Our sister site Townhall has picked up some interesting information about the private goings-on behind the scenes between Israel and its surrounding Arab nations, from a Haaretz report that perhaps says more about what the Arab nations truly think about the Israel-Hamas war than what they may be saying publicly.
Publicly, some of them (like Egypt and Jordan) are falling in line with public opinion in their countries and condemning the civilian deaths caused by Israel’s military response. But behind the scenes, almost every leader in the region, including in most of the Gulf states, is urging Israel to end the war only after Hamas is defeated, since they view the organization as a dangerous domestic enemy.
Now that's a pretty huge thing, if true. But it's easy to see why it's true because Hamas continues to contribute to the instability and fighting in the region. As we already have seen with the war, the surrounding countries like Egypt and Jordan don't want to take in refugees, and have publicly made that very clear.
The reason is not just that they don't want to be overwhelmed by refugees, although that's certainly part of it. But there's another reason that isn't being said, as Matt Vespa noted in Townhall. There's been trouble when they've done it in the past.
The problem is the Palestinian Liberation Organization set up shop in Lebanon, where they caused problems for the government while also attacking Israel from the southern part of the country. Israel had to invade in 1982 and remained in Southern Lebanon until 2000. Egypt has closed its border with the Gaza Strip in Rafah due to terrorism concerns.
In the days after the brutal October 7 attacks executed by Hamas, Egypt knew what was going to happen. They deployed tanks to the border while their prime minister vowed that his country would sacrifice millions to keep their borders safe. He was not referring to Israel.
When the Arab nations met for a summit in November, when some sought to enact punitive measures against Israel, those measures were stopped by Saudi Arabia and countries that had come together with Israel in the Abraham Accords, engineered by former president Donald Trump, as well as Egypt and Jordan.
The demands were to prevent the transfer of U.S. military equipment to Israel from American bases in the Middle East region; suspend all diplomatic and economic contacts with Israel; cut back oil sales to the United States over Washington’s support for Israel; stop Israeli air traffic over the skies of the Gulf and send a joint delegation to the United States, Europe and Russia to push for a ceasefire.
The resolution to adopt these measures was blocked by Israel’s Abraham accords partner states the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. They were joined by Egypt and Jordan, two countries with long-standing peace agreements with Israel. Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Djibouti also opposed the measures.
So Israel can concentrate on its prime goal since Oct. 7: taking out Hamas. The irony is that pressure to hold back/tie their fight is coming from the Biden team, claiming Israel has to do more to protect civilians.