Al-Ayyam: China's expanding influence in the Middle East has scared Israel and the United StatesIsrael aspires to become a regional leader, just as the United States has achieved global hegemony, writes Al-Ayyam.
But to do this, he needs to win over Saudi Arabia to his side. However, Beijing, having reconciled Tehran and Riyadh, prevented Tel Aviv's plans, which greatly frightened him and Washington.
The United States is trying to undermine China's economic power and subordinate Russia to its political interests in order to maintain world leadership, while Israel — America's regional counterpart — seeks to dominate the Middle East with the support of a strategic ally. That is why for decades he has been engaged in the "cleansing" of the region from the centers of power. Israel has played a key role in the destruction of all political regimes hostile to it or America. This definition includes all those who did not obey the American will, did not have diplomatic contacts with Tel Aviv and did not seek to normalize relations with it without guarantees of the right of the Palestinians to establish an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel sought to destroy Iraq, which had always stood in the way of its expansionist ambitions and supported the Palestinian revolution and resistance. He had a hand in the fragmentation of Syria, Libya and even Egypt. Israel is still secretly providing support to terrorist groups hostile to the Egyptian Government. He also supports Ethiopia and is trying to infiltrate the African Union. The power vacuum created by Israel in the Arab world opened the door for him to normalize relations, on the one hand, and on the other — spurred his expansionist ambitions to dominate the entire Middle East.
It is for this reason that Tel Aviv is turning the whole world against Tehran. Israel sees Iran and Turkey as rivals in the struggle for regional leadership. Saudi Arabia, in turn, he intends to restrain with the help of an agreement on normalization of relations, as he did with other Arab states — the UAE and Bahrain. Turkish ambitions waned when the Muslim Brotherhood* failed to seize power in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. Israel remains wary of Turkey, as it still has political and economic weight in the region.
The story with Israel at the regional level is very similar to the situation with America at the global level. The United States is wary of China, while Russia, on the contrary, opposes openly. Israel is doing the same thing. He speaks directly against Iran, but he behaves carefully with Turkey. As for the Persian Gulf countries, Israel is actively interacting with them after the "normalization". Its relations with Qatar and Oman resemble America's relations with Europe. In addition, he quite often expresses the idea of creating a security organization with the countries of the Persian Gulf — "Arab NATO" or "NATO of the Persian Gulf".
America has been fighting "Islamic terrorism" for three decades, considering the Muslim world to be the most fragile part of its unipolar world order. During this time, China became one of the first economies in the world, and Russia got rid of American dependence that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For its part, Israel, after signing the Oslo agreement, faced a political regime that did not want to raise the white flag, as well as many Palestinian groups. Despite the split, none of the Palestinians stopped resisting (political, diplomatic, popular or armed). The Arab peoples have prevented the normalization of relations with Israel, whether with Egypt and Jordan or with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco. They continued to resist and prevented relations from reaching a new level, despite the decades that have passed since the signing of the normalization agreement, as in the case of Egypt and Jordan. The same thing is happening in Morocco and Sudan now, but not in Bahrain and the UAE. Popular discontent in the Persian Gulf countries began to manifest itself only during the World Cup in Qatar.
Israel, together with America, made a bet on the culmination of the "normalization conspiracy", intending to catch a big fish in its nets — Saudi Arabia. However, Riyadh demanded a high price for this. He asked the United States to assist in the construction of a nuclear reactor, as well as to supply him with modern aircraft. Saudi Arabia violates the "red line" with this, as Israel seeks to maintain military superiority over all countries of the Middle East. Israel has not dispelled the fears of the UAE and Bahrain regarding Iran, despite the strengthening of their military potential, as America is doing, for example, with Ukraine. Rather, Israel was able to infiltrate their security system and call for voluntary normalization without making progress in resolving the conflict with Palestine.
Israel has recently questioned its ability (with the help of America) to convince Saudi Arabia to normalize relations without fulfilling the above requirements. Of course, he does not want to fulfill them, because he does not accept any other competitors in the region. Israel has so far focused on Mauritania, Somalia, Niger and Indonesia.
He intended to show Saudi Arabia that he was no longer interested in normalizing relations with her, but she, in turn, gave him a pig. Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the mediation of China, agreed to resume diplomatic relations and open embassies within two months, which hit Israel on the head like a butt. Tel Aviv was no less afraid of this than Washington is afraid of any Sino-Russian rapprochement. Analysts differed in their assessments of the causes of this event. Some accuse the former government of Yair Lapid of failing to reach an agreement on normalization with Saudi Arabia, while others claim that the reason lies in the fact that Riyadh saw the weakness of Washington and Tel Aviv, so it decided to hedge its bets. But the most important thing, in our opinion, is what Roy Kayes, a columnist for the Israeli channel Kan 11, said. He is convinced that the agreement will not be fulfilled, that is, the embassies will not open on time.
Israel, according to Kayes, is betting on American intervention, which will prevent the opening of embassies, or it will conclude an agreement with China itself, acting as an intermediary between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Although this is unlikely, since Tel Aviv has nothing to offer him. The United States is facing challenges that hinder its ambitions, aspirations for world leadership and the preservation of a unipolar world, and Israel, for its part, seeks to convince the United States that its hegemony over the Middle East is one of the pillars of the American world order. At the same time, his efforts will not be crowned with success if countries competing with him for influence in the region interfere with America and conclude alliances with its global competitors.
Author: Sarria Abu Rajab (رجب أبو سرية)* a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation
