Green Middle East vs Nuclear Middle East

Al-Okaz, Saudi Arabia, April 14

A few weeks ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the Saudi Green and Middle East Green initiatives, which were designed to reduce carbon emissions in the region by 60% through the use of clean hydrocarbon technologies and the planting of 50 billion trees, including 10 billion in the kingdom. Once completed, it will be the world’s largest reforestation project. This was a necessary step, mostly in order to compete with the growing Israeli and Iranian nuclear arms race in the region. Our region cannot tolerate an arms race. Rather, it needs peace projects like the one unveiled by Saudi Arabia. The majority of the countries in the Middle East region are the Arab states, and the majority of the people in this region are the Arab peoples. This majority managed to maintain a nuclear-free Middle East and focus its attention on projects that promote peace, security, and stability. All of this changed when Western powers planted colonial entities in the heart of the Middle East. These entities were alien to our region and brought values and morals that are contradictory to our own. The recent Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz is nothing but another event in a long series of Israeli-Iranian arm-twisting and bending that only lead to further insecurity. Unlike nuclear arms races elsewhere in the world, such as the one between Indian and Pakistan, this arms race is far more dangerous. This is because what both Israel and Iran have in common is a shared hatred against their Arab neighbors. These two nations hate everything Arab. They both committed atrocious massacres against Arabs in times of both war and peace. The Green Middle East Initiative is meant to undermine the growing negative influences in our region and pull the rug from under the feet of those who destabilize our region. –Abd Al-Latif Al-Dwaihi (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)