The Saudi Kingdom's Ultimatum to Israel: A Win-Win Peace with Saudi Arabia and the Arab World, or a Lose-Lose Continued Occupation and Endless Conflict

The Saudi Kingdom Presents Israel with a Clear Ultimatum: Peace with Saudi Arabia and an opportunity to end the Gaza war with some sort of a win, or Continued Occupation and the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In light of the numerous rumors on the topic, the Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a clarification regarding the kingdom's stance on normalization with Israel: 'The kingdom has informed the United States of its firm stance on normalization with Israel - recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, ending Israeli aggression in Gaza, and the withdrawal of occupying forces from it.' This proposal presents the Israeli authorities with a historic choice.

Netanyahu will have to choose between a government of extremists, racists, and messianists, and a government with or without him, but with the sane and realistic sides of Israeli politics.

The legal authorities in Israel are also presented with an opportunity to reassess their strategy: whether to continue their attempts to disqualify Netanyahu through a dubious indictment, which appears designed for his removal yet falls short of essential corroborative evidence (receiving cigars and champagne from a long-standing friend with no business interests in Israel does not constitute corruption or bribery...), or to embrace this opportunity and avert further legal humiliation by negotiating an arrangement akin to the one with Ariel Sharon.

This would involve offering Netanyahu an exit from his political career and handing over the government to the legal-system friendly opposition, in return for dropping the contentious indictment, originally leveraged as a maneuver to unseat him.

While not all the majority of Israelis may agree to the compromise price of this deal with Netanyahu, no sensible and realistic person in the world would dispute that this compromise precisely reflects Menachem Begin's historic statement that "the difficulties of peace are preferable to the agony of war.".