by Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Translated by Sally Zahav
It seems that the Americans know well about the Qatari involvement in the funding of terror carried out by the Islamic State, and perhaps they have hinted to the Saudis that nothing terrible would happen if Saudi Arabia took over Qatar, overthrew the ruling family, the family of al-Thani, and annexed the Qatari peninsula to Saudi Arabia.
We all know the legend of Ala-a-Din, who is known in the West as Aladdin, and the genie who came out of the magic lamp that was in the cave. The imaginative and captivating part of the story is that powerful genie, who was released from the lamp by Aladdin’s act and then made his wishes come true. The reason is simple: every one of us hopes secretly to find such a magic lamp that will bring forth a genie to do whatever we want.
The previous Emir of Qatar is like Aladdin. He found a well of gas in the Persian Gulf, and this well enriched the Emirate of Qatar and turned it into an international financial superpower . But finances did not satisfy the Emir, and he aspired for power, for influence, and for control and this he found in the Al-Jazeera channel that he established in 1996, a channel that provided him with the ability to control the rulers of Arab countries using information about them – the true as well as the false – that he broadcast from the channel. The embarrassment that he caused these rulers caused al-Jazeera to become the most viewed channel in the world.
But this was not enough for the Emir. He aspired to overthrow the Arab rulers, and following an “educational series” by Sheikh Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Emir of Qatar tried to impose the Muslim Brotherhood on the Arab states. This organization is not only an organization for charity and acts of kindness, but is also an incubator of violence, terror and jihad, and it is out of this ideological incubator that all of the Sunni terror organizations emerged, including Hamas, the (Egyptian and the Palestinian) Jihad, Jabhat al-Nusra, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. For years, the Arab rulers have known that Qatar was encouraging and funding the various religious-political anti-establishment organizations, which want to take over in every one of the Arab states.
As long as Qatar managed in its attempts to destabilize the Arab rulers, their policy was to allow it operate from their own countries, as a sort of “let the dogs bark as long as the convoy can press on”. However, since the bloodbath known as the Arab Spring broke out, the fact gradually became clear that the causes of the “Spring” – that more closely resembles Hell – were Qatar, the Emir, the money and its Al-Jazeera channel. More and more people began to accuse Qatar openly of creating the problem by encouraging terror in the media and by allocating its great wealth to the battle against the rulers, who were supported by the West.
Since General Sisi removed President Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s representative, from the presidency in July 2013, al-Jazeera opened a special channel to Egypt, whose purpose was to restore Mursi to power and get rid of Sisi. All of the al-Jazeera channels were careful never to call Sisi the president, despite the fact that he had been elected president by tens of millions of Egyptians. But last year, with the development of the Islamic State on the ruins of Syria and Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt and other Arab countries lost their patience, and by way of a warning to Qatar they recalled their ambassadors from there, claiming that Qatar encourages the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in the United Emirates and in Saudi Arabia, and because it sends a much money to the Islamic State.
The accusation that Qatar encourages terror is used to justify punishing it, mainly by Saudi military occupation, similar to what Saudi Arabia did in Bahrain. Qatar is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the waters of the Persian Gulf, and on one side it has a land border with Saudi Arabia. It seems that the Americans know well about the Qatari involvement in the funding of terror carried out by the Islamic State, and perhaps they have hinted to the Saudis that nothing terrible would happen if Saudi Arabia took over Qatar, overthrew the ruling family, the family of al-Thani, and annexed the Qatari peninsula to Saudi Arabia. If such an action would get rid of the critical support for terror that harms Americans, then from the Americans’ point of view it is a reasonable price to pay.
From the moment that the al-Thani family saw that it was isolated, surrounded by countries that are ready to swallow their country without any major American objection, its people understood, especially the Emir, Tamim, that their game is up and they must change their policy. They organized a “meeting” of the Gulf States, “listened carefully” to the instructions of Abdullah, the king of Saudi Arabia, and “decided to respond to the request of the Arab brothers”. They closed the Egyptian al-Jazeera channel, and crawled to Cairo together with a Saudi overseer in order to “solve the dispute” with this country. The al-Jazeera channels recently began calling Sisi by the title “president”.
Thus, Qatar capitulated to the Saudi dictate, and the US – it seems – had again gambled on the wrong horse, Qatar. A determined coalition of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Egypt managed to stop the American support for Qatar, and the Egyptian sense of victory was expressed this week in the statement by the prime minister of Egypt forbidding the American ambassador in Cairo to meet with Muslim Brotherhood people in Egypt, because this is against Egyptian law, which sees the Brotherhood as a terror organization. Thus, Egypt, backed by Saudi Arabia and the Emirates is imposing its policy against the Muslim Brotherhood on the Americans. Obama, after the failure that he experienced in the mid-term election for Congress, did not feel strong enough to stand up to the determined coalition, especially since Qatar is up to its ears in terror funding, including funding the Islamic State.
Now the only thing that remains is to check whether Qatar indeed has cut off the terror organizations and stopped funding them, or perhaps it continues doing so behind the backs of the countries who will fall asleep at the guard post. In the past, Qatar has used underhanded ways to pass funds to terror organizations by way of private individuals. It is important that the countries of the world that have been harmed in the past by Qatar’s behavior – Israel included – trace the monies that flow from it in order to assure that it has stopped funding terror.
Iran Jumps on the Bandwagon
If indeed Qatar has changed its policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood organizations , these organizations might find themselves without support, especially monetary support. The organizations involved are Hamas and organizations of political Islam in Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and especially in Syria and Iraq, where these organizations are involved in warfare. The leaders of Iran understood immediately the turnaround that was forced upon Qatar, and they have already declared that they are ready and willing to take the place of Qatar as a source of funds.
Regarding Hamas, the Iranian spokesmen were clearer: they are ready to fund the Hamas takeover of Judea and Samaria. Thanks to the European willingness to recognize a Palestinian state, the Iranians already see it living and existing, with Jerusalem as its capital, and all that is left from their point of view is for Hamas to take it over. Thus, Iran will eliminate the State of Israel using Iranian missiles that Hamas people will launch on the “West Bank Envelope”, from Dimona and Be’er Sheva in the south, via the coastal plain and Gush Dan, up to Afula and Beit She’an.
As far as I know, the matter of terror funding is not on the list of subjects for negotiations between Iran and the Western superpowers. As of today, with the upsurge of terror throughout the world – lately in Australia and France – Iran might be the one that will fund terror organizations operating in the West, Shi’ites and Sunnis, especially if these organizations are monetarily strangled because Qatar has stopped sending money to them.
The West can learn from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates how to conduct negotiations with a rogue state: the West has been negotiating with Iran for seventeen long years, and has not succeeded to force it into halting its nuclear program. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates needed only one year of pressure, along with a credible threat, in order to change Qatar’s hostile policy. From this honorable stage I suggest and recommend for those who negotiate with Iran to study what really happened behind the scenes of the negotiations among Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt and Qatar, in order to understand how to conduct negotiations in the Middle East.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Source: Iton Yom leYom
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
1 comment:
So what is the West waiting for?
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