Estimated reading time – 3 minutes
Chapter 22 – The Father of Invention
August 9, 1990 - The United Nations Security Council (Resolution 662) declared the annexation of Kuwait null and void under international law. The vote was 15-0.
The title of the chapter is an obvious play on the phrase that 'Necessity is the Mother of Invention.' One of the problems with war, highlighted by many, is the long periods of waiting and the relatively brief periods of combat.
The first week after the invasion highlighted many changing political currents following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The Security Council vote shows that neither the Soviet Union (yes, it still had about eighteen months left before it collapsed) nor China used their veto to support Saddam and Iraq. This dynamic will set the stage for the subsequent resolution to call for military action to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
The chapter opens with an interaction between Declan, a Night Nurse in the ER, and Marwan, an X-ray technician and a Palestinian. Marwan describes a conspiracy theory, 'the plot,' involving Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and potentially Sudan. As you will see in subsequent chapters, the Plot's importance was its impact on the Yemenis and the Palestinians living in the Kingdom.
The plight of the Palestinians has been central to understanding Middle Eastern Politics since 1948, when the state of Israel was created. But the history goes back to the end of WWI and the end of the Ottoman Empire, which had controlled most of the Middle East, including parts of Saudi Arabia, for hundreds of years. Following their victory over the Germans and Turks, the British and French divided the Middle East between themselves and controlled the newly created states as either protectorates or outright colonies. What we know as Iraq was part of Transjordan and under British control. The British installed the Hussain family as leaders in various parts of the newly formed Transjordan: the French Controlled Lebanon and Syria. The partitions were made without acknowledgment of the ethnic and religious differences in the region, leading to various problems in the area.
The British were given control of the area known as Palestine. Before the end of WWI, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, setting the stage for creating a home for the Jewish people, who at the time were a minority in Palestine. The declaration was not comprehensive and omitted many details that later would prove crucial, such as the difference between a home and a homeland.
In 1948, the Israelis won their independence and established the state of Israel. In the aftermath of the war, many Arabs who had lived in Palestine left for Jordan and Lebanon but retained a hope that they would eventually be able to return to the homes they left.
In June 1967, the Six-Day War began, resulting in an Israeli victory and occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula, including Gaza and control of Jerusalem. The Arab defeat began the end of Nassar's Pan-Arabism. Nassar had hoped to unite Syria and Egypt into a pan-Arab nation, but Syria withdrew after a coup d'etat in 1971 to replace the government that had allied itself with Nassar.
The Arab nations again attacked Israel in October 1973 in the Yom Kippur War. They caught the Israeli military off guard as they did not think the Arabs would attack during Ramadan. The US backed the Israelis, and the Soviet Union supported the Arabs. The Israelis successfully held off the Arab forces and extended their Golan Heights and Sinai control. This war was more balanced in its outcome and led to the Camp David Accords and Egypt's recognition of Israel.
However, these wars and the dominance of the Israeli military led to the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was formed in 1964. It began a campaign of terrorism, which included the attack on Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972 and numerous airplane hijackings and hostage-taking. In September 1970, after calls the PLO made for the overthrow of the King of Jordan, the Jordanian military attacked the PLO in what was named 'Black September.' It led to the rise of an organization under the PLO by the same name that carried out the Munich attack.
During my time in the Kingdom, I knew and worked with many Palestinians and understood part of their situation as homeless people. At the hospital, we had to give them an additional few days of leave as they usually encountered delays in entering the West Bank or other Palestinian territories as the Israelis checked on their backgrounds. At this time, Saudi Arabia did not recognize Israel's right to exist, and if you looked at a map of the Middle East in the Kingdom, you would either find the area of Palestine blacked out or left blank. This topic will re-emerge when CNN covers the war, and Saudi TV re-broadcasts the reports but had to change the Persian Gulf to Arab Gulf, bleeped out the word Israel, and cut away when CNN shows pictures of Israel.
The next chapter will describe events following the Saudi order to change the status of Yemenis in the Kingdom. What changed was a requirement that Yemenis obtain Saudi Sponsorship, which they had not needed to live and work in the Kingdom until now. This change led to the departure of as many as 800,000 Yenenis.
The incident of the Open Sesame game was related to me at dinner by two doctors who worked at the King Faisal Specialists Hospital in Riyadh. The game is portrayed as they described it to me.
Suggested Reading:
One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books, 2000
The book is an extensive study of Palestine under the British Mandate. The author is an Israeli historian from the school of 'new historians', and he tries to present a balanced history of the mandate.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Palestine-Complete-British-Mandate/dp/0805048480