Israel backs Saudi Arabia in confrontation with Qatar

Ali Abunimah Power Suits 6 June 2017

President Donald Trump and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, 20 May. Trump’s endorsement of Saudi-led anti-Iran alliance may have emboldened Saudi Arabia’s move to isolate Qatar.

Shealah Craighead White House Photo

Israeli officials have gleefully endorsed the position of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a growing confrontation with Qatar, the most public acknowledgment yet of the deepening alliance between certain Gulf states and Tel Aviv over their common enmity towards Iran.

Meanwhile, evidence has emerged of close cooperation between the United Arab Emirates and a key Israel lobby group to pressure Qatar over its support for the Palestinian resistance organization Hamas.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia and several of its satellite states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed a blockade, cutting land, sea and air links to the country.

Regional media reported that shelves in stores in Qatar, whose only land border is with Saudi Arabia, were quickly emptied as residents feared a prolonged closure could lead to food shortages.

Justifying its decision, Saudi Arabia has accused Doha of “grave violations” such as “adopting various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region,” including the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and al-Qaida.

Israel’s “opportunity”

Israeli officials were quick to offer their support to Saudi Arabia.

“New line drawn in the Middle Eastern sand,” Michael Oren, Israel’s deputy minister for diplomacy, proclaimed on Twitter. “No longer Israel against Arabs but Israel and Arabs against Qatar-financed terror.”

Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman declared that the crisis was an “opportunity for cooperation” between Israel and certain Gulf states.

“It is clear to everyone, even in the Arab countries, that the real danger to the entire region is terrorism,” Lieberman claimed. He added that the Saudi-led bloc had cut ties with Qatar “not because of Israel, not because of the Jews, not because of Zionism,” but “rather from fears of terrorism.”

Chagai Tzuriel, a top official in Israel’s intelligence ministry, told The Times of Israel that Qatar was a “pain in the ass” to other “Sunni” Arab states allied with Israel.

Israel’s former defense minister Moshe Yaalon also expressed backing for the Saudi-led sectarian coalition. “The Sunni Arab countries, apart from Qatar, are largely in the same boat with us since we all see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat against all of us,” he said at a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syria’s Golan Heights.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia continued to escalate the situation, suspending the license of Qatar Airways and ordering its banks to sell the Qatari currency.

Who supports “terror”?

While Saudi Arabia offered no evidence for its charges against Qatar, the accusations are rich coming from a regime that has been one of the biggest sources of funding to so-called jihadi groups going back decades.

But like Saudi Arabia, Qatar too has been accused of financing or allowing money to flow to ISIS and al-Qaida-affiliated groups in Syria.

Israel has also had no problem with al-Qaida linked groups, and even ISIS, in Syria, offering them various kinds of cooperation and material support.

So the source of Saudi ire must lie elsewhere. Qatar has for years, along with Saudi Arabia, been part of the counterrevolution to thwart or reverse the so-called Arab Spring uprisings.

Qatar was taking part in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, before being kicked out of the coalition this week.

The two-year bombing campaign in Yemen has killed thousands of civilians and brought the impoverished country to the brink of famine.

But Qatar has often found itself backing different horses: Doha supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, while Riyadh has backed the regime of Abdulfattah al-Sisi, the army chief who led the 2013 military coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood president in Cairo.

These differences had soured relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia for years.

But Saudi Arabia may have been emboldened to act now, after US President Donald Trump gave full endorsement to strengthening a Saudi-led anti-Iran alliance during his visit to Riyadh last month.

Targeting Hamas and Iran

Qatar has continued to host the leaders of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and has been under pressure to expel the group’s officials – Israeli media claims that Qatar did expel two officials are unconfirmed.

But the biggest difference appears to be that Qatar has not been willing to fully sign up to the Saudi-Israeli alliance against Iran.

A deal in April in which Qatar allegedly paid about $700 million in ransom to release members of its royal family abducted by an Iran-affiliated group in Iraq reportedly enraged officials in other Gulf states.

Qatar also reportedly paid about $300 million in ransom to several al-Qaida linked groups in Syria, according to The Financial Times.

Also in April, Qatar lifted a self-imposed ban on developing a major maritime natural gas field it shares with Iran, which would necessitate cooperation between the two countries, according to the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz.

Things came to a head around the time of Trump’s visit and his summit with regional leaders.

Qatar’s national news agency published comments attributed to the country’s leader Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, calling Iran “a regional and Islamic power that cannot be ignored” and asserting that “it is unwise to face up against it.”

Tamim also purportedly said his country’s relations with Israel were “good.” Qatar has flatly denied the statements are real, claiming that the news agency’s website and social media accounts were hacked.

Qatar has historically maintained relations with Israel, even welcoming its then foreign minister Tzipi Livni to Doha in 2008.

But the Qatar-based network Al Jazeera has cited the fake comments as a trigger for the crisis, accusing Saudi Arabia and its allies of using them as a pretext to move against Qatar.

UAE embraces Israel

Another factor is the close relationship between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

Hacked emails published by The Intercept reveal coordination between the Emirates ambassador in Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba, and the neoconservative pro-Israel think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The emails reveal “a remarkable level of backchannel cooperation” between the Emirates and the think tank, which is funded by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to The Intercept.

The email exchanges included complaints from the Israel lobby group about Qatar’s support for Hamas “terrorists.”

An agenda for a meeting between leaders of the Israel lobby group and Emirates ambassador al-Otaiba scheduled for this month includes such items as “Qatar support for radical Islamists” including Hamas, Qatar’s “destabilizing role in Egypt, Syria, Libya and the Gulf” and the role of the Qatar-backed Al Jazeera network.

It also includes ways to reduce the influence Qatar gains from hosting a major US air base.

One of the items on the agenda is “Political, economic, security sanctions.”

The agenda is evidence that the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – a key player in Israel’s anti-Palestinian propaganda – was gearing up to deliver in Washington the anti-Qatar message coming from Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates.

US role

The leaked documents reveal that the Saudi-led bloc is troubled by the influence Qatar gains by hosting the massive American al-Udeid air base.

But this is precisely why the US, the overall imperial power, has no interest in a squabble among states that it views as vassals.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson affirmed the importance of US ties with all the states involved and offered to mediate, urging the feuding rulers to “remain unified.”

The US military lauded Qatar for its “enduring commitment to regional security” and affirmed it had “no plans to change our posture in Qatar.”

Qatar has taken these messages as signs of strong US support, but as ever Trump was quick to throw everything into doubt.

“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday, appearing to directly endorse the Saudi-led campaign against Doha.

“So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off,” he added. “They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism and all reference was pointing to Qatar.”

“Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism,” the president asserted. More likely, Trump is pouring gasoline on an already burning region.

A long-term goal of Israel has long been to divide Arab powers against each other, to “let them bleed,” as the official Israeli doctrine on Syria goes.

Whatever happens next, Israel will continue to benefit from the chaos and divisions that only strengthen its hand.

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Comments

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Ahmad replied on

The fact that Israel back the Saudis in this confrontation doesn't mean that Qatar has become Israel's enemy or that the two countries are hostile to each other. Qatar have very solid relations with Israel dating back to the 1990s (the era of "the peace process") and continue to this day. This is a well-known fact that should have been highlighted more promenantly in this article rather than chosing to highlight the misleading narrative of "Israel against Qatar". The Israelis are simply backing the stonger and the more important side for them, not the side less hostile to them.

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karen replied on

staying in favor with the Saudis does not require jumping up and down to cheer the siege of civilians in Qatar. Who else would do that?
Israel doesn't need Saudi Arabia. Israel wants Iran destroyed and to control the narrative over genocide of Palestinians.

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tom hall replied on

Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, was interviewed today on Democracy Now. His interpretation of these events deserves is not encouraging.

https://www.democracynow.org/2...

We are about to see what it means to have the present cabal operating in the White House. The talk about North Korea is mostly bluster. But they really want to pull the trigger on Iran.

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sass replied on

President Bannon has always wanted regime change in Iran and with Israel/Saudi backing a very dangerous coalition is developing

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karen replied on

The only conflict between the kingdoms boils down to what Israel wants: no sympathy for Palestinians in any form (Al Jazeera) and full-on destruction of Iran, Russia. Some of the commenters above seem confused about the US role in these issues. We Americans are all to blame - we are entirely responsible for the mess our country has created, and we are much too happy to get right on board with the agenda regardless of what flavor of politician is pushing for war! And yes, BOTH parties in the US support terrorists, whether in Afghanistan or Cuba or the Middle East or Iran or the Philippines... this is WHO WE ARE. We just don't like to see the truth, so we can't handle Trump (who, by the way, met secretly with Netanyahu before the election). The current mud-wrestling spectacle between the two parties is over such pathetically unrelated topics to what we should really care about that I have no confidence in my own country to do anything right.

Whenever I read the statements made by the US, Israel, Saudis, like in this article, I swap the word "terrorist" with the word "Palestinian" and it makes much more sense if you want to understand what they really mean and what they do.

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R Davis replied on

Have you read this article ?

Wolf Street by Wolf Richter
article title - "Largest Single Arms Deal in US History" Turns into "Fake News"

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.