Israel’s Ya’alon: We, Sunni Arabs, except Qatar, in the same boat

Former Israeli Defence Minister and Chief of Staff, Moshe Ya’alon, said yesterday that Israel and the Sunni Arabs, except Qatar, are in the same boat, Jewish Press reported.

Speaking at a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war at Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, he said: “The ‘watershed’ of the existential threat to the State of Israel was the Six-Day War [1967 war], and since then, this threat has faded away. There is no longer an Arab coalition poised against us.”

The Arab countries can no longer conquer the State of Israel. The threats we face today are non-conventional, such as the Iranian nuclear threat and the firing of rockets into Israeli territory.

Commenting on Saudi, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt’s decision to sever ties with Qatar, Ya’alon said: “Today, we see what the Arab states are doing to Qatar, treating it as a rogue state, both over its relations with Iran and in its supporting, operating and inciting terrorism.”

Read: Israeli figures praise Arab decision to cut ties with Qatar

We and the Arabs, the same Arabs who organised in a coalition in the Six-Day War to try to destroy the Jewish state, today find themselves in the same boat with us.

The former Israeli defence minister explained: “The Sunni Arab countries, apart from Qatar, are largely in the same boat with us since we all see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat against all of us.”