My suspicions is it is the religious thing.
What is truly curious is for the "The Enemy of My Enemy" concept breaks down when it comes to cooperation between Arab states and Israel.
So that only adds fuel to my suspicion that it is less an Iran vs. Arabs as Shia vs. Sunni religious sects of Islam.
Iran, Israel and the Arab Contradiction
The WikiLeaks cables reveal that Egypt and Saudi Arabia can't decide if they fear a Shiite bomb more than they hate the Jewish state..
Speaking recently to the heads of his country's major media outlets, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unable to contain his glee at the revelations from the latest WikiLeaks documents (a reaction that elicited a private protest from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv).
The main reason for Mr. Netanyahu's satisfaction was that the highly classified State Department documents present a picture of an Arab world that despises Hamas, believes that Hezbollah is a danger to Lebanon, and fears Iran. Arab leaders take the last matter so seriously that they even appear to be doing their best to persuade the United States to attack Iran's nuclear installations.
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, for example, "hates Hamas, and considers them the same as Egypt's own Muslim Brotherhood, which he sees as his own most dangerous political threat," states one February 2009 memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Another memo, dated July 2008, reports that Mr. Mubarak informed Sen. John Kerry that the Iranians "are big, fat liars and justify their lies because they believe it is for a higher purpose."
Dark green Shia, light green Sunni
Transcripts of meetings between Gulf Arab leaders and U.S. officials show that while Arab hatred and fear of Iran is considerable, hostility toward Israel is just as great. In addition, because the Palestinian problem has not been solved, open Arab-Israeli cooperation is a nonstarter. The documents do confirm the existence of covert intelligence contacts between Israel and certain Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, but the ties are tenuous and cooperation is strictly ad hoc.
Iran, Israel and the Arab Contradiction
No comments:
Post a Comment