Egyptian-Israeli-Saudi Alliance Deepens

One little-noticed consequence of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza is that prominent Islamic nations in the region are abandoning Hamas’ cause and tilting toward Israel. This trend is becoming more pronounced.

But first, the 72-hour cease-fire between Hamas and Israel is over and the Hamas-Israeli conflict has again become active (first link). Personally, it seems to me that while Hamas still has rockets to fire at Israel, the Israelis may be running short of meaningful targets to attack in Gaza. Israel appears to have destroyed all of the Hamas tunnels into Israel and clobbered Hamas’ rocket inventories and many of its launching sites. At this point, the Israelis have got to be concerned about expending their inventory of Iron Dome missiles while the far-greater threat of rocket and missile attack from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon remains a real threat. Indeed, Hezbollah, may be counting how many times the Iron Dome system has fired its interceptor missiles at Hamas rockets. It is not impossible that Hezbollah could seize on the end of the Israeli-Hamas conflict as the best time to open fire at the Israelis, as their supply of Iron Dome interceptor missiles will be low.

The second link reports the remarkable news that the Saudi King gave a five-minute statement about the Hamas-Israeli conflict which was interpreted as a Saudi criticism of Hamas and was noteworthy in that it lacked any of the past knee-jerk condemnations of Israel that previous such conflicts had evoked. The lack of any Saudi criticism of Israel in the matter speaks volumes. The Saudi king further called Hamas “terrorists” and added that they were “distorting the image of Islam.”

The second link also notes that Egypt and Israel have become “tightly-cleaved military allies.” Not many media reports ever mention it, but Hamas is being blockaded by Egypt as well as Israel. Egypt is destroying Hamas’ tunnels between Egypt and Gaza just as Israel is doing the same thing to Hamas’ tunnels between Gaza and Israel (third link). While Israel has reportedly destroyed about 32 Hamas tunnels into Israel, the third link reports the Egyptians have destroyed an amazing 1,639 tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Egypt, quite logically, sees Hamas as its enemy. Hamas was an ideological ally of the Muslim Brotherhood which almost destroyed Egypt in their brief reign of terror over Egypt and which is now outlawed by the new Egyptian government. Hamas is also allied to the Islamic radicals who are attacking and killing Egyptian police and soldiers in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and who also target Egyptian buildings for terrorist attacks.

For several years, my posts have regularly expressed my expectation that Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan would become allies against Iran, based on the wisdom of the adage: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I think that all three of these Islamic nations have come to two common conclusions. The first is that Hamas and the Palestinians will be of no use whatsoever to them in any future war or confrontation with Iran, while the Israelis would be of crucial assistance as an ally. The second is that as long as the USA is led by President Obama, the USA cannot be trusted as an ally. Egypt harbors an understandable grievance toward the USA by the latter’s perceived support of the Muslim Brotherhood during the civil unrest in Egypt and Obama’s failure to support long-time American ally, Hosni Mubarak. The Saudis are reportedly angry about those same things as well as Obama’s failure to live up to his “red-line” commitment during the Syrian civil war.

Biblically, none of the modern nations descended from Abraham are named in the Ezekiel 38:2-6 list of the members of the latter-day, Gog-Magog alliance. The Saudis and many other Arab nations are widely believed to be descended from Ishmael (last link), the son of Abraham and Hagar (a belief I share). Jordan is descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew (Genesis 11:27), and Amman, the capital city of Jordan, still bears the name of Ammon, a son of Lot (Genesis19:36-38). Egypt, a prominent regional power, is not mentioned as being in the Gog-Magog camp either. Since Egypt was always a major nation in the times when the books of the Bible were written, its omission from the Ezekiel 38:2-6 list is particularly noteworthy. Israel also needs new allies, as it cannot be sure of the USA’s support under Obama either. Obama’s negative rant against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, caught on an open mike while Obama was speaking with former French leader Sarkhozy, will be remembered throughout Israel as long as Obama is president. Iran is Israel’s implacable enemy so Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt know that the Israelis will be a reliable ally against Shiite Persian Iran.

Egyptian-Israeli-Saudi Alliance Deepens

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