‘Gaza ceasefire hopes switch to Qatar as Arabs divided over Israeli offensive’. This headline in The Guardian on July 20, 2014 best reflected the collusion of major Arab states in the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. According to AFP, as of July 20, the Palestinian death toll soared to 438 with around 100 Palestinians killed in one day on Sunday, July 20. Hamas last week rejected an Egyptian proposed ceasefire, which envisaged the end of Hamas rule in Gaza. Hamas described it as “not in the best interests of the Palestinian people”. Not surprisingly, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) accepted this proposal.
According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, a key element of the Egyptian initiative is the return of Pro-Israel President Mohammad Abbas’s PA to Gaza, which is now ruled by Hamas after winning the elections in 2006. Egypt has told Hamas that any opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt would entail the return of Abbas’s presidential guard with no Hamas men present, The Guardian quoted a senior Palestinian official as saying. Hamas’s conditions for a ceasefire include “an end to aggression against the Palestinian people”, lifting the blockade on the territory and opening the Rafah crossing, freedom of movement for Palestinians in the area bordering Israel, freeing prisoners rearrested after being exchanged for a seized Israeli soldier and extending the territory’s fishing zone.
It has been argued that the Israeli all-out assault on Gaza would not be possible without a military coup in Egypt. The Israeli massacre of Palestinians came after one year of the military coup of July 3, 2013 when Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi was imprisoned by the military junta led by General Abdel Fattah Sisi. The regime of General Sisi, who has declared himself field marshal, has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. Similarly, the Egyptian regime has also declared Hamas a terrorist organisation and, like the Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters, Hamas’ supporters have been arrested. Thousands of Brotherhood supporters are in prison while hundreds have been sentenced to death.
Tellingly, Azza Sami of the Egyptian semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram, commenting on the Israeli massacre of Palestinians said, “Thank you Netanyahu and may God give us more [people] like you to destroy Hamas!” This change in Egyptian sentiments was possible only after the overthrow of the elected government of President Morsi. It is obvious why President Morsi was imprisoned. He was not pro-Israel and pro-US like his predecessors, President Hosni Mubarak and President Anwar Sadat.
In contrast to imprisoned President Mohamed Morsi, a staunch backer of Hamas, Egypt’s new military government dealt a crippling blow to the organisation by demolishing hundreds of the tunnels used to bring goods into Gaza, which has been under Israeli and Egyptian blockade since 2006. Following the Egyptian lead, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have also banned the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to David Hearst, the editor of Middle East Eye, there are many hands behind the Israeli army’s onslaught on Gaza. His article titled, ‘Attack on Gaza by Saudi Royal Appointment’ in The Huffington Post, gives deep insight into the Saudi-Israeli growing relations at the expense of the Palestinians. David Hearst writes: “The attack on Gaza comes by Saudi Royal appointment. This royal warrant is nothing less than an open secret in Israel, and both former and serving defence officials are relaxed when they talk about it. Former Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz surprised the presenter on Channel 10 by saying Israel had to specify a role for Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the demilitarisation of Hamas. Asked what he meant by that, he added that Saudi and Emirati funds should be used to rebuild Gaza after Hamas had been defanged.”
Amos Gilad, the Israeli defence establishment’s point man with Mubarak’s Egypt and now director of the Israeli defence ministry’s policy and political-military relations department told the academic James Dorsey recently: “Everything is underground, nothing is public. But our security cooperation with Egypt and the Gulf states is unique. This is the best period of security and diplomatic relations with the Arabs.”
Mossad and Saudi intelligence officials meet regularly. The two sides conferred when the former Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, was about to be deposed in Egypt and they are hand in glove on Iran, both in preparing for an Israeli strike from Saudi airspace and in sabotaging the existing nuclear programme. There has even been a well-sourced claim that the Saudis are financing most of Israel’s very expensive campaign against Iran.
“The difference today is that for the first time in their two countries’ history, there is open coordination between the two military powers. Abdullah’s nephew Prince Turki has been the public face of this rapprochement, which was first signalled by the Saudi publication of a book by an Israeli academic. The prince flew to Brussels in May to meet General Amos Yadlin, the former intelligence chief who has been indicted by a court in Turkey for his role in the storming of the Mavi Marmara.”
David Hearst concludes his article with these harsh remarks:
“Peace would indeed be welcome to everyone, not least Gaza at the moment. The means by which Israel’s allies in Saudi Arabia and Egypt are going about achieving it, by encouraging Israel to deal Hamas a crippling blow, calls into question what is really going on here. Turki’s father, King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, would be turning in his grave at what the son is putting his name to. This Saudi Israeli alliance is forged in blood, Palestinian blood, the blood on Sunday, July 20, 2014, of over 100 souls in Shejaiya.”
At this moment, the world is passively watching as Israel perpetrates an open-ended massacre in Gaza.
The writer is the chief editor of the Journal of America. He can be contacted at [email protected]