by Ariel Kahana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Saudi FM: "Who is supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad and undercutting the Palestinian Authority? Iran" • Bahraini FM: Iran is a far bigger threat to regional security than Israeli-Palestinian conflict • UAE FM: Israel justified in attacking Iran in Syria.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits beside U.S. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo at the Warsaw summit, Thursday Photo: AP
Israel and Arab states on Thursday made strides in their joint effort to curb Iranian expansion in the region, as Arab foreign ministers attending the U.S. sponsored Mideast summit in Warsaw, Poland, sitting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the audience, lambasted the Islamic republic and the European countries offering it support.
The Prime Minister's Office released a
25-minute video of the closed meeting, in which senior Gulf Arab
officials played down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, defended
Israel's right to defend itself, and described Iran as the greatest
threat to regional peace.
The video, bearing the insignia of the
Prime Minister's Office, was recorded on a mobile device and it was not
clear who took it. Netanyahu's office briefly made the YouTube video
available to a small group of journalists traveling with him before
quickly removing it.
It was unclear whether Netanyahu intended
to leak the information or distributed it mistakenly. But the decision
to take the video down indicated that the Gulf officials, whose
governments do not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, had not
consented to its release.
The edited, 25-minute video shows a series
of comments made by officials from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates on a panel discussion at the security conference. Some 60
nations participated in the gathering, which was focused heavily on
countering Iran's growing influence in the region.
Saudi Arabian Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs Adel al-Jubeir accused Iran of hurting the Palestinian cause by
supporting terrorist groups battling PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
"Who is supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad and undercutting the Palestinian Authority?" he said. "Iran."
"We cannot stabilize the region without
peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We cannot stabilize the
region without peace in Lebanon and Syria," Jubeir went on to say,
"[but] wherever we go we find Iran's evil behavior. If you want peace
and stability in the Middle East, you must make it clear to the Iranians
that if they want to be treated like a normal country they must behave
like a normal country."
Jubeir also blasted the Iran nuclear deal,
which he said allows Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and menace the
region because of its so-called sunset clauses.
"When the JCPOA was signed, everyone
thought everything would be fine," Jubeir said, referring to the 2015
nuclear pact by its technical name.
"Meanwhile, we in the region are in the
brunt, for us 10 years is the blink of an eye. So, Iran ends up with a
nuclear weapon – it is theoretically capable of doing one very quickly
because no limits on enrichment – who is going to suffer? We are."
"Iran gives ballistic missiles to the
Houthis [in Yemen] and Hezbollah [in Lebanon]. Who's going to suffer? We
do, in the region. And so people have to be serious about how to deal
with the problem of Iran."
Jubeir added: "I wish the Iranians would
change, but they aren't there yet. Any attempt to be good with them has
failed. They present two faces – a foreign minister [Mohammad Javad
Zarif] who speaks nicely and [on the other hand] the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps."
He also had some harsh words for Hezbollah,
saying "One of the biggest jokes is when you say Hezbollah has a
political wing and a military wing. There is no such thing."
Bahrain's foreign minister, Khalid Al
Khalifa, made some of the toughest comments, saying that Iran is a far
bigger threat to regional security than the long-running
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"We grew up talking about the
Palestine-Israel dispute as the most important issue," he said in the
video. "But then at a later stage, we saw a bigger challenge. We saw a
more toxic one, in fact the most toxic in our modern history, which came
from the Islamic Republic, from Iran."
He went on to denounce the "neo-fascist
regime" in Tehran, accusing it of plotting attacks in his country and
destabilizing Yemen, Syria and Iraq. He also said that "toxic money,
guns and foot soldiers of the Islamic republic" have hindered progress
in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
Bahrain, an island nation off Saudi Arabia that's home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, long has had tense relations with Iran.
If it wasn't for Iran's regional
aggression," Khalifa continued, "we would have been much closer today in
solving this issue with Israel. But this is a serious challenge that is
preventing us now from moving forward anywhere, be it Syria, be it
Yemen, be it Iraq, be it anywhere. So this is the challenge we have to
face in order to deal with other challenges," he said, referring to
Iran.
While the Gulf Arab countries' animosity
toward Iran is well known, it is generally taboo for Arab leaders to
make such comments about the Palestinians in high-profile public
settings.
In the clip, the foreign minister of the
United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also
indicated that Israel was justified in attacking Iranian targets in
Syria.
"Every nation has the right to defend
itself, when it's challenged by another nation, yes," he answered in
response to a question by the panel's moderator, former U.S. Middle East
peace negotiator Dennis Ross, about Israeli strikes intended to prevent
Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria.
Ross later tweeted of the event: "Same
room, same views of Iran's aggressive, threatening posture in the Middle
East, and unmistakable convergence of what should be done to counter
it."
Netanyahu did not participate on the panel,
but is seen sitting in the audience. Speaking to reporters early
Thursday, Netanyahu cryptically hinted at what he called the
"unfathomable" friendly atmosphere at the conference. But he did not
disclose any details or say whom he had met.
Hatnuah party leader Tzipi Livni, a
political rival, accused Netanyahu of violating standard protocol and
leaking the video to boost his campaign ahead of April 9 elections. She
called for "external diplomacy, not internal politics."
Ariel Kahana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2019/02/15/leaked-video-offers-glimpse-at-unprecedented-israel-arab-alliance/
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