WarSclerotic

Israel: The Secret Treaty With The Arab Neighbors.

June 4, 2013: For over a decade now Israel has been building relationships, often in secret, with its neighbors, especially Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Although the decades of “hate Israel” propaganda in these countries makes it difficult to openly negotiate, the growing threat of Iranian nuclear weapons has made Israel an attractive ally for the Sunni states threatened by Shia Iran. The U.S. is currently trying to broker a secret military alliance involving Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This would include giving Israel access to data from Arab and Turkish radar stations near Iran while also providing these nations with data from the Israeli missile early-warning system. There would also be arrangements on how Israel could participate in defending its new allies if Iran attacked. Finally, there is the fact that Israel is a nuclear power and once this proposed alliance is revealed (or even if it is known but officially denied), Iran would have to worry about Israeli retaliation even if only the Arab Gulf states or Turkey were threatened.

Working out the details of this alliance is the easy part, making it public and implementing it completely could be a problem. Arab governments have officially demonized Israel for so long that a large segment (probably still a majority) of their populations would react violently and instinctively to formal announcement of an alliance with Israel. Thus some of the diplomats involved are suggesting a secret treaty. This is not a new concept as such secret deals have been used for thousands of years. But in the age of the Internet and speedy and abundant global media, such deals can have explosive consequences once revealed and difficult to keep secret. The proposed deal would only be made public when it had to, as during a crisis with Iran. At that point, fear of Iran would calm many Arabs who would otherwise hit the streets to violently protest any deals with Israel.

This sort of deal making is not new. Israel has had official and unofficial arrangements with all these nations over the years. Jordan has been quite open about their security and intelligence arrangements with Israel, which go back over 30 years. The unofficial intelligence sharing has been more common over the last two decades. The reason is the growing threat of Islamic terrorism, although before the 1990s the Arabs were more concerned with secular Moslem terrorists. But these have largely been replaced by the religious fanatics, who still get a lot of unofficial support (cash and sympathizers) from Arabia, where most modern Islamic radicalism has been nurtured and encouraged for centuries. Many educated and entrepreneurial Arabs would also like access to the Israeli market (for goods, technology and joint ventures). But the Arabs will have to work through their anti-Semitism first.

Despite its new Islamic government, Egypt is finding itself restricting access to Gaza as much, if not more, than its former (Mubarak) government and often in cooperation with Israel. The basic problem is that Gaza has become a sanctuary for all sorts of Islamic terror groups, including some that consider the relatively moderate Islamic government in Egypt to be the enemy (for not being really radical).

Palestinian terrorists continue to try and carry out attacks inside Israel. Hamas support is more frequently encountered among Palestinians arrested (by Israeli police) in the West Bank. That has led to more arrests of Hamas supporters (by Palestinian and Israeli police) in the West Bank. Hamas and Fatah still cannot agree on a merger and the troublesome disunity among Palestinians (2.5 million in the West Bank and 1.5 million in Gaza) continues.

Despite being called (largely in the Islamic media) secret partners with Iran or the rebels in Syria (take you pick), Israel could decide the war in a few days if it attacked the Assad (Syrian government) forces by air. Israel is concerned about a post-Assad government, because of the power and influence Islamic terrorist groups might have. But an Assad victory is nothing to look forward to either as more pro-Iran terrorists will be on the Israeli border. It’s a no-win situation and getting accused of supporting both sides is the least of it. Meanwhile, Iran backed terrorists, especially the Lebanese Hezbollah are becoming more active in planning and carrying out more international terrorist operations. Iran has amped up its support for the Assads and the Assad forces are on the offensive. The rebels will probably still win, but it’s going to take longer.

This entry was posted on June 4, 2013 at 2:18 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.