israel sets the stage for an assault on southern Lebanon. "Any moves by Sharon to attack Lebanon, or Syria or Iraq could lead to widening the conflict," he warned.

While the kingdom would like to play the role of mediator, he said, even though it does not share a border with Israel "we would like to emphasise to the Americans that they are putting the whole region into difficulty."

Abdullah, who cancelled a visit to the U.S. last year, underlining Saudi displeasure then, made it clear to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney during his recent visit that his nation was not on board for any attack on Iraq from Saudi territory. The U.S. has since reportedly moved a part of its Strategic Command and Control centre from Prince Sultan Airbase to Qatar recently.

More importantly, there are fears here that the U.S will now use Saudi concerns over Palestine as leverage on that issue. As one diplomat said "it will be interesting to see whether the road to Baghdad lies through Jerusalem, or whether it is the other way around, " implying that a green light for an attack on Iraq could be the quid pro quo for an Israeli pull back in Palestine, amid unconfirmed reports that the U.S. was expected to push for an Abdullah-Sharon meeting.

Israeli spanner

Seen as unlikely, it may be no more than an Israeli attempt to put a spanner in the works ahead of the meet.

Dr. Bandar Al Aiban, a senior member of the powerful Majlis Al Shura, and Chairman of its Political Affairs Committee enunciated the Saudi position. He said that while the Saudis would "not shed a tear" at the fall of Saddam Hussain, but they did not want to see the dismemberment of Iraq, and the consequences thereof.

"The Saudi position is clear, leave Iraq to sort itself out, it is Palestine that requires attention," he said. The U.S.'s contradictory positions – cracking down on Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan, for not adhering to UN resolutions while clearly supporting Israel, which is in violation, not just of UN resolutions but also the Oslo and Madrid peace accords – is now having a direct impact on the Middle East, where demonstrations have swept the streets of the Arab capitals.

Within Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian carnage has brought demonstrators, albeit small, onto the streets of Dammam and Jeddah for the first time in the history of the kingdom.

Saudis shocked

It is this emergent domestic pressure, in the light of a new low in Saudi-U.S. relations, following September 11 and the manner in which the U.S. has portrayed its tried and trusted ally these past months, that has to be factored in when Abdullah meets Bush.

The outcry over the involvement of several young Saudis in the attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, and the savaging of the kingdom's education and social customs by the American press, which virtually branded the country as a fountainhead of terror, came as a huge shock to most ordinary Saudis as well as senior members of government.

They cite Neil MacFarquhar's article on Saudi education in The New York Times, as one diplomat put it, in "setting the stage for the anti-Saudi discourse over the last two months." U.S. officials went public with their concerns over a perceived lack of co-operation in tracking terrorists and Saudi reluctance to allow the use of Prince Sultan airbase as a command centre.

Saudi officials said in turn, they simply will not allow the FBI to "be prancing around the kingdom, examining our records, tracking our families." Privately, high-ranking Saudi officials admit they have begun to review their policy towards the U.S. In October, Abdullah had read out excerpts of a letter to Bush on television, and said "it is time for the United States and Saudi Arabia to look at their separate interests."

To many here, it is clear that the U.S.'s dismissal of Arab concerns over the Israeli genocide in Palestinian towns and villages, is the triumph of the Jewish lobby in its bid to pre-empt American criticism that its brutal suppression of the intifada was partly responsible for September 11.

The Israelis have successfully sold the idea to the Bush administration that it is extremist Islam and Islamic societies, not Palestine that led to the WTC attack. Arab leaders have in turn, set out that Islam is not at the centre of the debate. It is the actions of the Jewish state.

Abdullah's challenge will be to overcome Saudi uneasiness over this sustained U.S. attack on its society and Arab rage over Israel's brutal repression of Palestine, and spell out the bottom line to Bush.

In recent weeks, it is thought that despite Jenin and the shock of hearing Bush describe Ariel Sharon as "a man of peace," the sustained attack on the Washington-Riyadh alliance may be already past.

Talk of using economic instruments, like an oil embargo, have