Will Qatar’s Diplomatic Exile Spark the Next Great War? | Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/05/will-qatars-diplomatic-exile-spark-the-next-great-war-saudi-arabia-tr
Sarajevo 1914, Doha 2017 ?
Carrément !
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Avec les deux versions de la folle #nuit_torride du 24 mai
There are at least two narratives for how we got here. If you believe the government of Qatar, the official Qatar News Agency was hacked on May 24 and a fake news story was transmitted quoting Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani as saying, “There is no reason behind Arabs’ hostility to Iran.” The allegedly false report reaffirmed Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, as well as claiming Doha’s relations with Israel were good.
The government-influenced media in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, adopted an alternative narrative, treating the news story as true and responding quickly with a burst of outrage. The emir’s comments were endlessly repeated and, to the anger of Doha, internet access to Qatari media was blocked so that the official denial could not be read.
There is a possibility that the initial hacking was orchestrated by Tehran, which was annoyed by the anti-Iran posture of the May 20-21 summit in Riyadh, when President Donald Trump met King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud Salman and representatives of dozens of Muslim states.
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Washington can play an important role in defusing this potentially explosive situation. U.S. officials may believe that Qatar was being less than evenhanded in its balancing act between the United States and Iran — but a drawn-out conflict between Riyadh and Doha, or a struggle that pushes Qatar into Tehran’s arms, would benefit no one. In this respect, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is arguably well-placed. ExxonMobil, where he was CEO before joining the U.S. government, is the biggest foreign player in Qatar’s energy sector, so he presumably knows the main decision-makers well.
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Crise du Golfe : le Qatar a-t-il été piégé par les Emirats arabes unis ?
▻http://www.latribune.fr/economie/international/crise-du-golfe-le-qatar-a-t-il-ete-piege-par-les-emirats-arabes-unis-74414Les Emirats arabes unis seraient à l’origine d’une cyberattaque visant les réseaux sociaux et les sites du gouvernement qatari fin mai, assurent plusieurs membres des renseignements américains interrogés par le Washington Post. Ces plateformes ont affiché de fausses déclarations attribuées à l’émir qatari, cheikh Tamin ben Hamad Khalifa Al-Thani, dans lesquelles il faisait l’éloge du Hamas et surtout de l’Iran, l’ennemi juré des pays du Golfe.
L’opération s’est déroulée le 24 mai, soit peu de temps après la tournée du président américain Donald Trump dans les pays du Golfe. A cette occasion, l’Arabie saoudite et ses alliés n’ont pas manqué de rappeler qu’ils considéraient l’Iran comme un « facteur de déstabilisation » dans la région en raison de son « interventionnisme » dans plusieurs pays notamment la Syrie, l’Irak et le Yémen. Dans son discours à Riyad le 21 mai, Donald Trump a fait part du même diagnostic, appelant « toutes les nations de conscience » à « travailler ensemble pour isoler l’Iran ».
Citant ces fausses déclarations de l’émir du Qatar, l’Arabie saoudite, les Emirats arabes unis, Bahreïn et l’Egypte ont interdit les médias qataris, puis imposé des sanctions diplomatiques dès le 5 juin. Doha a déjà averti ses voisins que ses plateformes avaient été piratées. Les Qataris ont d’ailleurs ouvert une enquête, toujours en cours, et n’ont pour l’instant désigné aucun coupable. De son côté, Abou Dabi réfute toute tentative de cyberattaque suite à l’article du Washington Post.
Ces révélations surviennent alors que, depuis plusieurs mois, des e-mails hackés de l’ambassadeur des Emirats arabes unis à Washington et publiés par l’organisation pro-qatari GlobalLeaks, démontraient la détermination d’Abou Dabi de rallier les Etats-Unis à sa cause dans sa querelle avec Doha.
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Is Israel forming an alliance with Egypt and Saudi Arabia? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/04/israel-al-sisi-egypt-saudi-arabia-islands-transfer-alliance.html#According to a senior security official, who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Ya’alon emphasized to his associates that security cooperation between Israel and Egypt had reached an all-time high. The security systems of the two countries share the same interests. Egyptians, for instance, help Israel contain and cordon off Hamas in Gaza.
The recent move — the transfer of the two islands to Saudi Arabia — reveals part of the dialogue that has been developing between Israel and its Sunni neighbors. A highly placed Israeli security official, who spoke to Al-Monitor anonymously, added some details: Israel’s relationships in the region are deep and important. The moderate Arab countries have not forgotten the Ottoman period, and are very worried about the growing strength and enlargement of the two non-Arab empires of the past: Iran and Turkey. On this background, many regional players realize that Israel is not the problem, but the solution. Israel’s dialogue with the large, important Sunni countries remains mainly under the radar, but it deepens all the time and it bears fruit.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s action has aroused sharp public criticism in Egypt. The president’s opponents argue that under the Egyptian Constitution he has no authority to give up Egyptian territory, but Sisi rightly warded off this criticism: These islands originally belonged to Saudi Arabia, which transferred them to Egypt in 1950 as part of the effort to strangle Israel from the south, and prevent the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from taking control of them. Israel embarked on two wars (the Sinai War in 1956 and the Six Day War in 1967) for navigation rights in the Red Sea. It took over these islands twice, but then returned them to Egypt both times. Now events have come full circle, and the Egyptians are returning the islands to their original owner, Saudi Arabia. This is a goodwill gesture from Sisi to King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, after the Saudis committed themselves to the economic solvency of the Egyptian regime for the next five years. The Saudis are making massive investments in Egypt and providing financial support to save the Egyptian economy from collapse.
There is another aspect to the Egyptian transfer of the islands to Saudi Arabia: In the past, several proposals were raised regarding regional land swaps, with the goal of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The framework is, in principle, simple: Egypt would enlarge Gaza southward and allow the Gaza Strip’s Palestinians more open space and breathing room. In exchange for this territory, Egypt would receive from Israel a narrow strip the length of the borderline between the two countries, the Israeli Negev desert region from Egyptian Sinai. The Palestinians, in contrast, would transfer the West Bank settlement blocs to Israel. Jordan could also join such an initiative; it could contribute territories of its own and receive others in exchange. To date, this approach was categorically disqualified by the Egyptians in the Hosni Mubarak era. Now that it seems that territorial transfer has become a viable possibility under the new conditions of the Middle East, the idea of Israeli-Egyptian territorial swaps are also reopened; in the past, these land swap possibilities fired the imaginations of many in the region. In his day, former head of Israel’s National Security Council Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland led a regional initiative on the subject. But he was stymied by Egypt.
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Is Israel in cahoots with Saudi Arabia ? - Ben Caspit
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/israel-netanyahu-rejects-us-nuke-deal-iran-saudia.htmlAs of today, upper echelon diplomatic sources think that Israel is in cahoots with Saudi Arabia, which announced this week that King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud will boycott the summit that President Barack Obama has planned for May 14. The United States had invited all of its Middle East Gulf allies to Camp David for a summit also intended to deal with the ramifications of the negotiations with Iran and the emerging nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
“It is no coincidence that the Israelis refuse to enter into altercations with the Americans when the Saudi king simultaneously pulled a very public, humiliating stunt and said no to the US president,” I was told by a high-ranking European diplomat who requested anonymity. “Israel is working against the agreement on all fronts, not only in the US Congress but also in the Gulf states. Israel’s actions strengthen the Saudi actions, and the reverse.”
Article pas transcendant par ailleurs (ne démontre pas grand chose), mais au moins constate l’évidence : les actions d’Israël renforcent les actions des Séoudiens, et inversement.
(Attention, cet article contient le mot « indecipherable ».)
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Le prince héritier séoudien 83 ans, ministre de la défense depuis 48 ans, est mort. Je ne serais qu’à moitié surpris si son frère, le roi Abdallah, avait l’idée saugrenue, lui aussi, de décéder prochainement.
Heir to Saudi throne Crown Prince Sultan dies - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/10/2011102235021833.htmlCrown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the 83-year-old defence minister and first in line of succession to become king of Saudi Arabia, has died.
“With deep sorrow and sadness ... King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz mourns the death of his brother and his Crown Prince Sultan who died at dawn this morning Saturday outside the kingdom following an illness,” the Saudi state press agency said.
Prince Sultan’s funeral will be held on Tuesday, the statement said.
He was an “important and influential senior prince” who played a key role in relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council, particularly Yemen, said Hussein Shobokshi, a columnist for the Asharq Alawsat newspaper.
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Angry Arab: Western reactions to the death of Prince Sultan
►http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/10/western-reactions-to.htmlJust watch the respect that Western capitals will pay to one of the most corrupt men in power in the 20th century. This man, Prince Sultan, is probably the recipient of the most bribes in human history, especially if you count his sons’ bribes as well.
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