Gaza Offensive “Joint Arab-Israeli War against Palestinians”: CNN

Sunday, 3 August 2014

Gaza Offensive “Joint Arab-Israeli War against Palestinians”: CNN

Offensive on the Gaza strip is a "joint Arab-Israeli war against the Palestinians, CNN said in a report.

It quoted an analyst who has covered the region for decades, Ali Younes, who considered the war in Gaza as “unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

King Abdullah and Israeli PM netanyahu

"Most Arab states are actively supporting Israel against the Palestinians -- and not even shy about it or doing it discreetly."

It's a "joint Arab-Israeli war consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia against other Arabs -- the Palestinians as represented by Hamas,” Younes said.

One of the outcomes of the fighting will likely be "the end of the old Arab alliance system that has, even nominally, supported the Palestinians and their goal of establishing a Palestinian state," the analyst added.

For his part, Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said that the “Israel-Hamas conflict has laid bare the new divides of the Middle East.”

"It's no longer the Muslims against the Jews. Now it's the extremists -- the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their backers Iran, Qatar and Turkey -- against Israel and the more moderate Muslims including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia."

"It's a proxy war for control or dominance in the Middle East," said CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

The American channel quoted the analysts as saying that Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood. "The Muslim Brotherhood is international, with affiliated groups in more than 70 countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE," saidEric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"Israel's ongoing battle against Hamas is part of a wider regional war on the Muslim Brotherhood," said the Soufan Group, which tracks global security. "Most Arab states share Israel's determination to finish the movement off once and for all, but they are unlikely to be successful."

"From the perspective of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and some other Arab states, what the Israeli Prime Minister is doing is fighting this war against Hamas on their behalf so they can finish the last stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood," Younes noted.

Going to Egypt, it is a “regime that came to power by toppling a Muslim Brotherhood government," said Trager. "It's therefore in an existential conflict with the Brotherhood. So it doesn't want to see Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, emerge stronger in a neighboring territory."

Talking about the monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, they have called on Hamas to accept the cease-fire proposal as is.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are "challenged by Islamists who come to power via the ballot box rather than through royal succession," the CNN quoted Trager as saying.

"So these countries have been directly supportive of the coup in Egypt because it removed elected Islamists and therefore discredited that model."

Saudi Arabia is "leading the charge," partly through backing the coup and financing state media reports that attacked the brotherhood, Younes stated.

"Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all see the destruction of Hamas as of benefit to their internal security as well as to regional stability."

"The Saudis and the Egyptians are now more scared of Islamic fundamentalism than they are of Israel," Zakaria pointed out.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Qatar remain supportive of Hamas.

As Doha has supported Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government, it also funds many Muslim Brotherhood figures in exile.

Turkey has "more of an ideological sympathy with the Brotherhood," Trager added.