BICOM

Many Israeli analysts have given their thoughts to the diplomatic breakdown between Qatar and four other Arab states.

Yesterday morning Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates simultaneously announced that they were to withdraw their diplomatic staff from Qatar and suspend border and air links to the country due to its support of instability in the region.

Eli Avidar, a former Israeli representative in Qatar, said that the Arab states were taking advantage of an opportunity following their meeting with US President Donald Trump – who made a distinction between those countries who support terror and those who oppose it – to try and squeeze Qatar.

Israeli writer and security analyst Avi Issacharoff argues in the Times of Israel that it was Qatar’s “budding relationship with Iran, and new winds blowing from Washington,” that “made the severing of ties possible”.

Issacharoff adds that whilst Qatar act as a Western partner for business, it “simultaneously invested tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, in terrorist organisations that attack the West and Israel at every opportunity,” including funding news channel Al Jazeera, and financing the al-Qaeda branch in Syria.

Alex Fishman writes in Yediot Ahronot that “that the Qataris are playing a dirty game”. He added that their “multifaceted policy, which includes embraces with Israel, embraces with the Iranians, support for the Muslim Brotherhood and having Al-Jazeera harass the Egyptian government to the point of undermining its standing—‎has come to an end”.

In related news, it was confirmed yesterday that Qatar expelled a number of leaders in Hamas’s military wing, including Saleh al-Arouri and Musa Dudin, who are known for their ties to West Bank terror cells. Al-Arouri is believed to have orchestrated the 2014 kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank that precipitated that summer’s Operation Protective Edge.

There is concern in Israeli circles that if Qatar stops its support for Hamas, the terror group could move closer to Iran. Writing in Maariv, Yossi Melman argues that Qatar was the chief funder of the Gaza Strip’‎s rehabilitation and often acted as a “‎pressure valve” ‎for Israel. If it stops bankrolling Hamas, it is liable to cause Hamas to become completely bankrupt.