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By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Monday (June 19) ruled out any talks to resolve the current Saudi-Qatari diplomatic crisis unless blockade is lifted.

“Qatar is under blockade, there is no negotiation. They have to lift the blockade to start negotiations,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying. “Until now we didn’t see any progress about lifting the blockade, which is the precondition for anything to move forward.”

Sheikh Al Thani’s statement came as the United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said in Paris Sunday that Qatar’s diplomatic isolation could “last years.”

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and a number of other countries severed diplomatic and economic relations with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of supporting what they called “terrorism” and Iran. Qatar has strenuously rejected the accusations.

The actions Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt are taking against Qatar are a “publicity stunt” aimed solely at attacking its image and reputation, a senior Qatari official said in a statement Monday. Sheikh Saif Bin Ahmed Al-Thani, director of Qatar’s Government Communications Office, said: The blockading nations are using terrorism as a publicity stunt.

Tellingly, activists on social media are circulating a legal opinion (fatwa) by late Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, in which the former Mufti of Saudi Arabia backed the Muslim Brotherhood. Bin Baz served as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1992 until his death in 1999.

Bin Baz issued his fatwa in his role as chairman of Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Iftaa in Saudi Arabia. In Fatwa 6250 he said: “The most righteous Islamic groups and the closest to the teachings of the Prophet are Ahl Al-Sunnah, including Ahl Al-Hadith, Jamaat Ansar Al-Sunna and the Muslim Brotherhood. In general, all of the Islamic groups can be right or wrong at times, so you need to collaborate with them when doing the right thing and avoid the errors they make. I advise all Muslims to cooperate in order to achieve righteousness and piety.”

Qatar must end its support for the Palestinian group Hamas (which rules Gaza) and the Muslim Brotherhood before ties with other Arab Gulf states could be restored, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister insisted on June 6.

Senior Iranian official visits Qatar

In other developments, the Iranian News Agency (IRNA) reported Monday that a senior Iranian official has visited Doha and met with Qatari officials to discuss the Arab blockade on the Gulf state.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Qasimi, said Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, Hussein Gabri Ansari, paid a short visit to Qatar where he met with Qatari officials and exchanged views on bilateral relations and international issues.

In an interview with IRNA , Qasimi stressed that Iran always seeks unity and solidarity among the Islamic world and helps establish the foundations of peace and security in the region, adding that this visit comes in continuation of previous consultations with Qatari officials.

Qatar Airways to run 300 daily trips through Iran

Director General of Fars Province Airports Reza Badiei- Fard said last week that Qatar Airways will run 300 additional flights through Iranian airspace daily.

Badeiei-Fard explained that Iran’s airspace was the only option for Qatar Airways flights since the embargo imposed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt amid a deepening diplomatic row that saw the four countries cut off sea and air links and diplomatic relations with the Gulf state. Qatar has also re-routed its flights over Turkey and Oman.

The majority of flights from Qatar to North Africa and southern Europe used to pass through Saudi and Egyptian airspace but are now forced to pass through Iranian airspace first then onto Iraq, Jordan and North Africa.

Some 1000 Qatari flights have passed through Iranian airspace in the past 24 hours. Major travel disruptions across the region have been reported yet Badeiei-Fard has said there are no logistical problems with the extra flights thanks to extra structural reforms put in place.

Turkish troops arrived in Qatar

The Qatari defense ministry announced on Sunday the arrival of the first group of Turkish soldiers in the capital, Doha, to take part in joint military exercises. The forces conducted their first training at the Tariq bin Ziyad military base, the ministry said.

The defense ministry said the exercises had been long planned and were part of a mutual agreement aimed at strengthening the defense capabilities of both countries, as well as boosting efforts to combat armed groups and maintaining stability in the region.

Turkey’s parliament on June 7 approved a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, an apparent move to support the Gulf Arab country when it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from Saudi Arabia and few other states.

Turkish 0fficials said the legislation would allow troops to be deployed to a Turkish base in Qatar, amid reports Turkey is also set to offer food and emergency supplies to the country.

Turkey set up a military base in Qatar, its first such installation in the Middle East, as part of an agreement signed in 2014. In 2016 Ahmet Davutoglu, the then Turkish prime minister, visited the base where 150 troops have already been stationed, according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet.

In an interview with Reuters in late 2015, Ahmet Demirok, the then Turkish ambassador to Qatar said 3,000 ground troops would eventually be deployed at the base, planned to serve primarily as a venue for joint training exercises.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net)

20 June 2017

By Kathy Kelly

This week, in New York City, representatives from more than100 countries will begin collaborating on an international treaty, first proposed in 2016, to ban nuclear weapons forever. It makes sense for every country in the world to seek a legally binding ban on nuclear weapons. It would make even more sense to immediately deactivate all nuclear weapons. But, by boycotting and disparaging the process now underway, the U.S. and other nuclear armed nations have sent a chilling signal. They have no intention of giving up the power to explode, burn and annihilate planetary life. “The United States is spending $1 trillion USD over the next thirty years to modernize its nuclear weapon arsenals and triple the killing power of these weapons,” says Ray Acheson, programme director at Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Acheson also notes that the excessive spending for nuclear weapons contrasts with U.S. cuts to vital anti-poverty programs.  On June 19th, more than a dozen people blocked the U.S. Mission to the UN entrance to protest Washington’s boycott of the negotiations. They were arrested for disorderly conduct, but I believe it’s incomparably  more disorderly to plan for nuclear war.

During the past weekend, to support the negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons, WILPF called for “Women’s March to Ban the Bomb” actions in cities across the U.S. and around the world. Jane Addams, who helped found the League in 1919, was a Chicago woman who understood the crucial need to put an end to war, all war, and instead care for the neediest people. She dedicated herself to assuring that many new immigrants in her city were treated with respect, given assistance to meet basic needs and encouraged to live and work together, peaceably. Addams worked passionately to prevent nations from sleepwalking into the horrors of World War I, and she vigorously campaigned to stop the United States’ entry into it.

Upon return from visiting soldiers who had been maimed while fighting in the trenches of World War I, she spoke of how the young men couldn’t have carried on the war without mind-altering substances -sometimes absinthe, sometimes extra rations of rum. Families were sending laudanum and even heroin to the front lines in hampers. The soldiers couldn’t kill, she concluded, if left in their right minds.

The WILPF gatherings help us ask hard questions about our capacity to prepare for massive obliteration of entire cities, through nuclear weapon buildup, while failing to meet the needs of children, like those in Yemen, whose survival is jeopardized by war and indifference. Can we persist in perfecting our nuclear arsenals, indifferent to millions of children at risk of starving to death or dying because they lack clean water — and because U.S. supported Saudi airstrikes decimate the infrastructure that might have supplied food and water, –can we do so and claim to be in our right minds?

WILPF gathered us in Chicago where we took time to remember a remarkably brave former Chicagoan, Jean Gump, a mother of twelve whose altruism led her to help dismantle an intercontinental ballistic missile. On March 28, 1986, Jean and her companions in the Plowshares movement enacted the biblical call to turn swords into plowshares. Picture it in the words of Lila Sarick’s article, “The Crime of Ms. Jean Gump:”

The early morning sun was beginning to glow red over the horizon as a trio ran through the dew-soaked Missouri field.

Silently, a young, bearded man cut the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, while his two companions, another man and a woman, hung banners beside the scarlet sign that warned them not to enter.

Beside the warning sign, the pair hung a photo collage of the woman’s 12 children and 2 grandchildren. Alongside it, they hung a pennant that bore the group’s logo: “Swords into plowshares — an act of healing.”

The trio then clambered through the hole in the fence and entered M-10, a Minuteman II missile site at Whiteman Air Force Base, Knob Noster, Missouri.

The missile site resembled an abandoned railway yard. Rust-colored tracks ended abruptly in the middle of the site. Tall signal arms and white concrete bunkers dotted the landscape.

Wordlessly, the three set to work. Ken Rippetoe, 23, swung a sledgehammer at the railway tracks, designed to launch a nuclear missile with the punch of one million tons of TNT.

Larry Morlan, 26, snipped the wires on the signal arms, which pointed blindly toward the sky.

And Jean Gump uncapped a baby bottle filled with the trio’s blood and poured it in the shape of a cross on the gleaming hatch from which a missile could emerge. Underneath, she painted the words “Disarm and live.”

For this action, Jean Gump was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison. The following year, her husband, Joe Gump, performed a similar action, believing Jean was right about assuming personal responsibility to deactivate nuclear weapons. The couple galvanized a group of Midwesterners to form a 1988 campaign, the “Missouri Peace Planting,” which involved dozens of people climbing over barbed wire fences onto the grounds of nuclear weapon silos in Missouri, and planting corn on top of  the missile silos. I remember entering a nuclear weapon site in Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base, planting corn, and shortly thereafter finding myself kneeling in the grass, handcuffed, as a soldier stood behind me with his weapon pointed toward me. I lasted about two minutes in silence, and then started talking about why we did what we did and how we hoped the action would benefit children that he loved as well. And then I asked him, “Do you think the corn will grow?”

“I don’t know,” he responded, “but I sure hope so.” And then he asked me, “Ma’am, would you like a drink of water?”  I nodded eagerly.  “Ma’am,” said the soldier, “would you please tip your head back.” I did so, and he poured water down my throat. Recalling his kind offer to give me water jolts me into awareness about the relationship between the nuclear weapon below us, that day, and massive numbers of people, then and now, who acutely need clean water.

Imagine if his question, “Would you like a drink of water?” were asked, today, to people living in Yemen. Now, as the U.S. insists on having an exceptional right to dominate the planet, insists on being armed with enough explosive fire power to obliterate entire cities, suppose we were to ask people in Yemen, millions of whom now face cholera and starvation, if they would like a drink of clean, pure water?

Or, let’s bring the question closer to home and ask people in Flint, MI, whose water is contaminated, “Would you like clean, pure water?”

And as we grope for solutions to the signs of climate change, including severe droughts and the rush to privatize dwindling resources of potable water, imagine asking the children of future generations, “Would you like a drink of water?”

President Eisenhower was right to equate possession of nuclear weapons with commission of crime.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

It’s a big “ask”:  get rid of nuclear weapons. Along with planning and joining protests, another  way to remain awake and focused on preventing nuclear annihilation involves recognizing how interconnected we are with others, so much so that the suffering and death of another person diminishes our own lives.

This wakefulness entails abiding care for others. Jean Gump and Jane Addams practiced such care throughout most of their lives. We, likewise, can work toward justice for those who live in communities like Flint, MI; we can seek sane approaches to the climate crisis; and we can insist that those who are targets of war, like the cholera-ridden, desperately hungry children of Yemen, be spared from aerial terrorism and given full access to clean, life-saving waters.

Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org)

20 June 2017

By Zaakir Ahmed Mayet

Introductory Remarks

The overview below seeks to provide a clear picture of the forces which have motivated the recent actions against the Gulf State of Qatar. Contrary to much of the current discourse, it is argued that the genesis of the actions are not to be found in the Gulf but in the State of Israel. The analysis below first discounts the accusations against Qatar which have served as a means to justify Gulf Cooperation Countries’ drastic measures. The second part of the analysis takes a brief look at the history of Sykes-Picot which provides the current framework upon which the United States, Israel and the Gulf States are anchored. The term hegemony is used interchangeably, whether rightly or wrongly, to denote Western interests as well as those of Israel and the United States. Furthermore, Israel is to be viewed as a projection of Western and US interests in the region.  The tools of hegemonic control, i.e. destabilisation via proxies and invasions, are also sketched out and which become crucial in understanding Syria’s role later on. The argument put forth is that the very foundation which ensured the existence of the GCC is intrinsically connected to Israel. If Israeli hegemony collapses and the State faces an existential threat to its existence, so too does the GCC. The analysis exposes the close connections between the Gulf culprits of the current Qatar row and the State of Israel. The adoption of Israel’s interests as the GCC’s interests demonstrates the dependency of the GCC on the hegemony but also the duplicity of the Arab states in relation to the issue of Palestine. The analysis, therefore, moves to focus on the threats faced by Israel which are the lynchpin of the GCC and their continued existence. The picture is sketched from largely Israeli and US sources that the very bedrock of Israel, i.e. its deterrence capacity, had collapsed due to its defeat at the hands of the Hezbollah. The situation progressively got worse not only endangering Israel but also by implication the existence of Israel’s dependents, the GCC. The analysis focuses on the military encirclement of Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas. The timeline runs between 2006 and 2017 in which the growing threat of a liberated Palestine looms. The picture of Israel, its future existence as a Zionist, apartheid, colonial, settler state, becomes critical in the space of 2016 – 2017 particularly due to Hezbollah. The analysis takes a step back to examine what the critical tipping point was for the change in Israel’s calculation of existence. It is argued that the Syrian conflict was meant to embroil the Assad regime in civil war and destabilisation by hijacking a legitimate revolution. This would have effectively weakened Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. The equation changed drastically when sudden Iranian, Russian and Hezbollah intervention occurs. This links to the preceding portion which details how the Syrian theatre of operations did not weaken the axis of resistance (Al Mukawama – Iran; Syria; Hezbollah and even Hamas) but strengthened it. The developments caused panic in the Gulf and particularly Israel. These developments, when viewed in context, explain the openness surrounding previously clandestine ties with Israel in recent months as well as the current Qatar crisis. It is argued that the Qatari situation, despite the internal dynamics of the GCC, is not spurred on by domestic rivalry but a tangible threat to the very frameworks upon which GCC+1 (Egypt) and hegemony are anchored. Qatar is a small test to determine if sectarian rhetoric promoted by the GCC+1 was successful in splitting two powerful Islamic powers: political Islam (Ikhwan) and resistance Islam (Al Mukawama). The jury has returned and the verdict is out: the joint efforts between Iran and Turkey spell disaster for the GCC+1 and Israel. Pressuring Qatar, a small country with links to both Ikhwan and Al Mukawama has revealed a mega bloc significantly magnifying the threat faced by the monarchs, tyrants and the hegemony. Ten months before the Qatar siege, Israel and the United States policy makers, key military figures and analysts had extensive conferences to discuss the collapse of the hegemony and the danger of the emerging blocks of Ikhwan and Al Mukawama. What was not clear was whether or not an alliance would be formed between the two. Qatar was the answer to that question. The future of the Middle East is anyone’s guess. But the unbridled truth is that the entire geopolitical situation has an abstract link to the Gulf and a direct link to Israel.

May the Almighty accept this effort to expose the Truth. May the rights of the oppressed and forgotten be restored and may the forces which seek to cause harm collapse in the light of Justice. If there is any benefit, all praise be to the Almighty who taught us the use of the pen and gave us knowledge that we knew not. If there is any error I seek forgiveness and any error is but my own.

Qatar and the false pretext

The last few days have been marked by dramatic diplomatic moves with Gulf Cooperation Countries with the inclusion of the Egypt besieging a fellow neighbour, Qatar. In the public domain, the furnished reasons have been that post the e-mail leaks from the Qatari Ambassador’s Hotmail account; new knowledge of terror sponsorship has emerged. This has allegedly catalysed the GCC States, post the Trump visit to the region, to take harsh action against the tiny Gulf country of Qatar. However, this begs the question: Were the GCC states truly unmindful of Qatari support for organisations such as ISIS and Nusrah? The factual record provides a vastly different narrative to the one being spun in the public domain at present. It is common cause that the Islamic State In the Levant (ISIL), also known as Daesh, had morphed from the Al Qaeda in Iraq. A strange pattern has emerged particularly in Western countries of ‘catch and release’ procedures. Ironically the subjects of these processes have gone on to commit heinous acts of terrorism. Enter 2004 with Camp Bucca housing ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The sand is ever shifting with regards to his period of detention as well as the locations at which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was held 1 . However, there is no dispute that he was in US custody and was ‘released’. Senior diplomat and author, Hardeep Singh Puri, stated in an interview that Michael Flynn [former security advisor to Trump and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama] confirmed the US origins of Daesh was a counter to Assad 2 . It is common cause in the equation of logic – but for US intervention – there would be no Daesh. The Clinton e-mail leaks confirmed a common observation that the GCC States (which is dominated by Saudi Arabia) were funding and providing logistical support to ISIS and Al Qaeda offshoots 3 . In fact, in Hillary Clinton’s private speech to Goldman Sachs she singled out the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia when she stated:

“That’s been complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons—and pretty indiscriminately—not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future… 4 ”

The incrimination of the GCC states was profound when Vice President Biden at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2014 stated:

“Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends, and I have a great relationship with Erdogan, [who] I just spent a lot of time with, [and] the

Saudis, the Emirates, etcetera. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad, and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of tonnes of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad – except that the people who were being supplied, [they] were al-Nusra, and al-Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis who were coming from other parts of the world. 5 ”

The most recent actions by the United States in the protection of ISIS entailed attacking Syrian forces advancing on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa and this is a clear indication of the duplicitous rhetoric 6 .

It is clear from the aforementioned that the accusations being levelled against Qatar in relation to groupings such as Al Qaeda, Nusra, ISIS/ISIL and other factions are most aptly described by the English idiom, the pot calling the kettle black.

The question then becomes, what was the selection criteria for Qatar to be singled out as opposed to Bahrain, Oman or UAE for the purposes of example. The answer to this question is given by none other than the GCC+1 (GCC plus Egypt). It was reported by the leading Israeli publication that the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir listed the ceasing of support for the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and termination of support for the Muslim Brotherhood as the conditions for normalisation of ties with the GCC+1 7 . A further demand appears to have surfaced in the whirlwind of reports. A list of ten demands is alleged to exist. When the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Saudi monarchy was questioned about the alleged list he refused to comment and retorted that Qatar was aware of what needs to be done to normalise ties with the GCC+1. The most curious demand relates to the Doha-based news agency, Al Jazeera. In recent times Al Jazeera was targeted by the Sisi regime when three of their journalists were arrested for covering the Egyptian revolution. In 2013 Australian Peter Greste, Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were arrested and charged with:

‘Being members of a terrorist organisation, as the Egyptian government has designated the Muslim Brotherhood on December 25, 2013; Aiding and funding the group; Broadcasting false news and reports of civil strife in Egypt; Operating without licenses’.

It is common cause that the charges against these journalists were figments of the Sisi regime’s paranoia and was not credible by any measure of logic or law. The reason this is mentioned is simply due to the fact that Al Jazeera was not targeted in this instance alone. It was targeted by the overlord of the GCC+1 alliance i.e. the United States during its invasion of Iraq. It was the Bush administration who intentionally targeted Al Jazeera journalists covering the massacre unleashed on the city of Falluja 8 . It is alleged that George Bush had made attempts to convince then Prime Minister and known war criminal Tony Blair to bomb the Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha 9 . Interestingly, the General who was leading the ground operation against the resistance forces in Falluja was none other than the current US Secretary of Defence, General James ‘Mad-Dog’ Mattis 10 . The visit by Mattis to Saudi Arabia on the 19 th April 2017 is noteworthy 11 . In attendance was the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir and the former director of operation at US Central Command (Centcom) Navy Rear Adm. Craig S. Faller 12 . As per Al Arabiya news agency, a topic of concern was the military picture in Yemen. The wording of the topic of the discussion is vital for the latter parts of this overview. It stated, “aims to prevent them from establishing a ‘Hezbollah-like’ militia in Yemen 13 ”

On the 20 th April 2017, Mattis was seen in Cairo having met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Egyptian Defence Minister Sedki Sobhy. The topic of discussion was ‘counter-terrorism’ and securing the borders in a “very complex” security environment 14 ’ The location at which the following statement was made provides a matrix of interpretation of the ‘borders’ that were referred to. “”We agreed on the need for a renewed and strong security partnership,” Mattis told reporters after arriving in Tel Aviv, Israel, which was the next stop on his trip. 15 ” The natural inference that must be drawn is that the border being referred to is the one of mutual interest to both Tel Aviv and Cairo, Rafah, Gaza. A common threat to both the Sisi regime and Israel was Al Jazeera. It was evident that Israeli thought leaders viewed Al Jazeera as a tool of Hamas. In 2014 Professor Eyal Zisser is the Vice Rector of Tel Aviv University and the Director of Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies 16 said to the Jerusalem Post with regard to Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Israeli invasion of Gaza; ‘Al Jazeera is fully supporting Hamas, and not the Palestinian people. Zisser said that the Qatar-owned station has been supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and was against the overthrow of former Egyptian Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi. Qatar also funds Hamas 17 ”. The issue of Hamas has further implications under a different heading which will be addressed later on.

It is clear that Mattis has a historic axe to grind with Al Jazeera. The Sisi regime viewed Al Jazeera as a media extension of the Muslim Brotherhood and Israel shares a similar outlook.

There is a conflation of interests on all fronts ranging from Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood to Al Jazeera. It is on this basis that Qatar was selected for the siege levelled by GCC+1 as well as the United States and Israel.

Qatar also has ties with the resistance block of Iran. The common gas field shared by Iran and Qatar forged a relationship of cooperation between the two countries 18 . The opening of airspace and port during the current siege of Qatar concretises the conclusion that substantial cooperation exists between Qatar and Iran 1920 .

Now that the selection criteria has been clearly defined i.e. Muslim Brotherhood , Hamas, Iran and Al Jazeera; we can determine what framework we shall utilise to interrogate the current events.

Sykes – Picot – the collapse of the political framework.

In August 2016 a special conference was hosted by the Israeli think-tank, the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, which is connected to the Director General of Israeli Foreign Affair Dore Gold. In a Q&A session with panellists former ambassador of Israel to the United State and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Brookings Institution Itamar Rabinovich 21 and Col. (ret.) Dr Jacques Neriah, Former Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence and former Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 22 , a strangely pertinent question was posed by the chair of the session. The chair asked “You have talked about the need to neutralise radical Islamic and jihadi forces before the Middle East can move ahead. How does that happen at this juncture, does it happen through international intervention or can it happen as you mentioned at the end of your talk? Can the Arab world headed by Egypt and Saudi Arabic, the GCC put together political will and have the capability of self-securing as you will in this new Middle East? 23 ” To the mind of any reader, it would appear that the conference and the chair’s question was prophetic. He not only accurately identified the current alliance against Qatar but referred to the Middle East as a ‘new’ Middle East. The more plausible answer that ties into the discussion previously about Israeli interest is that the entire dynamic playing out around Qatar was formulated in Israel. It is vital to bear in mind that this conference took place ten months before these current events. It draws us to the question of Sykes – Picot. What is its relevance to Israel and the USA?

The Sykes-Picot agreement was concluded in 1916 with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The hegemonic powers at the time who were key players in the division of the Ottoman Empire were the powers of Britain and France each represented by Mark Sykes and François Georges – Picot respectively. The important elements are not the negotiations of the agreement and the actual division by the principles which underlined the division; that being that the hegemonic powers would be able to retain control via direct and indirect means to secure their interests in the region. A key tool that was utilised was the Arab rebellion by the Emir of Najd Abdul Aziz al-Saud and King of Hejaz Sharif Hussein 24 . The Arab rebellion and acting in Western hegemonic interests crushed the Ottoman Caliphate. The rewards are seen today as the Kingdom of Saudi, named after the ruling family and the other Gulf States. Therefore it can be concluded that the monarchies of the Middle East were established upon the backs of the hegemonic powers and that their continued survival is intrinsically linked to their power within the region. As time proceeded French and British hegemony receded and was replaced by the hegemonic powers of the United States and the USSR. This is most clearly viewed in the annals of history documenting Arab nationalism and the various backers between Israel and the Arabs in their wars. The culmination of the Cold War which saw the collapse of the USSR left the United States as a singular hyper power with an extensive network of military bases throughout the world 25 . This allowed the United States to project Western interests and broad spectrum dominance, particularly within the Middle East. Interestingly, a particularly important development of disengagement policies in the Middle East was seen under the Obama administration. There was clearly decline by the Obama administration in attempts to outwardly project hegemony in the Middle East 26 which concerned the dependants of hegemony, those being Israel and the GCC+1. That is not to say that US projections of hegemony had ceased exposing their allies i.e. Israel and the GCC+1 to their own fates. The Trump administration was eagerly anticipated by the GCC and Israel in particular to reset Obama’s disengagement policy 27 . When analysing the US projections of hegemony we must seek the golden principle underpinning Sykes – Picot: control and protection of interests. This is primarily achieved via three permutations , these being destabilisation by backing factions internally causing friction and civil war, regime change and the installation of puppet rulers like the Gulf Monarchs. These were seen in El Salvador which later became known as the El Salvador option 28 which was later utilised by the US Military via Generals such as Stanley McCrystal and Michael Flynn. It also appeared in Somalia when the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts was formed which was the closest and most stable form of actual governance. Interestingly Al Shabaab was marginalised by more level-headed elements within the Court Union. The USA began funding Ethiopia and Kenya to engage the Court militarily, destabilising Somalia which left the only option of Al Shabab to protect the people 29 . This destabilisation often laid the groundwork for large footprint invasion as was seen during the Gulf war, Iraq, Afghanistan and later Somalia with regards to Al Shabab or limited kinetic operations via Special Forces and covert structures that lacked accountability such as Joint Special Operations Command; which interestingly operated out of Qatar for a portion of the War of Terror. The nett result of either is an installation of a pliable leader as was seen in the case of Afghanistan and Karzai or a case of continued destabilisation which allows the United States to achieve its strategic objective and allowing the continuation of the Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Chaney policy of the world as a battlefield 30 . Either of the permutations would be acceptable to the United States. It is at this point that it would be important to shift attention to Israel which is the projection of US interests in the region.

Israeli interests – the lens of the region

The lens through which recent events must be interpreted is that of Israel, which the central axis of the conflation of interest is. In relation to the US-Israel interests, one can describe their relationship as one of symbiosis. At times the interests of the United States and Israel were so perfectly aligned it could be perceived as if the United States was dependent on Israel as an extension of its policies in the Middle East. At other points, the divergence in certain aspects of policy creates the impression of independence and Israeli reliance on the United States.

This was particularly clear whilst perusing the annals of history documenting the US- Israel relations. A brief consultation of the records highlights two examples of the aforementioned. In May of 1970, a meeting took place between US President Nixon and Rabin an Ambassador at the time. As per Rabin’s account, Nixon asked: “In view of the Soviet involvement, is Israel’s position still…” Rabin answered, “give us the tools and we’ll do the job”. Nixon replied “Good, that’s all I wanted to know” 31 . In fact, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affair in a publication quoted Nixon as saying ““the best Soviet stopper in the Mideast 32 ”. Under Ronald Reagan, Israel was described as a strategic asset 33 . These statements provide a perception that Israel is ‘game-changer’ extension of the US policy within the Middle East. However, the antics of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Obama administration reflected a slight divergence from the above interpretation and
demonstrated a dependency on the part of Israel of the United States 34 .

The relationship between Trump and Netanyahu prima facie may be likened to that of yesteryears as Trump pursues a heavy-handed approach not only to the Islamic Republic of Iran but also pledging to move the US embassy to Jerusalem which has dramatic implications in terms of international law. In summary, the US-Israeli position can be viewed as analogous in relation to the Middle East taking into considerations the various comments made by Mattis and company on the issues within the region.

The Zionist state has long held onto the fears of Muslim Brotherhood particularly manifested via the creation and growing strength of Hamas in Palestine, the fear of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the formation of Hezbollah in Lebanon in response to Israel’s occupation of Beirut in 1982 35 . The next few points will address how the GCC+1 have aligned themselves with Israeli interests and have proverbially boarded the Israeli boat to support the hegemony.

It has been accepted that the Saudi monarchy is indeed the big brother of the GCC states and has influenced their trajectory. Therefore the greatest focus shall be on the conflation of interests between Saudi and Israel as depicted in their relationship. In 2012 Wikileaks released a flood of cables which date back to 2009 relating to the alleged permission that was granted to Israel by the Saudi regime to strike Iran. At the time the Saudi Foreign Minister denied such claims and stated that news of this nature only sought to fray Arab unity 36 . As the picture became clearer the Saudi – Israeli relations were indeed strengthening placing into question the Saudi Foreign Affairs minister’s denial. The extensive nature of the clandestine relationship between Saudi and Israel included secret discussions, special flights over Saudi air space for Israel personnel, publishing op-eds by Saudi policymakers in Israeli papers, sharing public platforms together, economic ties and security cooperation. In 2015 it was stated that Israeli goods are appearing under foreign names to circumvent the boycotts 37 . The Israeli Iron Dome was offered to the GCC states according to Haaretz 38 indicating the open avenues of communication. In recent times, the three striking actions symbolise the normalisation of ties between Saudi and Israel. The first is the flight of US President Trump directly from Riyadh to Tel Aviv 39 which attracted a fair deal of media coverage. The second is the ground-breaking move to allow a Saudi analyst, for the first time since the formation of Israel, to speak on Israeli television 40 . The final and most striking was in 2015 when Saudi General Anwar Eshki, spoke to Israel’s Channel 10 news during a remarkable event in Washington in which he shared a platform with the then incoming director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold 41.

In the case of the United Arab Emirates, the relations between Israel and themselves have been less in the shadows, so to speak. The most explosive revelations occurred in 2015 when a senior official in the resistance structures confirmed that Israel had not intended to continue 2014’s Operation Protective Edge beyond a ten-day campaign in Gaza. It was only when the UAE undertook to bankroll the balance of the forty-one days that Israel continued their massacre. This is in keeping with the Israeli military literature commenting on the theory of war leading to Protective Edge. It was stated by Maj. Gen. Yossi Baidatz and Dr Dmitry Adamsky that the theory that was going to be used in Gaza 2014 was that of deterrence – driven operations 42 . This meant preferably short and aggressive operations with limited attacks carried out regularly between such operations. The drastic deviation from this theory not only lends credibility that a large portion of the operation was funded by a separate power but gives rise to a further possibility , that Israeli Defence Force attacks on Gaza were an attempted occupation which could not be achieved. In 2015 Israel opened its first diplomatic mission in the UAE which heralded strengthened economic and diplomatic ties between the States 43 . In March 2017 the UAE held joint military drills with Israel and the United States. This provides a clear indication of the UAE getting onto the Israeli boat of interests.

The other important key State involved is that of Bahrain. Bahrain has been conducting suppression operations to contain protests calling for democratic elections and political reform. In February 2017 sixty Israeli special forces personnel flew into the UAE to ‘train Bahraini riot police’ 44 . The irony is that the tactics that would be taught would be the same barbarism that is being practiced on the Palestinian people. The Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation in January 2017 provided an explosive revelation regarding Bahraini-Israeli cooperation and relations when he said: “Bahraini riot commanders are being trained in Israel, Bahraini authorities have good relations with us, in addition to political affairs, medical actions for the king of Bahrain and his family are being done by Israeli specialists either in Tel Aviv or in Bahrain 45 ”.

The military economic and political relations between Israel and Egypt have never been a secret affair in recent years. Israel reopened its embassy in Egypt in 2015. Sisi has been a vital component in wrestling control away from the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood and acts as Israel’s enforcer along the Gaza border. It was confirmed to me personally by the resistance that on August 1, 2014, Egypt allowed penetration into Gaza by the Israeli Defence Force via Rafah. This was meant to surprise the resistance fighters as much of the ground fighting had been directed to the northern and eastern parts of Gaza. During the surprise operation, Hamas was able to capture an Israeli soldier which activated  something known as the Hannibal Directive which authorised the use of unbridled force to prevent such captures. It was narrated to me that the skies opened and fire rained down upon the Palestinian people. Figures indicated that after three hours of continuous bombardment, 135 civilians – 75 of them children were massacred. Amnesty International and other organisations gave this event the title of “Black Friday” denoting the crimes committed by Israel on the day 46 . It was stated by the Washington Institute that when Sisi overthrew the democratic government, Israel immediately threw its support behind the coup leader. In fact “Israel launched diplomatic missions in Washington and several major European capitals to support Egypt’s new political situation and prevent a diplomatic blockade on Cairo” 47 .

It is evident from the above that Israel’s outlook on the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah predate the policy shift of the GCC+1. It is therefore logical to reason that the GCC+1 has stepped on board the ship of Israeli-US interests and have effectively sacrificed the Palestinian people for their own personal gain.

This places us in the vital position to now strike at the crux of the issue. We have unpacked the fallacy of the public claim that Qatar was solely responsible for supporting terrorism in the region. We have determined that Israel, particularly during the Trump administration, is an extension of US interests in the region and that the survival of the strategic asset would be paramount. We have determined that the GCC+1 have been falling into the Israeli orbit and have imbibed Israel’s strategic concerns as their own. The nett effect of the analysis, therefore, is that the root of the current fiasco regarding Qatar is related far more closely to Israeli concerns that those of the GGC+1. That is not to say that the concerns of the GCC+1 are to be dismissed, however, the strategic concerns particularly those stated in the recent coverage i.e. Hamas, Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Iran, Al Jazeera are Israel interests and predate the GCC+1 arrival to the scene. It, therefore, begs the question… what aspect relating to the Israeli interests triggered the current event?

The dawn of Doomsday

There appears to be blood across the Israeli flag as politicians, the security establishment and parties with vested interests battle it out to direct the future of the colonialist state. As the fighting continues an inevitability has dawned on all role players including those in hardline circles, that the current trajectory of Israel mirrors that of Apartheid South Africa. The end result will be a one state solution which means the dismantling of the colonial outpost to reflect a Democratic state representative of its people. Recent statements at the Herzliya conference reflect a deeply fractured Israeli landscape. Former Defence Minister Ehud stated at the aforesaid conference  "will surely result in a `one-state solution,’ which will either be an `Apartheid State’…. or a `bi-national state’ in which the Jews will become a minority within a couple of generations, and will most likely be in a continuous civil war.”48 This was not the only attack against the hard-line coalition. The erstwhile Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni added to the chorus by stating: ‘The decision of whether to work towards a two- state solution or towards a single united nation should be a national one, in order to “take back our democratic Jewish Israel.” 49 ’ The recent publication of the “Security First” report 50 authored by over 200 former Israeli Generals, Shabak and Mossad figures and the Center For A New American Security report 51 paint a similar picture of polarisation. The recognition by the Israeli security establishment that military force can no longer solve the problems Israel faces is a damning indictment of the failure of Israeli policy. Therefore the current discourse revolves around a two state or one state solution. The latter lifting the veil on the apartheid nature of Israel which is being exhibited by the current right-wing regime. The political crisis continues, however, Israel faces a far more fatal challenge.

The State of Israel was founded on the principles of terror and disproportionate force. The first true signs of this entrenched policy emerged in the massacres of Deir Yassin which were characterised with such brutality that it served as a primer for the mass exodus and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population. Menachem Begin stated “Without what was done at Deir Yassin there would not have been a State of Israel. He added further: While the Haganah was carrying out successful attacks on the other fronts… The Arabs began fleeing in panic, shouting ‘Deir Yassin’ 52 . It is this policy that remained the cornerstone of Israeli militarism. History is often written by the victor and the public narrative of the 1967 war is no exception. Israel was portrayed as a victim State, bullied and bludgeoned by its larger Arab neighbours and the victory projected as a miracle from the heavens confirming the justness of Zionist occupation. Occasionally, the true narrative pierces the proverbial propaganda veil and the truth gleams through. The catalytic deterrence capacity policy was the prime motivator for the first strike Israel conducted to spark the 1967 war. Ariel Sharon, a divisional commander at the time stated “deterrence capability…our main weapon — the fear of us 53 ”. The deterrence capacity policy of Israel has been characterised as one of deterrence by punishment which constitutes disproportionate force and punishment 54 . This particular shade of Israel’s deterrence doctrine was placed into operation by the Israeli defence force with the Dahiya doctrine. Major General (Ret) Giora Eiland who is thought to be the true mastermind behind the doctrine argued the ‘impossibility of defeating Hizbullah 55 ’. He devised a policy that would ‘lead to the elimination of the Lebanese military, the destruction of the national infrastructure, and intense suffering among the population’, so much so that ‘the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people are consequences that can influence Hezbollah’s behaviour  more than anything else. 56 ’ The diabolical playbook of disproportionate force was utilised by the then head of Israel’s Northern Command, Gadi Eizenkot who stated: “What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. […] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. […]” 57 . This doctrine is premised on the fact that the sheer magnitude of destruction would discourage further engagement on the battlefield and furthermore would reinforce three concepts, that the IDF has the capacity to wipe out the opposition merely with the might of its bombardment (shock and awe). The second is that the IDF would act viciously against anyone, be they civilian or combatant, once they had commenced bombardment and finally, that their conduct should serve as a signifier of the fate which will await any who cross their path. This theory of deterrence via punishment was successful in all major Arab-Israeli wars particularly the 1967 war. The adaptation of Israeli policy of deterrence was also hinged on shorter and increasingly brutal engagements. The aim of these shortened engagements is to project deterrence whilst preventing a war of attrition. This rubric, however, was rewritten with the war against the Hezbollah in 2006 being the first effective failure of the cornerstone of Israeli militarism and deterrence capacity. This came on the back of Israel’s forced abandonment of a portion of Lebanon in 2000 due to the resistance of Hezbollah 58 . In a public lecture under the auspices of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affair, Major General Uzi Dayan delivered a striking blow to the deterrence doctrine and the outward edifice of success that Israel was projecting post-2006 59 . He stated that Israel lost a lot of deterrence in the last war in Lebanon; this being a turning point not only for Israel but other resistance movements. This acknowledgement emerged from the then opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu who stated: "The greatest failure as a result of the war is that Israel’s deterrent capability has been severely harmed, 60 ". The inability of Israel to adapt to changing environment resulted in the further implementation of the doctrine in Gaza during 2008. The stated aim of the operations in Protective Edge was to put an end to Hamas rocket fire, a feeble attempt at restoring Israel’s deterrence capacity. To the contrary, global opinion shifted drastically against Israel and discussions of prosecution of Israel leaders became louder 61 . The finding of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission was a severe blow to Israel in the global arena 62 . Further engagements occurred within the Gaza Strip. Despite the brutality of Cast Lead the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas rolled out extensive rocket and mortar attacks on Israel in 2014. The record of prior engagements regardless of whether by Israeli creation or Palestinian evidences the fact that the deterrence or fear of Israel has not been re-established. According to the Washington Institute “Over time, deterrence in the Gaza situation will likely fail. Deterrence works best in essentially stable situations, wherein the sides clearly understand each other’s calculus” 63 . The continued siege on Gaza fuels instability which creates an appetite for resistance. The equation that follows: but for Israel’s occupation, there would be no need to resist. In fact, instead of deterring escalation, according to US analysis, the resistance is becoming stronger in Gaza. The same report by WI stated “The military capabilities of the Qassam Brigades and other organisations have increased, perhaps making them more confident as well as more dangerous. This may lead to sharper fighting along the buffer zone — and inevitably to more casualties, including IDF — along with increased pressure on the IDF to respond with greater force. 64 ” This deterrence failure was further captured in a Congressional Service Report by analyst Jim Zanotti in which it was stated “Teams of engineers, chemists, and machinists have improved the range and payload of the Qassam series rockets over time, and Israeli military raids have targeted several individuals and facilities associated with rocket research and production operations. Over the years, rockets have expanded in range beyond relatively small Israeli communities near the Gaza border, such as the town of Sderot (population est. 24,000), to the larger coastal cities of Ashqelon (population est.120,000) and Ashdod (population est. 200,000) and to the Negev city of Beersheva (population est. 185,000). Mid-range Gradstyle rockets (thought to be smuggled into Gaza) that travel farther than Qassam rockets have been fired from Gaza by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Al Quds series) and the Popular Resistance Committees (Nasser series). 65 ” The alleged success of Iron Dome appears to be fraudulent 66 . According to Theodore Postol, missile expert from the acclaimed Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Iron Dome is only intercepting 5% or less of Hamas projectiles 67 . Further supporting evidence is the comments by Major General Uzi Dayan when he related the story of an Israeli who stated that if Israel cannot stop Hamas what chance do they have of stopping Iran 68 . The threat from Hamas was magnified in the last conflict via the penetration of resistance forces into Israeli territory via the sea. Footage appears to have leaked showing Hamas frogmen infiltrating Zikim beach military facility. The troops opened a new era of warfare which exposed a military threat to Israel from the Mediterranean 69 . This new front of operations is now open from the north via Hezbollah after they targeted the Israeli navy’s missile corvette, one of the most sophisticated pieces of Israeli military equipment; the Saar-5 during the 2006 Lebanon war 70 . In February of 2017, the Times of Israel ran a story stating that Hezbollah had acquired sophisticated anti – ship missiles during the Syrian conflict. This weapon in the hands of the Hezbollah as per the Israeli source would be a game changer thus severely constraining Israeli’s dominance 71 . Therefore a pincer-like threat engulfs Israel from both the north and south thus compromising the Western borders of the Zionist state and poses a tangible threat to Israel’s access to its gas fields 72 . This was communicated by Prof. Efraim Inbar who is Director of the BESA Center – Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and Professor emeritus of political science at Bar-Ilan University, in March of this year 73 .

The defeat of Israel in 2006 set the bar for Hamas and an opaque reference to same was made in the aforementioned report. “The Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon provides military training as well as financial and moral support and has acted in some ways as a mentor or role model for Hamas, which has sought to emulate the Lebanese group’s political and media success 74 ”.

There was a distancing of Hamas from Iran during the Syrian conflict which weakened the axis of resistance 75 . However, post the elections within Hamas, there has been an embracing of Hamas by both Iran and Hezbollah. It has been reported that in the most recent speech of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah he honoured Hamas which symbolised an important rapprochement. The meeting in 2016 between Iran and Hamas was of particular importance as one of the key meetings was between Hamas and Major General Qasem Soleimani, the Commander of the Quds Forces 76 . This marked a realignment of forces once again directed at the Zionist occupation of Israel. This reignited the fears of Israel and the United States as Israel is indeed an extension of its hegemonic policy in the Middle East. The threat to the existence of Israel was communicated in the erstwhile congressional report which said “Israel also fears that Iran, Syria, and possibly other actors in the region might use Hamas’s proximity to Israel either to facilitate a coordinated multi-front military attack or to mobilize regional and international political pressure against Israel through the precipitation of crises and causes célèbres. 77 ”

Moving to Hezbollah, there is no doubt that Hezbollah defeated Israel in 2006. This became evident via the August 2006 analysis by the New York Times 78 . The defeat at the hands of Hezbollah was of such a crushing nature that Israel sought no confrontation with Hezbollah for the last ten years. Hezbollah had a deterrence capacity before the engagement of 2006. When Major General Gadi Eizenkot, head of the Israel Defense Forces’, (IDF) operations branch heard of that strikes were ordered against Hezbollah Fajr rocket sites he said "We have to stop everything, they don’t realise what this means. 79 ” The fear was the retaliation by Hezbollah was would endanger the Northern Front with a hail of rockets and other weapons. In the space between 2006 and 2015 SSM – surface to surface missiles and rockets in Hezbollah’s possession is said to be in the range of one hundred and fifty thousand 80 . The Washington Institute in early 2015 exposed the vulnerability of Israel in relation to the surface to surface attacks when it said: “According to Israeli intelligence estimates, Hezbollah would likely attempt to sustain fire of around a thousand rockets and missiles per day, dwarfing the approximate daily rate of 118 achieved in 2006. Perhaps more important, Hezbollah now has missiles with the range and accuracy to strike large strategic targets such as airfields, headquarters, and economically important sites. An operation of this nature could overwhelm Israel’s anti-rocket systems. The weight of the attack would fall on northern and to a lesser extent central Israel, but Hezbollah can now reach targets in the south as well. 81 ” This does not only change the balance of the war but shifts it drastically in Hezbollah’s favour. Of most concern to Israel is the alleged possession of SA-17 and SA-22 ground-to- air missiles as well as P-800 Oniks air-to- sea missiles. The SA-17 and SA-22 now pose the greatest threat to the Israeli air superiority which provided an edge over Hamas and Hezbollah non-state actors during Israeli military operations. 82 The rhetoric of Hezbollah has changed from defensive operations against Israel to offensive operation. Nadav Pollak, a former analyst for the government of Israel, Nadav also served as an NCO in the IDF Intelligence Corps gave a lecture in August 2016 entitled: The Transformation of Hezbollah by Its Involvement in Syria. He detailed how offensive capabilities have now become part of the range of operations that may be conducted against Israel. He said: “This type of offensive experience could change the basic paradigms of many Hezbollah fighters. Naturally, some Hezbollah commanders who achieved important objectives using offensive operations in Syria might ponder that the same approach could work against Israel. 83 ” This opens a new range of threats against Israel. Unlike 2006 in which Israel crossed the border into Lebanon to conduct operations, now Hezbollah will invade Israel. This has been the edge of the psychological warfare that has been deployed by Hezbollah. An example of this is a trailer published on YouTube purportedly by Al Mayandeen in which the ‘decisive battle’ i.e. The Day would take place in 2019.

The most recent development that was not expected was the Hezbollah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) presence along the Golan border. This growing threat was referenced by Moshe Yaalon the former IDF Chief of Staff and Defence Minister in his lecture at the Washington Institute. He said “We haven’t absorbed a single Sunni Jihadist Attack from the Syrian Side. We did absorb about a dozen IRGC proxies. 84 ” It was known that Israel was providing medical assistance and aid to rebels and Al Qaeda affiliates on the Golan border with Israel 85 . This picture changed in the latter parts of 2016 and into 2017. An announcement was made by the IRGC of a new division of forces known as Golan Liberation Brigade which is alleged to have ten thousand or more soldiers. 86 The development of a new front on Israel spurred Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to frantically lobby the US and partner Jordan to demand a buffer zone 87 . This underscores the threat posed by IRGC and Hezbollah to Israel.

It, therefore, stands to reason that the threat on the Northern Front has been the most pressing for Israel with the developing Eastern Front effectively enclosing Israel. To the Israeli military establishment, one would be looking at the first tangible existential threat to Israel since 1973’s Yom Kippur war. Combining the pictures of then and now, we can effectively question the Syrian Theatre of operations and acknowledge that hegemony was indeed being threatened and drastic action was required. This point will be developed further in the latter portion of this analysis.

Strike the Hub – a hijacked revolution.

How to weaken Hezbollah and decapitate its ability to further its capabilities, that was the question that was mulling around in the minds of Israel as well as their GCC dependents. The natural answer was to attack the transit point of training and weapons, Syria. This knowledge was present in 2006 when Israeli officials stated that they were seeking to stop weapons from being supplied to Hezbollah via Syria from Iran 8889 . In the lecture given by N. Pollak at the Washington Institute, he made specific reference to the strategic importance of Syria for Al Mukawama (The Resistance against Israel). He said in his written report: “To understand the depth of Hezbollah’s commitment to the Syrian regime, one must understand the extent to which Syria is Hezbollah’s logistical lifeline. For years weapons have been delivered through  Syria to the group by air and land. Using Syria as its main transit hub, the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), headed by Qasem Soleimani,
has made sure Hezbollah’s arsenal has grown over the years in quantity and quality. The Syrian regime itself has contributed to Hezbollah’s military supply, mainly in the form of advanced anti-tank missiles received from Russia, along with rockets and other missiles. Reports also indicate that Hezbollah has maintained training camps in Syria and logistical bases for weapons storage. Beyond serving as a transit hub for weapons, Syria has done the same for Hezbollah fighters. Indeed, a key part of Hezbollah’s training routine over the years involved travelling to Iran through the Damascus airport. 90 ”

It is common cause that Syria was also at the heart of arming and training the Palestinian resistance movements as stated in the congressional report: “If sanctions weaken Iran and Syria in general terms, one could argue, resources and efforts allocated to helping Hamas and other potential proxies could be redirected to core internal matters related to regime survival” 91 . Damascus was also the home to the Hamas movement and served as a local tower which allowed free movement and interaction whilst being close enough to Palestine.

This draws us to question, what happened in Syria? Was the Syrian war all part of the plan?

The context in which the Syrian revolution emerged was in the wave of the Arab Spring. The spark of self-immolation in which Tarek El-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi sacrificed his life set off an inferno which spread quickly from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya to Yemen, Bahrain to Syria and even in the Saudi kingdom itself. The hegemony, i.e. US and Western interests, were under threat and a swift and rapid answer was required. The popular revolutions called for an end to monarch and military rule. The Egyptian revolution was crushed via a triple-sided threat which was the existing Mubarak officials in government structures, the military (SCAF) and the foreign elements of the United States 92 . The end result was grave miscalculations and internal dynamics which saw the Muslim Brotherhood shattered, its leadership imprisoned and its structures scattered to countries such as Turkey 93 and Qatar 94. Interestingly, at the time Qatar was also placed under pressure to cut ties with the Muslim Brotherhood 95 . The Libyan crisis developed rapidly into the benevolent dictator versus the people. Unlike the protests in Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt, the Libyan revolution turned into an armed rebellion and insurrection 96 . This devolving situation turned one of the most progressive States, in terms of services to its people, into a failed and lawless one. This opened the door for US hegemonic forces and the invasion of Libya. A quick survey demonstrated that the GCC states cooperated with the Western forces to re-establish the hegemonic foothold so as to ensure that the wave of revolution was quelled 97 . Not only did this civil war between State and people provide a perfect excuse for intervention, it  also allowed for a continued status quo of civil war, demonstrated how armed insurrection could topple government and the tide of revolution was quelled which prevented civil momentum in those theatres. The protests in Libya began in February 2011 and the subsequent military operations came to an end in August 2011. The end result was that hegemonic oil interests were secured 98 , any positive regime change against Western interests quelled and the formula of insurgency for regime-change or perpetual conflict perfected.

Shortly after the beginning of the Libyan insurrection, the Syrian theatre exploded with protests for reform.

It is at this point that I believe it is important to place a proviso to ensure that the bulk of the analysis is captured in its correct light for the purpose of understanding the geo-political and military picture surrounding the current Qatari situation. The Syrian conflict, as we understand it today, is one that is charged with emotional and religious sentiment. It becomes an impossible task to suppress one’s emotions when hospitals are targeted, mosques are destroyed, refugees have their dignity ripped away from them, barrel bombs falling from the skies and reports of torture emerge. The violence from both sides is gross and ignites strong emotions. In order for the conflict in Syria to be understood, we have to accept that there are three dimensions to the conflict. The first is the humanitarian side to which our emotions are most strongly connected and rightly so. The second is the political dimensions which must be dealt with in the framework of negotiations, theories of democracy and even economics. The final and the most crucial in this piece is the military and geo-political aspect which demands an absence of emotion to view the Syria conflict in its truest form. It is on this premise that we proceed.

There have been numerous forms of analysis that have penned to explain the Syrian issue, each containing its own bias and failures. In all the analysis that I have been exposed to, only one has explained everything in a truthful and unbiased manner. In 2015 a senior official in the resistance movement structures explained what had happened in Syria. Syria had been ruled by Hafiz Al Assad, the current leader’s father. The reigns were taken over by his ophthalmologist son, Bashar. In March 2011, legitimate protests began calling for reforms within Syria as the people were unhappy about the hereditary lineage of leadership. The Syrian regime reached out to the Palestinian liberation movement Hamas to mediate a peaceful end to the protests. It was the position of Hamas that they do not intervene in internal State issues. However, after much persuasion, the movement assisted in trying to bring stability to the State that it had called home. The negotiation process was slow and in the interim Assad offered reforms to aid the process 99100 . It is said that during the process of reform Iran had advised Assad to enact these reforms and embrace the demands of his people via legitimate avenues. Assad’s younger brother, Maher Al-Assad, was not happy with the advice of Iran nor with the negotiations that were taking place. As a Commander of the Syrian Army’s 4th Armoured Division, Maher convinced his brother Bashar to quell the uprisings with live ammunition and force. Bashar went against Iranian advices, pulled Hamas and others out of the negotiations and deployed Maher to suppress the protests 101 . The results were catastrophic. Images of massacres in the streets fuelled the protests and lead to circumstances beyond Bashar’s control. He was shunned by his erstwhile allies Iran and Hezbollah and the situation began to deteriorate.

I shall deviate to explain the concept of destabilisation which is crucial as a tool for hegemonic powers. In 2013 one of the key think-tanks of the United States Military Establishment, the RAND Corporation, published an extensive publication entitled Ending The U.S. War In Iraq – The Final Transition, Operational Manoeuvre And Disestablishment Of United States Forces–Iraq. In said publication it was stated:

“Consequently, building the political, economic, and security capacity of the host nation was viewed as central to conducting a successful COIN [Counter Insurgency] operation. While building the capacity and legitimacy of the government, a COIN strategy must also seek either to delegitimize the insurgents and separate them from the population or to find a mechanism to bring the insurgents back into the political process. However, as the host government increases its capacity, especially in the security sector, the less likely it is that the government will seek a negotiated settlement with insurgents. Thus, a successful COIN campaign that strengthens the capacity of the government to conduct COIN operations may actually undermine the long-term resolution of a civil war because those who hold governmental power have little incentive to establish and enforce reconciliation and reintegration programs.”

This paragraph is explosive in that it highlights two realities, the first being that insurgencies or guerrilla warfare cannot be stopped by conventional militaries. This is true when looking at the record of superpowers versus asymmetric forces such as Russia v Afghanistan, Coalition v Afghanistan and the Coalition of the Willing v Iraq. The second reality is that the presence of armed movements or insurgents “undermines the long – term resolution of a civil war”. A perpetual status of instability which neutralises the State alternatively makes it susceptible to foreign intervention.

With this knowledge will we understand the importance of the acts that follow. After the massacre unleashed by Maher Assad, the Syrian opposition protestors followed the questionable Libyan model. On the 8 th July 2011, French and US Ambassadors in Syria joined protestors 102 . Shortly thereafter a wave of defections occurred from the Syrian military and on the 29 th July 2011, merely twenty days later, the first armed movement in Syria, The Free Syrian Army (FSA), was formed 103 . It was at this point that the legitimate and peaceful protests morphed into something very different and in line with hegemonic interests. As time progressed the rebel movement mutated into various strands. At one stage there were over forty different groupings within Syria. Assad had been receiving very little assistance from the Iranians and Hezbollah with the exception of advisors, this being the price paid for not following the advice of wiser and more astute powers. In August 2012 a report by Reuters had confirmed what analysts had been speculating from the very beginning, that the rebel movement in Syria was being supported by the hegemonic powers. The report stated “Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad. 104 ” The aim underpinning support for the rebels were evident from an interview conducted with a key figure of the FSA by the Israeli publication, Israel Hayom. In the interview, the figure, identified only by an alias Kamal, stated: “Assad’s fall will eliminate the link in the chain that ties Iran with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Not only would you be rid of an enemy, but you [Israel] would also weaken two others 105 .”. In 2011 the Opposition formally established its headquarters in Turkey as announced by Burhan Ghalioun. Chants began filling the streets of Syria “No to Iran and No to Hezbollah, we want (Saudi) King Abdulla” 106 accompanied by the burning of Hezbollah flags in cities like Tabaqah in Hama. In an interview in December’12, Ghalioun told the Wall Street Journal that a change would be on the cards. The article said “that a Syrian government run by the country’s main opposition group would cut Damascus’s military relationship to Iran and end arms supplies to Middle East militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, the group’s leader said, raising the prospect of a dramatic realignment of powers at the region’s core. 107 ” Ehud Barak in an interview in December 2011 was asked about the impact of the fall of Assad. He said “the fall of Assad will deal a crushing blow, to the radical axis, and this will weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon”. Similar sentiments were echoed by him at the World Policy Conference in Vienna. 108 Other rebel organisations expressed similar sentiments, “Once we are done with Syria we will slaughter with knives O Hassan Nasrallah 109 ”. Rebels stated when attacking Qusayr countryside, “bases of Hezbollah within Lebanese
territory will be targeted. 110 ” Messages from Nusra also indicated that they would be attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon. Qusayr strategically was the central corridor for weapons from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah. The threat to this corridor was always understood by the Israelis and Meir Dagan, the Mossad Chief, in 2012 stated at a conference: “Effort to lessen the influence of Iran in the region, will occur via bringing about a situation whereby Bashar al-Assad falls, which will weaken – automatically and directly – Hezbollah in dramatic and effective manners. 111 “ In 2012 a lecture at the Washington Institute entitled “Is the End Near in Damascus” provided a clear and direct insight into US-Israeli interests in Syria. It was said “But this nasty and ugly regime will be gone and with it the lynchpin of the Iranian position in the region and Hezbollah’s strategic position. I think we should be happy.” According to IDF analyst Nadav Pollak: “Along with Hezbollah and Iran, Syria is part of the greater “axis of
resistance,” which seeks to confront Israel, along with Western and Sunni interests in the Middle East. A weaker Syria thus would mean for Hezbollah and Iran a weaker resistance coalition, and Assad under threat, called for a response. Especially grim for Hezbollah and Iran was a scenario in which Assad might be replaced with a more Western-friendly government. 112 ”

In fact, in a Washington Institute discussion, Jeffrey White 113 said when questioned in 2012 about Iran and Lebanon “I think we’ve seen the limit of Iranian military intervention. They are not going to do anything greater, anything significantly different. They are not going to fly in revolutionary guards and try and save the regime. They might send an aeroplane to get Assad out but I don’t think we will see any grand Iranian involvement in the conflict. I think they understand the limits, geographic limits what we talking about and they almost certainly don’t want to commit their forces to a losing situation. They would be caught up in a collapse and defeat of the government. ” The collapse of Syria was manageable for Israel according to the analyst who said “you have tensions on the Golan front…. But the current security problem, the Israelis know how to deal with very effectively.”

According to the resistance official I had spoken to, it was only after an extensive assessment of attitudes of the Rebel movement, which was diverse in its composition, that a decision was taken. It was evident that the rebels were either partial towards Israel alternatively in line with Israel. This was a grave threat to the resistance axis. Attacks within Lebanon began increasing drastically and in 2013 Hezbollah officially entered the Syrian theatre with sizeable forces. On May 25, 2013, Hezbollah’s Sayed Hassan Nasrallah announced, “Syria is the backbone of the resistance and the support of the resistance. The resistance cannot sit with its hands crossed while its backbone is made vulnerable and its support is being broken, or else we will be stupid. 114 ”

This changed the face of the war in Syria into one with Iranian IRGC troops, Russian hi-tech weapons systems and Hezbollah with advanced capabilities. This rewrote the entire rubric of Western interests in the region and spelt the defeat of the hegemony. These events were completely unexpected and a resistance victory was not part of the calculation for the hegemony.

It is with this understanding of the Syrian conflict that we interpret the following statement in 2017 by Israel which provides the clearest connection to the recent developments with the GCC+1 and Israel/USA (Hegemony). In March’17 the Times of Israel covered the Meir Dagan Conference at the Netanya Military College. The head of Israel intelligence- Mossad’s Yossi Cohen and IDF Chief-of- Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot took different views in defining Israel’s number one threat, with Cohen focusing on Iran and Eizenkot opting for Hezbollah. This symbolises the two most pressing threats to Israel. According to Cohen: “The Middle East is our home field and therefore we need to be involved in all matters in the region. We need to form alliances, to identify mutual interests with allies, and also with enemies on certain issues,”.

It is now clear that the existential threats posed by the extended presence of Hezbollah and IRGC in Syria and Iraq were the catalyst for the current conflict with Qatar. This is most accurately captured by the statements of Israel’s former defence minister Moshe Yaalon when he spoke in Washington on the 15 th September 2016. He said: “Iran’s Shiite axis, including the Assad regime, Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthis, the Muslim Brotherhood camp, led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but also encompassing elements in Egypt and Hamas, the global jihadist camp, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda and the Sunni Arab camp, which comprises Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and others. Israel and the latter camp share several common adversaries, and while their cooperation is already robust (albeit quiet), it is in their mutual interest to increase it even further. The United States should join Israel in publicly aligning with the Sunni Arab camp. One recent step in this direction was the signing of a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding in which Washington will grant Israel $38 billion in military assistance over the next decade. 115

Qatar – Just a pawn in the game

The statement above by Moshe Yaalon gives us an indication as to what the siege of Qatar is about. As much as it may be about internal GCC rifts, there is no explanation as to what catalysed the drastic action if we are to assess it according to the above equation. The catalyst is elsewhere and as has been demonstrated above, the catalyst is Israel’s security picture, not only as an independent state but as the symbol of US and Western hegemony in the Middle East. The threat to US influence and hegemony via the extension of Israel threatens the GCC+1 as well. The Ikhwan, albeit weak in Egypt after the defeat under the boot of Sisi, in Turkey still poses a significant ideological threat in the form of political Islam. This means that politics, state craft and foreign policy must all be guided by the Islamic principles of Justice as opposed to self-interest which has been the mantra of the GCC. In fact, it was self-interest and reliance on Western Hegemonic powers by Emir of Najd, Abdul Aziz al-Saud and King of Hejaz, Sharif Hussein that formed ‘The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’ and the other Gulf sheikdoms. The greater threat from a tangible military point of view has been the re- establishment of the resistance axis with capabilities of an Israeli doomsday and thereby threatening the GCC+1 who have always thrown their lot in with the Zionist regime.

It brings us back to the very first question which sparked this entire paper and the analysis above. Why Qatar? It is my submission that Qatar was never the main target, it was a litmus test. Qatar is the one counter that has links to both the Sunni Ikhwan and the Shia Al Mukawama. Huge sums of money was spent in promoting sectarianism to divide the brothers in resistance, Ikhwan and Al Mukawama, as cogently reported by the Middle East Institute, the burning question was, had the GCC+1 succeeded 116 ? The rallying of both Turkey as a projection of Ikhwan and Iran as a projection of Al Mukawama, to the aid of Qatar has demonstrated that both the Brotherhood and Iran are aware of the enemies being faced, that is, Israel/US and the GCC+1. There are numerous factors that have contributed towards this rapprochement that would be unnecessary to extrapolate at this point of the analysis. What is evident is that there is a rapprochement and the nett result is a mega bloc of Ikhwan and Al Mukawama. This narrative is borne out by the good cop bad cop play currently on show to the world. On the 12 th June 2017 reports of mediation offer to de-escalate the tension from other GCC countries such as Kuwait and Oman, offers by Morocco and even the United States signal an important point. The siege was meant to bring about a reaction. To test if the two blocks that Moshe Yaalon referred to “Iran’s Shiite axis, including the Assad regime, Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthis; the Muslim Brotherhood camp, led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but also encompassing elements in Egypt and Hamas” will combine to pose a formidable threat to US/Israeli hegemony and the GCC+1.

What does all the politics, military analysis and interpretation tell us? In summary, the western hegemony established by Sykes-Picot remained intact for an extended period of time. Israel was viewed as a strategic asset and as an extension of Western hegemony. With the advent of the Obama administration, a receding of hegemonic power was observed. They focused on covert operations as opposed to large footprint demonstrations of force like the Bush administration. This affected Israel negatively as simultaneously it was losing its deterrence capacity to a non- state actor, Hezbollah and later to Hamas. It was in relation to the declining projection of force by the hegemonic powers and Israel’s existential threats that the GCC rallied to support the hegemony that gave them their States in the first place. As the panic set in amongst the unholy alliance, the waves of revolution in the region were hijacked and exploited to achieve certain aims. The primary geopolitical interest was to destabilise Syria in the hope that rebel movements and ISIS would wipe out the corridor between Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, thus neutralising the threat as Ikhwan had been neutralised by Sisi, the new addition to the parasite club. The equation went awry in horrendous proportions and the end result has been a stronger Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas. Political Islam is still alive and so is Resistance Islam. Both are threats to GCC+1 and Israel who have caused unimaginable hardships in the Muslim world from Palestine to Syria to Iraq and Yemen. Qatar was merely a test to determine not only the true alliances by but the capabilities of those alliances.

Where will this take us? Does it take us to the edge of a world war? Regardless of what may be, the outcomes are in the Hands of the Almighty. What we do know is that the GCC have come out openly in support of the Islamophob Donald Trump and the apartheid, Zionist, colonial, settler state of Israel. It now rests on us, after reading the above and knowing what we know now… Who do we support? If justice is your compass, the answer is simple:

We support Palestine

We are Ikhwan and Al Mukawama

Zaakir Ahmed Mayet is the current Chairperson of Media Review Network.

14 June 2017

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

1 https://theintercept.com/2016/08/25/u-s- military-now- says-isis- leader-was- held-in- notorious-abu- ghraib-

prison/

2 http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/us-funded- the-creation- of-isis- says-hardeep- singh-puri- at-jlf-

2017/story-Ftb3s4eYnTkhdz45MyKiaM.html

3 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/55380#efmA_RBEL

4 https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/in-secret- goldman-sachs- speech-hillary- clinton-admitted- no-fly- zone-

would-kill- a-lot- of-syrians/

5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/10/06/behind-bidens- gaffe-some- legitimate-

concerns-about- americas-middle- east-allies/?utm_term=.5949c377c96f

6 https://www.rt.com/news/391392-us- strikes-pro- government-forces- syria/

7 http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east- news/1.794119

8 Blackwater – the most powerful mercenary army in the world; Jeremy Scahill; page 203

9 http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/11/2008410151627996559.html

10 Blackwater; Jeremy Scahill; pages 156 -157

11 http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2017/04/19/Saudi-King- Salman-meets- US-Secretary- of-Defense-

James-Mattis- in-Riyadh.html

12 https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1057254/admiral-faller- to-serve- as-defense- secretarys-

senior-military- assistant/

13 Op Cit 11

14 https://www.voanews.com/a/defense-secretary- mattis-egypt/3817954.html

15 https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1158171/mattis-discusses- security-cooperation- after-egypt-

visit/

16 https://english.tau.ac.il/profile/zisser

17 http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective- Edge/Al-Jazeera- supporting-Hamass- narrative-in- Gaza-363635

18 http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east- news/1.793798

19 https://www.ft.com/content/09c45a96-4c61- 11e7-a3f4- c742b9791d43?mhq5j=e1

20 http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/aviation-and- transport/2017/06/11/Iran-gets- involved-in- Gulf-

tensions-opens- air-route- to-Qatar.html

21 https://www.brookings.edu/experts/itamar-rabinovich/

22 http://www.bjpa.org/publications/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=19161

23 Sykes Picot Conference; Jerusalem Centre for Public Affair; August 2016.

24 https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/sykes-picot- 100-years- middle-east- map/index.html

25 https://www.thenation.com/article/long-march- jeremy-scahills- dirty-wars/

26 Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies; Prof. Efraim Inbar; March 2017; Strategic Challenges in the Eastern

Mediterranean"

27 How Resilient is the Current Middle Eastern State System?; Prof. Itamar Rabinovich; Jerusalem Center for

Public Affairs; August 2016.

28 Jeremy Scahill; Dirty Wars; page 165

29 Dirty Wars; Jeremy Scahill; page 192-196

30 Dirty Wars; Jeremy Schaill; Page 7 -8

31 Fortress Israel; Patrick Tyler; Page 213

32 http://mfa.gov.il/MFA_Graphics/MFA%20Gallery/Israel60/ch10.pdf

33 http://jcpa.org/article/understanding-the- u-s- israel-alliance- an-israeli- response-to- the-walt- mearsheimer-

claim/

34 http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/bibi-obama/

35 http://mackenzieinstitute.com/the-muslim- brotherhood-threat- to-the- middle-east- israel-and- the-world/

36 https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/11/1158237_re-g2- ksa-israel- iran-saudi- arabia-gives- israel.html

37 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-ramani/why- israel-is- strengthening_b_11946660.html

38 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.680291

39 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/22/why-trumps- flight-from- saudi-arabia-

to-israel- is-such- a-big- deal/?utm_term=.343d3610d4f4

40 https://www.thejc.com/news/world/israeli-tv- channel-features- saudi-commentator- in-first- for-jewish- state-

1.439633

41 http://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-general- tells-israeli- tv-of- peace-hopes/

42 http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/not-just- deterrence

43 https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-04- 19/israel-develops- new-ties- saudi-arabia- and-other- gulf-states

44 https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/60-israeli- special-forces- enter-bahrain/

45 http://awdnews.com/society/bahrain-has- close-economic- and-security- connections-with- israel

46 http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2015/12/hannibal-directive- 151230124740787.html

47 http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/fikraforum/view/sisis-new- approach-to- egypt-israel- relations

48 https://www.rt.com/news/347093-netanyahu- israel-apartheid- barak/

49 http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics- And-Diplomacy/Livni- A-referendum- is-needed- now-to- see-if-

Israel-is- going-in- a-two- state-direction- 457099

50 http://en.cis.org.il/

51 https://www.cnas.org/press/press-release/cnas- releases-report- on-ensuring- security-in- an-israeli-

palestinian-two- state-solution

52 https://crescent.icit-digital.org/articles/the- never-ending- nakba-of- palestinians

53 http://normanfinkelstein.com/2009/01/20/finkelstein-on- gaza-war- massacre/

54 Roger W. Barnett, “Asymmetrical Warfare: Today’s Challenges to U.S. military power,” (DC: Brasseys, 2003),

pp. 96-98

55 Eiland, G., “The Third Lebanon War: Target Lebanon” INSS Strategic Assessment, 11 (2), Nov. 2008, pp. 9‐17,

p. 16.

56 Eiland, G., “The Third Lebanon War: Target Lebanon” INSS Strategic Assessment, 11 (2), Nov. 2008, pp. 9‐17,

p. 16.

57 http://www.thenational.ae/news/israels-war- against-goldstone

58 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/24/israelandthepalestinians.lebanon

59 Israel's Deterrence After the Second Lebanon War; Uzi Dayan; Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; Feb 2007

60 http://www.haaretz.com/news/netanyahu-deterrence- loss-was- greatest-failure- in-lebanon- war-1.221800

61 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4323980/Israel-warns- soldiers-of-

prosecution-abroad- for-Gaza- war-crimes.html

62 https://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/16/un_inquiry_finds_israel_punished_and

63 http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/tension- with-gaza- israels-deterrence- under-

pressure

64 Ibid

65 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R41514.pdf

66 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07- 21/israel-s- iron-dome- isn-t- working-a- weapons-

expert-s- warning

67 https://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/31/iron_dome_or_iron_sieve_evidence

68 Op Cit 59

69 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/videos/1.604066

70 http://israelbehindthenews.com/an-analysis- of-the- hezbollah-anti- ship-missile- strike-the- attack-on- ins-ahi-

hanit/4892/

71 http://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-said- to-have- obtained-game- changing-anti- ship-missiles/

72 Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies; Prof. Efraim Inbar; March 2017; Strategic Challenges in the Eastern

Mediterranean"

73 https://besacenter.org/author/einbar/#.WT2Y9JCGM2w

74 Op Cit 65

75 http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2016/12/hamas- iran-relations- aleppo-condemn.html

76 http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/iran- hamas-arab- spring-tehran- visit-repair-

relations.html

77 Op Cit 65

78 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/world/middleeast/07hezbollah.html

79 http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/%D7%B4we-have- stop-this%D7%B4

80 http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-raises- hezbollah-rocket- estimate-to- 150000/

81 http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/a- war-like- no-other- israel-vs.- hezbollah-in- 2015

82 http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/02/15/450546/Lebanon-Beirut- Hezbollah-Russia- antiaircraft-

weaponry

83 http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/ResearchNote35-Pollak- 2.pdf

84 Washington Institute; Moshe Yaalon; 15th September 2016.

85 http://www.timesofisrael.com/yaalon-syrian- rebels-keeping- druze-safe- in-exchange- for-israeli- aid/

86 http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/03/irgc-controlled- iraqi-militia- forms-golan- liberation-

brigade.php

87 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium- 1.782143

88 http://yalibnan.com/2010/04/18/israel-threatens- to-return- syria-to- the-stone- age-if- hezbollah-attacks/

8989 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14163530/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/israel- says-st- phase-offensive-

completed/#.WT2fSJCGM2w

90 http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/ResearchNote35-Pollak- 2.pdf

91 Op Cit 65

92 Conversation in 2012 with Muslim Brother’s Gehad El Hadad, Cairo

93 https://nsnbc.me/2014/09/20/turkey-opens- door-exiled- ikhwan-leaders- continues-targeting- egypt/

94 Ibid

95 Op Cit 93

96 https://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/3241

97 http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-the- gulf-arab- rivalry-tore- libya-apart- 14580

98 https://www.rt.com/news/libya-all- about-oil- 818/

99 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/03/201133113439956857.html

100 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/20/world/la-fgw- syria-assad- 20110621

101 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8564450/Thousands-of- troops-march- on-

Syrian-town- led-by- murderous-brother- of-Assad.html

102 http://www.france24.com/en/20110709-hama- protests-bolstered- visits-usa- france-ambassadors- ford-

chevallier-syria- assad

103 https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/iwr_20161123_free_syrian_army.pdf

104 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- syria-obama- order-idUSBRE8701OK20120801

105 http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3338

106 Protest footage; Syria; 2011

107 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204397704577070850124861954

108 http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and- Politics/Barak-Fall- of-Assad- would-be- a-blessing- for-ME

109 Rebel Footage from Damascus 18 July 2012

110 Rebel Footage from Qusayr

111 INSS Conference; Security Changes in the 21 st Century; Meir Dagan; July 2012

112 Op Cit 83

115 http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/an- inside-look- at-israeli- national-security-

strategy

116 http://www.mei.edu/content/map/sectarian-backfire- assessing-gulf- political-strategy- five-years- after-arab-

uprisings

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

The British newspaper Times reported Saturday (June 17) that in a dramatic move Saudi Arabia and Israel are in talks to establish economic ties that perhaps explains why Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a sweeping blockade on Qatar, in an effort to force the Gulf state to drop its support for Hamas, who control Gaza.

The Times quoted Arab and American sources as saying that the links would start small: allowing Israeli businesses to operate in the Gulf, for example, and letting El Al, the Israeli airline, fly over Saudi airspace.

Sources close to Saudi Arabia, however, dismissed the idea of improved relations as wishful thinking on behalf of a White House keen to demonstrate immediate results from President Trump’s recent visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel, the paper said and added:

“The prospect has become a source of controversy in the White House. Jason Greenblatt, the president’s top envoy to the region, has taken a conventional approach to the peace process, trying to lure the Israelis and Palestinians back to talks, but he has clashed with Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, who has become close to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi deputy crown prince. They have discussed an “outside-in” approach, by which Gulf States would improve ties with Israel as a prelude to a peace agreement — and full recognition of Israel by Gulf and Arab states.”

The British daily pointed out that Israel and the Gulf States have been quietly building security ties, motivated by a mutual fear of Iran. “A Saudi delegation led by a retired general made a trip to Israel last year and senior Israeli officials are keen to expand the alliance. “I think it’s much better to co-operate on economic issues than the fight against terror,” said Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli defense minister. He praised efforts to isolate Qatar.”

Riyadh has demanded that Qatar cease support for Hamas and it expel several of the group’s leaders, including Salah al-Arouri.

Michael Binyon of The Times wrote there are huge risks in reviving the idea of an Israeli liaison in Saudi Arabia:

“Any concession to Israel without a move by the Jewish state would be seen by Muslims as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. It would further embolden Isis and other Islamist groups to denounce the House of Saud as illegitimate. And it would reinforce the perception on Arab streets that America was intent on dividing Arab governments.

“Small steps — allowing over flights or participating with Israel in regional economic gatherings — are easier. The diplomatic coup of the boycott of Israel being ended by a country claiming leadership of Sunni Muslims could easily backfire, and Saudi Arabia already feels challenged on almost all its frontiers.”

Turkish mediation efforts

Meanwhile, against the background of continued tensions between Qatar and the Saudi-led group of countries, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, held talks in Saudi Arabia with the king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, on Friday. ”

The meeting was positive,” AFP news agency reported, quoting diplomatic sources, but there were no specifics.

Cavusoglu travelled to Mecca, where Salman is based for the last days of Ramadan, after meeting his Kuwaiti counterpart on Thursday. Cavusoglu was in Doha on Wednesday where he called for dialogue after meeting Qatar’s emir and foreign minister.

“Although the kingdom is a party in this crisis, we know that King Salman is a party in resolving it,” Cavusoglu said earlier. “We want to hear the views of Saudi Arabia regarding possible solutions and will share with them our views in a transparent way … We pay a great attention to our relations with them.”

Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait, which has not cut ties with Qatar, has also been trying to mediate.

According to Al Jazeera, Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, has cancelled his scheduled trip to an Organization of American States (OAS) meeting in Mexico next week to stay in the United States and work on resolving the Qatar crisis.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Tamara Kharroub, a senior analyst and assistant executive director at the Arab Center in Washington, DC, said Tillerson’s latest move is “a clear sign this is a priority and in the next week, we will see some serious efforts to mediate and resolve the conflict”.

“Now we hear from Saudi Arabia of a list of grievances, rather than demands,” she said. “That, I believe, is a signal that Saudi Arabia is not intending to escalate this crisis any further … trying to lessen the issue from demands to grievances.”

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

18 June 2017

By Ranjan Solomon

It has to be very hard to be a Palestinian and still find encouragement in actions that those from the outside refer to as signs of hope. To live through an occupation whose brutality is increasingly unrivaled cannot be easy.

In article by Neve Gordon in ‘The Nation’ (June 5, 2017), Gordon narrates the following episode: “During a Labor Party meeting that took place not long after the June 1967 war, Golda Meir turned to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, asking, “What are we going to do with a million Arabs?” Eshkol paused for a moment and then responded, “I get it. You want the dowry, but you don’t like the bride!” This anecdote shows that, from the very beginning, Israel made a clear distinction between the land it had occupied—the dowry—and the Palestinians who inhabited it—the bride. The distinction between the people and their land swiftly became the overarching logic informing Israel’s colonial project. Ironically, perhaps, that logic has only been slightly modified over the past 50 years, even as the controlling practices Israel has deployed to entrench its colonization have, by contrast, changed dramatically.”

How else can one categorize and understand the Knesset renewal of the controversial “Citizenship and Entry into Israel” law? The law surpasses anything that asserts human rights law. It actually sets severe limitations on Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory married to Israeli citizens, for the 14th year. The law is an undisguised illustration of racism and an illustration of “apartheid” practices against Palestinian citizens of Israel. The law had significant support. (57 in favor: 16 against). The law, in the main, applies to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, but it also brings under its purview and foreign nationals from Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq and can unilaterally pertain to other nationalities originating from countries the Israeli government considers a security threat.

A self-imposed siege that Israel has imposed can only last till it crumbles under its own weight. International resistance has not satisfactorily countered the levels of oppression by Israel. But there is no denying that with each passing day, resistance is mounting. BDS supporters are spreading far and wide. Israel is troubled by its potential to grow from a growl to a dangerous bite. The occupation is beginning to look and sound hideous by all standards.

And this is accompanied by courage as made visible in the recent prisoners strike. Palestinians have said “enough is enough” and the world is listening. Israel’s desperate bid to hold on to the occupation, and acquire more, is a last bid tactic before it falls apart. If South Africa could collapse so suddenly, so will Israel. The question is ‘how soon’. Time and patience are running out.

In this issue of Palestine Updates, we look at growing actions of international solidarity to the occupation and its aftershocks.  Opinion makers are shifting public perception against Israel’s occupation in ways that make space for hope.

Do read and disseminate the news below. Do also join the campaigns for BDS. Every single voice and signature counts especially when you get one more person to join your struggle.

In solidarity

Ranjan Solomon
Editor

15 June 2017

By Richard Falk and Phyllis Bennis

Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, who died a few days ago, was a Catholic priest and former president of the UN General Assembly. The Nicaraguan diplomat was also a leading voice of conscience on Middle East peace — as well as a cherished friend, loved and admired by both of us, who became an inspirational figure to many around the world.

As much as anyone we ever encountered, Father Miguel lived as he preached. He worked and lived among the poor and struggled for years against dictatorship and injustice in his country. We want to pause not only to mourn this personal loss, but also to call attention to his public role both in his native Nicaragua and as a citizen of the world — an identity expressed most powerfully by way of his devotion to the United Nations.

A Priest and a Diplomat

A Maryknoll priest, Father Miguel became an early and impassioned practitioner of liberation theology. He later gained international fame as Nicaragua’s foreign minister in the Sandinista government during the 1980s, a period during which his small country was plagued by the notorious Contra guerrilla insurgency that had been funded, equipped, and trained by the U.S. government.

Years later he was elected president of the UN General Assembly — just weeks before Israel’s Operation Cast Lead began in late 2008. He quickly moved to become perhaps the world’s leading spokesperson for Palestinian rights.

Richard first encountered Father Miguel in the mid-1980s when he was preparing a historic case before the International Court of Justice against the United States for its role in aiding the Contras and otherwise committing acts of aggression, including the mining of Nicaragua’s harbors. He worked closely with Father Miguel in a New York townhouse on how to proceed at The Hague with a legal argument that might produce a level of international accountability for Washington’s flagrant violations of Nicaraguan sovereign rights under international law.

In a stirring decision reached by the World Court in 1986, the main grievances put forward by Nicaragua were upheld, and although the United States boycotted the proceedings, it ended up complying with major findings of the decision. It was not only a moral and political victory, but a vindication of Miguel’s underlying belief that international law, not violence, was the basis of peace and justice in the relations among nations.

After retiring from official life in 1991, Father Miguel was only pulled away from his religious ministry on behalf of the poor when he was elected to head the General Assembly — as an individual, not as a representative of his government.

Miguel took on that role, traditionally considered a largely ceremonial position leading a too-often marginalized organ of the UN system, and almost immediately emerged as an influential global voice who spoke powerfully in support of Palestinian rights under international law. He courageously opposed Israel’s brutal Cast Lead military operation, defying the always present geopolitical pressures mounted by Washington on behalf of Israel. In his defense of Palestine throughout those weeks of war, and in his later commitment to forcing the UN to take environmental justice seriously, he aimed to transform the General Assembly into a potent force for global justice.

He never gave up this dream, collecting his thoughts in a widely distributed booklet bearing the title Reinventing the UN: A Proposal. The subtitle was a transparent summary of the text: “How to make the UN a functional organization capable of dealing effectively with the great XXI century challenges confronting Mother Earth and humanity.”

A Voice for Gaza — and International Law

Within hours of the first airstrikes against Gaza, Father Miguel condemned Israel’s actions as “wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that it illegally occupies.” He insisted it was time for the General Assembly “to take firm action if the United Nations does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission.”

In following days, the UN Security Council —which under the UN Charter is supposed to take primary responsibility for peace and security issues — discussed and debated and consistently failed to respond to the growing Gaza crisis, mostly because the veto-wielding United States was active in blocking action. Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in the midst of the slaughter of Gazan civilians, famously remarked, “We don’t need a cease-fire yet.”

Some urged Miguel to wait, hoping that the Security Council would eventually act and the General Assembly could meekly fall in line. But such a cynical suggestion outraged the priest. As the airstrikes turned into a full-scale ground invasion, he called Israel’s war “a monstrosity.”

We were both working with Father Miguel during that frantic time. As the days passed without an Assembly initiative, his patience waned, and he asked for help drafting a speech to respond to the urgent moment. Afterward he convened a special session of the entire General Assembly and delivered a stirring address condemning the assault, which had already killed over 1,000 Palestinians — a third of them children. “If this onslaught in Gaza is indeed a war,” he said, “it is a war against a helpless, defenseless, imprisoned population.” The small territory “is ablaze,” he lamented. “It has been turned into a real burning hell.”

As the “unlawful” but internationally recognized occupying power of Gaza, Father Miguel explained, Israel owed Gazans protection — along with “food, water, education, freedom of religion, and more.” Instead, “Gaza’s civilians find themselves locked inside a lethal war zone behind a wall surrounding their densely populated territory.” Under assault and hemmed in by an illegal Israeli blockade, “they have no means of escape.”

In such circumstances, the priest insisted, “it becomes the responsibility of the international community as a whole, represented here in the United Nations, to provide that protection.” Yet he charged that “some of the most powerful members of the [Security] Council” — like the United States — were bent on “allowing the military action to continue” while the façade of a diplomatic process unfolded. That, not coincidentally, “matched perfectly the unambiguous goal of the occupying power.”

To that end, Father Miguel urged an uncompromising General Assembly resolution calling for both an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel’s blockade. Remarkably, he linked those demands not only to international law, but to the international social movements that had emerged to support the same calls under it:

Our obligation is clear. We, the United Nations, must call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and immediate unimpeded humanitarian access. We, the United Nations, must stand with the people around the world who are calling, and acting, to bring an end to this death and destruction. We must stand with the brave Israelis who came out to protest this war, and we must stand with those in the frightened city of Sderot who called for “Another Voice” to answer the fear of rocket-fire with reconciliation and not war.

We must stand with the hundreds of thousands of people who have stopped the trains, petitioned their governments, poured into the streets around the world, all calling for an end to war. That is our obligation, our responsibility, our duty, as we work, mourning so many deaths, for an immediate ceasefire.

Father Miguel will be long remembered and deeply missed by friends and the many lives that he touched forever. He was not only a religious figure, but a truly spiritual presence. So many times we were told at the UN that Father Miguel was not a politician or diplomat, but something far more valuable and rare at the UN, a man of unquestionable integrity and spirituality who fearlessly spoke truth to power and rather innocently expected others to do the same.

Richard Falk is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus at Princeton University, and was the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 2008-2014. Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.

14 June 2017

By Abdullah Al-Ahsan

The decision by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt on June 5 to sever diplomatic and commercial relations with Qatar has created an unprecedented political uproar in the region. Similar crises had emerged before too, but this time the assault seems more severe. It is more severe this time not only because some other small players such as Maldives, Mauritania and Yemen have joined the group, the unpredictable President Trump has come forward with his support for the action. With the closure of Qatar’s air, sea and land links disrupting its exports and imports particularly affecting food supplies the situation has turned grave. A gleeful Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's defense minister is also reported to have praised the measures against Qatar because he finds “many possibilities of cooperation in the struggle against terror" in the action. Is Qatar so dangerous for the rest of the world? What has tiny Qatar done to cause such a “security threat” to neighboring countries and beyond?

What is Qatar’s Fault?

Qatar has been accused of supporting terror groups and the Palestinian Hamas has been identified as one of those groups. But what kind of assistance has Qatar really provided to Hamas? Has Qatar provided Hamas with arms to fight Israel? The fact is that Israel and Egypt have jointly blocked Gaza, causing a huge humanitarian crisis for the people in the Strip. Yes, Qatar has sent humanitarian assistance to Gaza and perhaps granted visa for some Hamas leaders to temporarily reside in the country. But is it Qatar’s fault that the people of Gaza have elected Hamas to represent them? Should Qatar then have ignored the sufferings of the people of Gaza? In this context one should remember that King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, founder of modern Saudi Arabia, was a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause. He protested against President Truman’s decision to recognize Israel in 1948 and rejected an American grant for Saudi Arabia. He strongly believed that the US had violated the rights of Palestinians by supporting the creation of the state of Israel in Palestine. The King’s position on the issue was no different from the position that Hamas holds today on the question of Palestine.

Qatar has also been accused of supporting the Egyptian Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). What sort of assistance has Qatar provided to MB other than humanitarian? More than half a century ago when Egyptian MB encountered persecution at home, many of its members sought shelter in Saudi Arabia. Wise leaders in Saudi Arabia did provide them with shelter but as a result Saudi Arabia benefitted a lot too. At a time when Saudi Arabia had very few educated and trained manpower, highly professional and qualified MB members made significant contributions to what is Saudi Arabia today. Why have the MB members lost Saudi goodwill? The answer to this question may be connected to the current crisis.

What is the Real Reason behind the Crisis?

According to an analyst, “The real reason behind the diplomatic fallout may be far simpler, and once again has to do with a long-running and controversial topic, namely Qatar's regional natural gas dominance.” But this may be too simplistic. David Hearst of the Middle East Eye in an
article “Three potential motives behind the tension between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours,” identifies “to finish the job started in June 2013 when Morsi was toppled” as one of the motives and to us this makes sense. Morsi was a MB member who is the only civilian in Egypt’s history who was elected by the people. If a terrorist is defined as “a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims” as has been defined by the English dictionary, then who is a terrorist? Morsi, the only civilian who was elected president of the country in a credible election; or Sisi, who usurped power from Morsi by force? Fundamentally the ancien regimes in the region didn’t seem to have been happy about 2011 uprisings and seem to hold Qatar responsible for educating people to stand for their rights. Therefore Qatar’s fault was to establish Aljazeera news networks, bringing BBC’s Doha debate to the country, setting up think-tanks and a number of American universities in Qatar to educate not only Qataris but also everybody in the region. Why are the accusers against Qatar so afraid of education? Do they consider the people in the region foolish? Don’t the people understand what is good and what is harmful for them?

Harassment of Pilgrims in the Holy Mosque

Saudi authorities are reported to be preventing Qatari nationals from entering the Grand Mosque. If this is true, the Saudi authorities are not only violating the teachings of Shari’ah, they are also breaking the commitment that King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud made to representatives of Muslims from all over the world. After capturing Hijaz, where the holy mosques are located, in 1924 from the Hashmites the King declared the territory as the trust of Islam and in 1926 in a conference he received mandate from Muslim leaders to administer facilities for pilgrims. At a time when most Muslim nation states had not yet emerged, these Muslim leaders were the real representatives of the Muslim world.

It should be noted that this could not have been achieved without the support of the British colonial administration which originally favored the Hashimite Sharif Hussain. However, Muslims all over the world were very critical of the Hashimites because of latter’s support for the British against the Ottomans and the British were trying to pacify particularly their Indian subjects. The Khilafat Movement was very strong at that time. Ibn Saud’s diplomacy succeeded: he was able to secure not only British patronage; he also secured long term financial support for his Kingdom in exchange for providing services to pilgrims.

Timing of the Action against Qatar

The timing of the action by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE is important. Why have they taken this rather extreme step now? These countries were already concerned because of the Arab uprisings of 2011 but became furious since the Egyptian MB received people’s mandate in 2012. While holding Qatari news media for such developments, they perhaps thought that Trump presidency would facilitate them achieving their mischievous objective to eliminate the popular movement. However, they don’t seem to know the fact that the United States has a constitution which ensures checks and balances. No matter how unpredictable a president may be, the President can’t impose his whimsical utterances upon the nation. More than a week has passed and there is no sign that the embargo against Qatar is receiving US support. In fact Trump’s tweets and statements have been challenged by a number of government institutions including the State Department and the Pentagon.

Role of the Muslim World

In this context it is painful to see the statement by the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) asking Qatar “to honor its previous commitments and agreements signed within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), particularly with regard to ceasing support for terrorist groups and their activities and ending media incitement.” Does the OIC want Qatar to abandon its commitment to humanitarian causes? Particularly in this month of Ramadan? Such an act will not only violate the teachings of Shari’ah, but also OIC’s Cairo Declaration of Human Rights and the UN declaration of Human Rights. It should be remembered that when the OIC was established, its general secretariat was supposed to be located in Jerusalem. But since Jerusalem was under Israeli occupation, the Saudi King Faisal persuaded OIC member states to temporarily host the OIC headquarters in Jeddah. Now Saudi Arabia seems to have made the OIC its home property. Recently it has fired its Secretary General reportedly on the recommendation of Egypt without even consulting other members of the organization. In this context one must note that Al-Azhar’s fatwa on the role of Qatar is shameful.

As for other Muslim countries, on top of the vassal governments in Yemen and Libya tiny Maldives and Mauritania have declared their support for the Saudi/ UAE gang. But heavy weights such as Turkey and Iran have come forward with their strong support for Qatar. Turkey has even come forward with military assistance for Qatar. This is a very timely gesture on the part of Turkey. It is unfortunate that Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan are almost silent on the crisis. Does one need to take sides in such conflicts? Haven’t Kuwait and Oman, GCC member countries, declared their position? Can’t one declare a position on the basis of principles? Has it been ethically and Islamically correct to declare such a war-like embargo against the brotherly country of Qatar during the month of Ramadan? The Saudi led action against Qatar is wrong because the blockade seems to have been mainly against food supplies to Qatar. It is almost unimaginable for a common Muslim to force any individual to starve to death in such a mischievous manner.

The Israeli Connection

The leaked email correspondence of UAE’s ambassador in Washington has demonstrated “that there is a growing axis between some of the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Israel.” Therefore Avigdor Lieberman’s gleeful desire for cooperation by using security as the excuse should not surprise observers of ongoing developments in the region. Many other Israeli leaders also have also been hopeful about the possible outcome of the Qatar crisis. According to the Jerusalem Post “Israel benefits when it is not the center of attention and certainly when it is not under pressure. This is a boon for the government.” Zionism’s greater Israel project has already succeeded in splitting Iraq and Syria into many sectarian pieces, the Gulf crisis will perhaps extend that sectarianism and tribalism to the extended region. This is not to suggest that Israel alone is responsible for the civil war in Iraq and Syria but Israel knows very well how to take advantage of the youth that have lost hope and suffers from severe economic difficulties. And Qatar’s failure as a moderate force in the region is bound to create despair, hopelessness and frustration among the youth, not only in the region but throughout the world. This will create opportunities for conspirators to recruit potential extremists to carry out seditious activities.

David Hearst in the article quoted above has predicted that, “out of the havoc they are wreaking, a new, autonomous and modern Arabia will, eventually, emerge.” We would like to add that this new modern Arabia will be based on principles of caring for one another, human dignity and self-respect; not on the basis of superiority of race, tribe or lineage. Qatar has survived similar attacks in 2014 and came out strong. This time too it is expected to demonstrate its resilience. Enemies of Qatar perhaps had designed to create food shortage in Ramadan thinking that the country would succumb to pressure immediately. However, they must have miscalculated the level of spiritual strength that Ramadan brings to believers. One must not underestimate the strength of spirituality of Qataris.

It is interesting to note that the social media in these countries seem to have reacted sharply against the measures imposed upon Qatar. That is why they have now banned people even from publishing expressions of sympathy towards Qatar in the social media. This is a sign of desperation and usually defeated parties adopt such measures. There is a strong possibility that Qatar will come out much stronger from this crisis.

Dr. Abdullah Al-Ahsan is an academic and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

15 June 2017

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian

Since the advent of nuclear weapons, nations and grassroots movements across the world have sought to eliminate the risk they pose to life on Earth through nuclear prohibition and disarmament.

The foundation for these efforts has been the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Article VI of which calls on its 190 signatories for “a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”.

Last autumn, 123 states issued a call on the United Nations for a nuclear ban treaty, which lead to a draft of a legally-binding text to prohibit nuclear weapons on 22 May 2017.

Now, from 15 June-7 July, representatives from roughly 130 nations will negotiate the final text and try to make the treaty a reality. Sadly, all the recognised nuclear-weapons states and their allies have voiced strong opposition to the historic talks.

Though the five recognised nuclear powers are signatory to the NPT and have been obligated to pursue disarmament for nearly 50 years, they have not only failed to do so but now have far-reaching plans to upgrade and extend the lifespans of their nuclear weapons.

Even more egregious, they have de facto supported the proliferation of nuclear weapons by establishing strategic relations with countries like India, Pakistan and Israel, which have rejected the NPT and amassed sizeable weapons arsenals.

All told, there exist about 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, of which the US and Russia possess around 7,000 each. America’s nuclear modernisation program alone is estimated to cost the country $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

Since the NPT went into effect, the reality has been that the world has been split between the haves and have-nots of nuclear weapons, and the haves have been able to selectively agree on the new haves. This longstanding status quo has now led to a majority of nations – cognisant that the world has been held hostage to the weapons stockpiles of the nuclear-armed states – to push for a prohibition treaty, to put political and legal restraints on the possession of nuclear weapons.

One state supporting the ban treaty negotiations, Iran, can play a unique role in making the talks a success. Three chief reasons explain why Iran can and should be a strong advocate to advance the causes of nuclear non-proliferation and the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

First, the July 2015 nuclear deal agreed to by Iran and six major world powers – formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – sets a new global nuclear non-proliferation standard far stronger than the NPT. As President Obama has stated, the deal cuts “off every single one of Iran’s pathways to a […] nuclear weapons program,” and establishes the “most comprehensive and intrusive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated”.

Consequently, the JCPOA can serve as a new basis for the verification and enforcement provisions of the disarmament treaty that the prohibition treaty will call for. To this end, Iran can play an instrumental role in pushing for the globalisation of the JCPOA’s principles, and can even position itself as a regional nuclear fuel hub as part of future prohibition and disarmament treaties.

Second, Iran’s long-established track record of seeking to advance the cause of nuclear non-proliferation gives it a responsibility to continue its role of spearheading non-proliferation initiatives.

In 1974, Iran first proposed a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone (ME-NWFZ) at the UN General Assembly, which was passed by the body and has been renewed annually since 1980. The ban treaty negotiations provide Iran and other regional states the opportunity to realise a ME-NWFZ.

Third, Iran is the only country that at the highest religious levels has issued religious edicts banning WMDs. Iran’s position in this regard was shaped during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, during which it was the victim of WMDs in the form of chemical weapons attacks, but refused to retaliate in kind due to religious considerations.

This was due to a fatwa, or religious decree, by Iran’s revolutionary father Ayatollah Imam Khomeini, against the production or use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has upheld this fatwa, uniquely binding Iran to be unequivocally against WMDs of all kinds and making it a sincere voice in any WMD-prohibition debate.

The ban treaty negotiations represent a potential major historical turning point, where a majority of the world’s nations will act to safeguard humanity’s future from the threat of nuclear holocaust. While the nuclear-weapons states argue that they need their weapons for reasons of deterrence and strategic balance, their logic does not hold in a world where their nuclear-weapons monopoly is unsustainable.

Increasingly, other countries may seek the same status relying on the same logic as the five-recognised nuclear-weapons powers. The North Korean case serves as an example of how an NPT member may leave the treaty and develop nuclear weapons.

If global peace and stability is to be ensured for future generations, a new model for international security must be created, one that does not rely on WMDs of any kind.

Iran, given its longstanding commitment to the non-proliferation of WMDs, must play a decisive role in ensuring the success of the nuclear ban treaty negotiations to bring about such a world.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Princeton University and former head of Foreign Relation Committee of Iran’s National Security Council.

14 June 2017

By Rami G. Khouri

BEIRUT — The dispute between Saudi Arabia/United Arab Emirates and Qatar has added major new developments and regional dynamics to existing dramatic situations across the Middle East — especially in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Palestine. Diving deep into any of these situations inevitably leads one to some of the others, confirming again and again the interconnections between the many actors and issues that have generated so much violence and uncertainty in the Arab region.

So it might be useful to step back from examining any one conflict and instead simply try to identify larger historical and political patterns that help us understand the players and the issues at stake. The latest dispute in particular, focused on Qatar and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), has generated a flurry of speculation about new alliances coming into being. The most popular one is a possible alliance between Qatar, Iran, Turkey, and Russia to face off against the Saudi-Emirati-led group of half a dozen countries that have lined up against Qatar. While nothing can be ruled out in the modern Middle East, this kind of instant alliance-formation seems more reflective of a Western tradition of toying with Arab lands and peoples like a handful of putty, rather than any serious analysis of realistic expectations.

We can, however, survey the region and identify notable new political dynamics and actors in the Arab World’s past several hundred years of colonial entanglements, state formation, and foreign military interventions. However the Qatar-GCC, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya situations are resolved, I suggest that we can see in them the beginning of a new era that has taken a quarter century to come into focus — since the end of the Cold War around 1990.

I see this as a new era because of several novel developments. One is the phenomenon of two very small and very young Arab states — Qatar and UAE — playing much bigger regional and global roles militarily and politically than their geography and demography would normally suggest. Another is the spectacle of several Arab energy-producing wealthy states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE ganging up against a third, Qatar, using siege tactics that cause havoc regionally and seek to bludgeon it into submission to their will — despite their having spent several decades trying to create a GCC regional block that values stability and security above all else. A third is the direct military, strategic, political, and economic involvement of two regional non-Arab powers — Turkey and Iran — in both participating in and trying to resolve the disputes. And a fourth is the role of the two big global powers — the United States and Russia — who promote a mediated resolution to the Qatar-GCC and Syria conflicts, but often also are vexingly imprecise on their bottom lines.

Two important things about these phenomena are that they all reached maximum impact and clarity in the last six years since the 2010-11 Arab uprisings, even though their roots sprouted during the post-Cold War years; and, they include within them a relatively clear scorecard of actors, identities, and ideologies that now battle in the open to define the Arab region, whether through the policies of the existing states or large non-state actors like Hizbollah and Hamas.

Perhaps this clarifies the major forces at work that now compete for the soul, spirit, and sovereignty of the Arab region and its many smaller components. I would list the following as the players to watch in this respect: Foreign big powers (U.S., Russia, for now), regional non-Arab powers (Iran, Turkey, for now), Arabism even in its faded state, Islamism even in its subjugated state, oil-anchored materialistic patriarchy (the energy producers and their dependents, like Egypt), and remnants of former socialist-nationalist-military states in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and other places.

These actors and a few other smaller ones now wage battle in the open to shape the identities and policies of the existing Arab countries. It is unlikely that any one or two will achieve full victory and dominate the region, as imperial powers did in history. More likely is that most of them will coexist in uneasy truces, as the region gets back to a developmental phase in a no-war context that can resume the socio-economic growth needed to respond to people’s basic needs and thus achieve lasting security and stability.

The most striking thing about this situation is that the ordinary Arab citizen is not among the powerful forces battling it out for the soul and sovereignty of the Arab region, which has been the case for centuries, unfortunately. One day, who knows when, the final battle of the modern Arab era will take place and witness the will of the citizenry struggle to achieve supremacy over the stultifying power of autocratic local elites and foreign powers that have subjugated hundreds of millions of men, women and children for hundreds of years. The Arab uprisings of 2010-11 hinted at that eventuality; but they were quickly put down by local and foreign forces of autocracy and control that have stepped out into the open more clearly this week in the Qatar-GCC crisis.

Rami G. Khouri is senior public policy fellow and professor of journalism at the American University of Beirut, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Middle East Initiative.

14 June 2017

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear to be contemplating engineering a military coup in Qatar with the stakes in the Gulf crisis so high that a negotiated solution may prove difficult, if not impossible.

Neither side in the Gulf divide can afford to back down or be seen to have failed in achieving its objectives.

Caving in to Saudi and UAE demands that it break its ties to Islamists and militants and curb, if not shutter, Qatar-funded media like Al Jazeera, would amount to Qatar surrendering its ability to chart its own course, and like Bahrain becoming a Saudi vassal.

Bahrain has been walking in step with the kingdom since Saudi Arabia and the UAE with Qatari support helped its minority Sunni Muslim ruling family brutally squash a popular uprising in 2011.

Similarly, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE can tolerate a repeat of 2014 when Qatar appeared to put on public display the limits of their power by refusing to bow to the two states’ demands after they and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have this time raised the stakes by not only breaking off diplomatic relations but also declaring an economic embargo. The longer tiny Qatar with a citizenry of only 300,000 people resists Saudi and UAE pressure, the more embarrassing it is for the two Gulf states.

Amid indications that Qatar may have the political will and economic backbone despite the economic obstacles and commercial losses to hold out for some time to come, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will likely look for ways to increase pressure on the recalcitrant Gulf state.

Increased economic pressure could involve the withdrawal of Gulf deposits from Qatari banks, the closure of a partly UAE-owned pipeline that pumps Qatari gas to the UAE and Oman, and pressure on other Muslim states like Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan to join them in taking punitive economic measures.

The majority of Muslim and non-Muslim nations, except for the economically dependent six nations, including Bahrain, Egypt, the Maldives and Mauritania, who joined Saudi Arabia and the UAE in acting against Qatar have sought to remain on the side lines of the dispute. States like Pakistan and Bangladesh are, however, vulnerable because they rely to a significant extent on migrant workers’ remittances in the Gulf for their foreign currency reserves.

US President Donald J. Trump has come closest among outside powers to endorsing the Saudi-UAE-led action, but even he has so far refrained from turning words into deeds that would exert real pressure on Qatar.

Turkey and Iran are helping Qatar meet its food and water needs after Saudi Arabia closed the two countries’ land border, preventing one third of the Gulf state’s food and water imports from reaching it. Turkey, moreover, is sending troops to Qatar, which is home to the largest US military base in the Middle East, a possible reason why the US has not gone beyond words in its support for the Saudi-UAE campaign.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of predominantly Shiite Iraq appeared to also come to Qatar’s defense by countering some of the allegations that the Gulf state had funded militants. Mr. Al-Abadi told Shiite militias, according to Al Jazeera and other Qatar-controlled media, that a ransom paid by Qatar for the release of 26 members of its ruling family who were kidnapped in December 2015 while hunting in Iraq remained in Iraq’s central bank. News reports suggested that the ransom had been paid to Syrian militants and Iraqi security officials and was one straw that broke the Saudi and UAE camel’s back.

Oman, one of two Gulf states to have refrained from joining the Saudi-UAE campaign, has opened its ports to Qatari shipping that no longer can access key Saudi and UAE ports. Qatar maintains its access to international shipping lanes and can refuel its LNG vessels at alternative ports, including Singapore.

The UAE, with Qatar’s ability to retain its energy exports, its main source of revenue, undeterred would be damaging itself if it closed the partly Abu Dhabi pipeline from Qatar that supplies Dubai with 40 percent of its natural gas requirement.

International ratings agency Standard& Poor (S&P) reported that Qatari banks were strong enough to survive a withdrawal of all Gulf deposits plus a quarter of the remaining foreign funds the banks keep.

Deposits and other funding sources from Gulf countries represent about eight percent of total liabilities of Qatari lenders or $20 billion, S&P said. It said that in a worst-case scenario, only two lenders of Qatar’s 18 lenders would have to dip into their investment securities portfolio.

Failure to force Qatar on its knees any time soon would force Saudi Arabia and the UAE to look at other ways of forcing Qatar to comply, including regime change, either by invading the tiny Gulf state or engineering an internal coup.

UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash insisted last week that the Saudi-UAE campaign was “not about regime change — this is about change of policy, change of approach.”

Saudi and UAE media reports nonetheless suggest that the Gulf states may be gunning for a coup given that unlike in the case of Bahrain and the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen in 2015, the legitimate, internationally recognized government of Qatar is unlikely to seek their military assistance.

In the latest episode of the Gulf  media war, Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah-based Arab News, in the clearest sign yet that, the kingdom and the UAE were fishing in Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim’s military backyard, this week published an interview with retired General Mahmoud Mansour, an Egyptian military officer whom Saudi and Egyptian media described as the father of Qatari intelligence.

General Mansour has long been on the war path against Sheikh Tamim, and his father, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who abdicated as emir in 2013. General Mansour asserted that Sheikh Hamad and his long-standing prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber bin Mohammed bin Thani Al Thani, had attempted to foment unrest across the globe in the Gulf, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Russia.

Speaking separately to Al Arabiya, the Saudi tv network established to counter Al Jazeera, General Mansour accused Qatar of aiding and abetting Iranian efforts to penetrate the Arab world. “Iran needed to penetrate some Arab countries, needed an Arab force to introduce them more and more within the Arab fabric, so it addressed her intentions through the friend who lost their mind, Qatar,” General Mansour said.

UAE newspapers reported earlier that a little-known member of Qatar’s ruling family, Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al-Thani, who lives in Europe was forming an opposition party in exile.

Despite criticism of the emir, Qataris largely appeared to be rallying around the government in rejection of the effort to force their country to surrender its ability to graft its own policies.

It was not clear whether General Mansour maintains close contacts within the Qatari military and intelligence community.

An effort to replace Sheikh Tamim with a member of the ruling family more amenable to Saudi policies would not be the first time the kingdom has tried to influence who rules Qatar. In a gesture to former Saudi King Abdullah, Sheikh Hamad pardoned in 2010 a group of Saudis for their involvement in an attempted coup to overthrow him in 1996.

Qatar by holding out against Saudi Arabia and the UAE and garnering international support for a negotiated solution to the crisis is raising the stakes in what increasingly amounts to a risky poker game. Both the kingdom and the emirates feel emboldened and believe they need to strike while the iron is hot.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and three forthcoming books, Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa as well as Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Ultra-conservatism and China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.

12 June 2017