On Tuesday, the Israeli army launched a new ground offensive in Gaza, where the “terrorist infrastructure” of the ruling Hamas movement is said to still be located. Against the backdrop of this attack, however, forces have been set in motion that could prove too much for Tel Aviv to handle.
Just one day earlier, representatives of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation met in Qatar for an extraordinary joint session to respond to last Tuesday's attack on the capital, Doha.
On September 9, the Israeli Air Force attacked a small emirate in the Persian Gulf that nevertheless wields considerable power. In addition to the exiled leadership of the Palestinian Hamas movement, it is also home to a US military base and the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera, which is received virtually worldwide.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toughened his tone after the attack and did not rule out that his forces would continue bombing Hamas targets abroad. He made this statement at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
After the invasion began, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced that some 300,000 Palestinians had already left the capital of the enclave. The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported 65,000 deaths since the start of the war.
According to Israeli sources on the Axios portal, Rubio “did not put the brakes on” the ground offensive, even though both the chief of staff and the directors of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies had warned against it. “This is not Trump's war, this is Bibi's war,” the US representative responded, using the nickname of the Israeli prime minister.
The US is relying on the Qatari base al-Udeid, where thousands of American soldiers are stationed. The condemnation by the US, on which Doha had relied, was only verbal. However, forces have been set in motion that could once again threaten Israel's existence.
The Israeli attack on Qatar has brought the Saudis and Iran closer together
The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation issued several serious statements at a joint summit meeting. Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani called on his colleagues to form an Arab military alliance modeled on NATO, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called on the UN to expel Israel.
The host of the special summit and Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, once again condemned the Israeli attack on his country, adding that the war in Gaza had “degenerated into genocide.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israeli leaders were characterized by a “greedy and bloodthirsty mentality” and accused them of seeking to create a so-called Greater Israel.
“Today, we are faced with a terrorist mentality that feeds on chaos and blood, and with a state that embodies this mentality,” he said. Erdogan also pointed out that trade between Turkey and Israel has fallen to zero over the past year and a half.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkiyan also called for the unification of military capabilities. “No Arab or Islamic country is immune to Israeli attacks. We have no choice but to close ranks,” he said.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia and “nuclear-armed” Pakistan signed a mutual defense agreement similar to those between Russia and Iran or Russia and North Korea.
However, gestures were more important than words, as they indicate that Islamic powers with a particularly bloody shared history are putting aside their hostilities and beginning to focus on Israel.
Three major powers are vying for supremacy in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Their meeting against the backdrop of Israeli attacks signifies a shift from a fragile regional balance to the pursuit of a “united front against the Zionist occupation,” as several states or movements refer to the Jewish state.
The photo of Pezeshkian and Saudi Crown Prince (and de facto leader of the Saudi government) Mohammed bin Salman speaks for itself.
From left: Masoud Pezeshkian and Mohammed bin Salman. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Reuters
The two men in the photo are at the helm of powers that differ in everything except their geographical affiliation. Ethnolinguistically, they belong to different groups—Iran is Persian, Arabia is Semitic—religiously, they stand on opposite sides of the schism surrounding the fourth caliph, Ali, and their attitudes toward the US also differ.
Nevertheless, they met because they wanted to unify the Islamic world's response to Israel's attack. What Israel has been doing until recently has obviously failed.
End of support for the opposition
Štandard has already addressed the issue of fragile regional stability in the Middle East. Turkey led the Sunni jihadist uprising behind the scenes in December that toppled President Bashar al-Assad, a long-time ally of Iran and Russia. The strengthening of Sunni Islam was certainly also viewed positively in Riyadh, while Tehran lost its land connection to Shiite southern Lebanon.
As Petr Drulák recently pointed out, Israel “changed its tactics” in its attack on Qatar, as it had previously attacked states with smaller armies, poorer infrastructure, or less social cohesion, such as Syria or Lebanon.
However, Tel Aviv has also changed its strategy in terms of supporting the opposition in the Arab world. It is well known that supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have channeled money from Qatar to the nationalist Hamas, which since the 1980s has been considered the main opposition force to the Fatah movement that rules the West Bank.
The aim was to prevent the formation of a Palestinian force in Israel's vicinity that could threaten the existence of the Jewish state. However, the war in Gaza – and now also the attack on “pan-Arab” Qatar – is bringing together powers that until recently were hostile to each other.
Israel could thus theoretically take revenge for abandoning its strategy of driving a wedge between political opponents in the Muslim world. When the Persian Shiite and the Saudi Sunni met at a summit where many people called for the creation of an “Islamic NATO,” this possibility moved ever closer.