Saudi Arabia to host senior Hamas delegation

This is ominous news and another manifestation of the catastrophic decline of America on the global front under Joe Biden. During the administration of Donald Trump, the alliance between America and Saudi Arabia was strengthened, while Iran was marginalized on the global stage, as it should be. America was a main influencer and powerbroker. Israel also enjoyed what it called an “iceberg relationship” with Saudi Arabia. There were advancements in mutual cooperation, despite Saudi Arabia falling short of normalizing relations with Israel. There was, to be sure, also a great deal of wishful thinking. Many forgot the long history of Islamic antisemitism, the past jihad wars to conquer Jerusalem, and the current jihad against Israel.

In April 2022, I wrote on Jihad Watch:

Much good immediately resulted from the UAE normalizing relations with Israel, including economic partnership and development, and cooperation against the mutual enemy of Iran. However, when it comes to Islam, the Muslim ummah tends to stand together. Last May, during Operation Guardian of the Walls, it was reforming Saudi Arabia that summoned the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to an emergency summit in support of the Palestinians. In the meeting, the OIC went to the United Nations to seek General Assembly support “to protect the Palestinian people.” There was no accountability however, expected from the Palestinians.

Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia showed promise and was advancing in the right direction during the Trump administration. Now, even as Saudi Arabia bans the Muslim Brotherhood for political reasons, the Saudis are hosting a top Hamas delegation, including its leader Ismail Haniyeh. Although Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, the Saudi-Hamas meeting will focus on improving relations, which have been frosty. In 2019, Saudi Arabia arrested Hamas operatives.

Expect this budding relationship to have global ramifications, considering the long list of unindicted co-conspirators linked to Hamas in America alone. There are many offshoots in Canada, and Muslim Brotherhood associates throughout other Western countries. Add to this the recent bad news about Saudi Arabia’s  landmark rapprochement with Iran, brokered by China. That plays into this meeting as well, since Iran funds Hamas. The enemies of the West are realigning.

“Saudis said set to host top Hamas delegation, further dimming Israeli hopes for ties,” Times of Israel, April 16, 2023:

A senior delegation representing Palestinian terror group Hamas was set to visit Saudi Arabia on Sunday, according to multiple Arabic media reports, representing a major development as Israel’s hopes of forging official ties with Riyadh appear to dwindle further.

For many years, Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Hamas has been cold and tense, and the kingdom even arrested many people with ties to the jihadist group, which rules the Gaza Strip and openly seeks Israel’s destruction.

But following its landmark rapprochement with Iran, Riyadh appeared set to host a high-level delegation including Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, his deputy Saleh al-Arouri, and the head of the group abroad, Khaled Mashaal, according to various Palestinian and Arabic-language media outlets, including Jordan’s Al Ghad and the London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

The delegation will reportedly pay a pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site in Mecca and try to mend Hamas’s relationship with Riyadh, which has been frosty since 2007, when the terror group overthrew the Palestinian Authority and took over Gaza in a bloody coup. Saudi leaders had blamed Hamas for the failure of attempts at reconciliation between it and the PA’s Fatah party.

In 2019, Saudi authorities arrested dozens of Hamas-linked operatives, saying they were threatening the kingdom’s rule….