I hate to say “I told you so.” But when the Saudi ambassador to the UN formally presented their so-called Mideast “peace plan” he made not one mention of recognizing Israel’s right to exist, and used the majority of his speech to accuse Israel of “racism” and “systematic terrorism.”

“Israel claims that it wants peace and is looking for a safe, secure and peaceful neighborhood and claims that it is the Arabs who are rejecting peace and work towards its destruction,” Shobokshi said. “Now the world is sure that the Arabs are calling for peace, for good neighborly relations.”

Right. In your dreams, Fawzi. If you really want “good neighborly relations,” why are you talking like this?

But Shobokshi declared that “Israel has no desire for peace, no desire to settle the Middle East problem or to implement resolutions, and thus it drags the international community into a vicious circle of security considerations to prevent it from considering the very essence and substance of the Middle East which lies in Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. “Is this security an exclusive right for Israel?” he asked. “We ask, where is security for the Palestinians?”

The Saudi envoy accused Israel of seeking a blockade of Palestinian territories, demolishing houses and conducting forcible expulsions. It also said Israel was guilty of “racism … and systematic terrorism.”

“The objective of Israel was and remains to expel the Arab people from Palestine and to occupy even more Palestinian territory in order to set up an exclusive state,” he said.

I think we’d all be better off if we dropped our naive wishful thinking that these people are tolerant, peaceful, or friendly to the West.