saudi arabia and jordan on a particular issue, the condemnation of this step. tom, i m particularly interested in saudi arabia in that list, especially given your recent writings and reports from saudi arabia about the modernization, the progress that we can see developing there. how this might affect that. well, you know, why it s so important, you know, these people have a view, lawrence, the trump people, somehow because the sunni arabs like trump, of course, they like trump anti-iranian, that somehow they re gong to get out ahead of the palestinians, they re going to make concessions to israel somehow even before the palestinians and israelis achieve such an agreement. i think that s stuff of nonsense. every, you know, new government comes in thinking they ll get that out of the arab states. they re not going to do that and go further than the palestinians
people have a view, lawrence, the trump people, somehow because the sunni arabs like trump, of course, they like trump anti-iranian, that somehow they re gong to get out ahead of the palestinians, they re going to make concessions to israel somehow even before the palestinians and israelis achieve such an agreement. i think that s stuff of nonsense. every, you know, new government comes in thinking they ll get that out of the arab states. they re not going to do that and go further than the palestinians go. and when the palestinians say they re satisfied you will see the arab states jump in. and that brings me back to why you want to use this as a lever to drive that process. now, saudi arabia s going through a lot of internal wrenching reforms. by the way, you know, budgets are shrinking. people are going to be asked to work harder. the last thing you want to do is put any of these arab allies in a situation where iran and hezbollah to take this concession by trump, this free