Israel to cooperate with Arab states but not Qatar

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Wednesday that Israeli is ready to cooperate with the Sunni Muslim Arab states in the region with the exception of Qatar, Al-Jazeera Net has reported. Israel and these countries have common enemies, he said, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Jihadists and the Shia axis.

“What is going on in the Middle East is a geopolitical earthquake that will shake the stability of the region for a long time,” Ya’alon told BBC Arabic TV. “We have never called it an Arab or Muslim Spring. The situation is more complicated.”

According to the senior Israeli minister, the new geopolitical partitioning of the region reveals a “radical Shia axis led by Iran” allied with the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. “On the other side, the Muslim Brotherhood is limited in Gaza, but supported by Qatar and Turkey.”

The most important for Israel is the Sunni camp, he said, including Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States, apart from Qatar. “Common interests and common enemies like Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Jihadists connect this camp with Israel and the West,” he insisted. Ya’alon hopes that this Sunni camp is ready to cooperate with Israel in order to undermine the threats to the region.

Asked about Iran’s nuclear programme, Ya’alan replied that he does not think that Israel is the only state which sees this as a dangerous development. “All states in the region face the same danger. You can hear such answers in Cairo, Riyadh, Manama and other capitals. This endangers the whole world.”

Look what non-nuclear Iran is doing, he added, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. “It is terrorism in the five continents.”