DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 6, 2014, 10:22 AM (IDT)
The six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) rulers meet in the Qatari capital of Doha next week amid high suspense across the Arab world. Its agenda is topped by moves to finally unravel the 2010 Arab Spring policy championed by US President Barack Obama, moves that also bear the imprint of extensive cooperation maintained on the quiet between Israel and key Arab rulers.
DEBKAfile reports that the Doha parley is designed to restore Egypt under the rule of President Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi to the lead role it occupied before the decline of Hosni Mubarak. Another is to root out the Muslim Brotherhood by inducing their champion, the young Qatari ruler, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to drop his government’s support.
At talks taking place in Riyadh ahead of the summit, Qatari officials appeared ready to discontinue the flow of weapons, funds and intelligence maintained since 2011 to the Brothers and their affiliates across the Arab world (Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Hamas-ruled Gaza), as well shutting down the El Jazeera TV network – or at least stopping the channel’s use as the Brotherhood’s main propaganda platform.
The Doha summit is designed to crown a historic effort led by Saudi King Abdullah, UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and President El-Sisi to undo the effects of the Obama administration’s support for elements dedicated to the removal of conservative Arab rulers, such as the Brotherhood.
They have found a key ally in this drive in Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who took advantage of the chance of an epic breakthrough in relations with the leading bloc of Arab nations, with immediate and far-reaching effect on Israeli security and its standing in the region.
Yet at the same time, Netanyahu has kept this feat under his hat – even while smarting under a vicious assault by his detractors – ex-finance minister Yair Lapid and opposition leader Yakov Herzog of Labor – on his personal authority and leadership credibility (“everything is stuck,” “he’s out of touch.”) and obliged to cut short the life of his government for a general election on March 17.
He faces the voter with the secret still in his pocket of having achieved close coordination with the most important Arab leaders – not just on the Iranian nuclear issue and the Syrian conflict, but also the Palestinian question, which has throughout Israel’s history bedeviled its ties with the Arab world.
When Yair Lapid, whom Netanyahu sacked this week, boasted, “I am talking to the Americans” while accusing the prime minister of messing up ties with Washington, he meant he was talking to the Americans close to Barack Obama, whom Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, hand in hand with Netanyahu, have judged adverse to their regimes.
This Arab-Israeli collaboration encompasses too many areas to keep completely hidden. Its fruits have begun breaking surface in a string of events.
This week, Israel apparently out of the blue, quietly agreed to Egypt deploying 13 army battalions in Sinai (demilitarized under their 1979 peace treaty), including tanks, and flying fighter jets over terrorist targets.
A joint Saudi-Israeli diplomatic operation was instrumental in obstructing a US-Iran deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Another key arena of cooperation is Jerusalem.
Friday, Dec. 5, Jordan announced the appointment of 75 new guards for the Al Aqsa Mosque compound on Temple Mount. The director of the mosque, Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, said they will begin work in the coming days.
This was the outcome of Jordanian King Abdullah’s talks with the Egyptian president in Cairo Sunday, Nov. 30, in which they agreed that the Muslim Waqf Authority on Temple Mount must change its mode of conduct and replace with new staff the violent elements from Hamas, the Al Tahrir movement and Israeli Arab Islamists, which had taken charge of “security.”.
The Moslem attacks from the Mount on Jewish worshippers praying at the Western Wall below and Israeli police have accordingly ceased in the two weeks since Israel lifted its age restrictions on Muslim worshippers attending Friday prayers at Al Aqsa. Israel groups advocating the right to Jewish prayer on Temple Mount were discreetly advised to cool their public campaign.
The Palestinian riots plaguing Jerusalem for months have died down, except for isolated instances, since, as DEBKAfile revealed, Saudi and Gulf funds were funneled to pacify the city’s restive Palestinian neighborhoods.
Cairo and the Gulf emirates have used their influence with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to get him to moderate his invective against Israel and its prime minister, and slow his applications for Palestinian membership of international bodies as platforms for campaigning against the Jewish state.
Concerned by the way the mainstream Arab world was marginalizing the Palestinian question, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal chose his moment Friday – ahead of the White House meeting between the Jordanian monarch and President Obama – to try and re-ignite the flames of violence in Jerusalem. He went unheeded.
Netanyahu may or may not opt to brandish Israel’s diplomatic breakthrough to the Arab world as campaign fodder to boost his run for re-election. Whatever he decides, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Arab emirates and Egypt are turning out to have acquired an interest in maintaining him in office as head of the Israeli government, in direct opposition to President Obama’s ambition to unseat him.
@ diana:
Yes, of course you are correct. Elementary!
If I know it and you know it everybody knows it and we are being fed BS
honeybee Said:
We know who they are shooting at. So far they have missed more than they’ve hit but they still have another 2 years to align their sights replenish ammo and adjust the windage on their sights.
@ yamit82:
They straight, it’s the target their aiming for that scares me, Sugar.
@ honeybee:
Logic dictates that he should know but he is Kerry (Lurch),… Biden’s alter ego. I call them the gang who can’t shoot straight. Or Political Keystone cops!! 🙂
@ yamit82:
Is that true and does the Kerry know it !!!!
@ bernard ross:
No, missiles being shipped to Hezbollah
@ bernard ross:
Kerry Spin!!!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps it is also covertly in aid of the GCC agenda in syria agianst Irans proxies
comment in moderation
@ bernard ross:
I agree but have no faith in the discernment. of Israel’s top military establishment or our political establishment to draw necessary correct conclusions.
They are political chocolate soldiers who were mostly promoted according to their correct ideological Oslo conceptions and being on the good side of those who were in positions to promote them.
None has ever led large formations in battle and their military experiece is against terrorists…
Israel needs to increase at least 3 additional divisions in the South but that takes foresight and a lot of money.
Egypt’s Largest Military Maneuver ‘Meant for Israel’
Security expert details Egypt’s ‘Badr 2014? maneuver, warns it is gearing up for conflict with Israel which it still sees as primary threat.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/188301#.VINhWTHF-So
Increased Iranian-Egyptian anti-terror cooperation needed: Iranian cleric
@ bernard ross:
The Saudis and the Gulf states have been financing the Egyptian economy and their military forever. Do you believe that the American aid package is what Egypt spends??? Their annual expenditure is 2-4 times what Israel spends.
The Saudis and the Gulf states also are the Egyptian military hardware reserves. The Saudis and the Gulf state can’t use most of the advanced hardware nor maintain them by themselves. The hardware will be made available to Egypt as needed in the next war.
The only thing holding them off so far is their perception of assured victory over us and as long as we have nukes and they don’t they have to consider and calculate.
Egypt even produces the American Abrams tank under American license. They also like Iran have an advanced Nuke program.
The Gas Israel is now selling to Egypt is because their own has been disrupted by terrorist sabotage and they are under contract to supply gas to a Spanish company that produces LNG and shipped to Europe. The Spanish threatened to take Egypt to court over their losses.
@ yamit82:
I tend to agree that this is too risky especially if it is as much as debka says.
yamit82 Said:
There is a possibility that Egypt is being geared up to be a proxy army for the gulf monarchies, considering all the money they are pouring into egypt
NB: this commented moved from https://www.israpundit.org/archives/63602882/comment-page-1#comment-63356000146309