A nation must think before it acts.
Trump’s announcement, meanwhile, is unlikely to stop Saudi investment in America. The Saudi-backed, London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat ran an article soon after the Jerusalem decision that quoted Saudi Arabia’s energy minister as saying that the petrochemicals company Saudi Basic Industries Corporation is currently weighing several investment opportunities in the US.
Brandon Friedman, a research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JNS that “the Saudis and Emiratis are calibrating their rhetoric to satisfy popular sentiment, while preserving their strategic interests, which require cooperation and coordination with the US and Israel.”
Asked about the lack of a strong reaction to the Jerusalem move in the Arab world, Kedar responded: “Indeed, many Arabs don’t care about the Palestinians, but the resurrection of Judaism is against their basic Islamic beliefs.”