Gulf leaders meeting at an emergency summit in Qatar have called on the Trump administration to use its leverage to rein in Israel after the unprecedented Israeli attempt last Tuesday to assassinate Hamas negotiators in Doha.
Speaking after the meeting of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), the group’s secretary general, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, said: “We ... expect our strategic partners in the United States to use their influence on Israel in order for it to stop this behaviour ... They have leverage and influence on Israel, and it’s about time that this leverage and influence be used.”
The attack killed five Hamas officials and was denounced on Monday by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani as “a cowardly and treacherous attack on Qatar’s sovereignty”.
He said: “Israel claims that it’s a democracy surrounded by enemies when it’s in fact a colonial occupation carrying out crimes without limit.”
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[ Analysis: Israel’s Doha debacle risks worsening situation of hostages in GazaOpens in new window ]
In a statement at the end of the summit, the GCC said their unified military command will be instructed “to take the necessary executive measures to activate joint defence mechanisms and Gulf deterrent capabilities”.
An assessment will be made of the “Council’s defence posture and sources of threat in light of the aggression against Qatar,” the statement read without providing further details.
GCC’s defence ministers meet regularly, but the Joint Defence Council has only been activated in this way twice before: in 1991 against Iraq and again in 2011 during the Arab Spring.
The main statement from the emergency summit rallied Arab and Muslim leaders in support of Qatar, but always risked being stronger on rhetorical condemnation of Israel than practical actions, and the leaders held back from any immediate economic or political reprisals against Israel such as suspension of the Abraham accords, the 2020 agreement that saw five Arab states including the United Arab Emirates normalise their relations with Israel.
The absence of any specific reprisals in the joint statement will come as a relief to the US which has been trying to prevent a total collapse in Arab-Israeli relations, or even an escalation of the conflict. But the discussion due to be held by the GCC unified defence command could see some Arab voices calling for states in the region to end their dependence on the US as a security blanket. – Guardian
