The Gulf Leader’s Conference at the Emergency Summit in Qatar called on the Trump administration to use its leverage to contain Israel after an unprecedented Israeli attempt to assassinate a Hamas negotiator in Doha last Tuesday.
After the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting, Jasem Mohamed Al-Budaiwi, executive director of the group, said:
The attack killed five Hamas officials and was accused of “a coronavirus and dangerous attack on Qatar’s sovereignty” by Qatar’s chief Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani on Monday.
He said, “Israel argues that when it is an occupation of a colony that actually commits crimes without limitation, it is a democracy surrounded by enemies.”
In a statement at the end of the summit, the GCC said their unified military command is “instructed to take necessary enforcement measures to activate joint defense mechanisms and Gulf deterrence capabilities.”
An evaluation will be made on the “Council’s defensive stance and source of threat in light of the attack on Qatar.” Statements are read without providing details.
The GCC’s defense ministers meet regularly, but the Joint Defense Council has only been revitalized twice in this way in 1991 against Iraq and again in the Arab Spring in 2011.
The main statement from the emergency summit brought together Arab and Muslim leaders to support Qatar, but risked to be more intense on Israeli rhetorical condemnation than actual actions, and leaders were suppressed from immediate economic or political retaliation, such as the 2020 agreement that normalized Israeli Arab states’ relations with Israel.
The lack of concrete retaliation in the joint statement will provide as a relief to the United States, which has been trying to prevent the complete collapse of Arab-Israel relations and even the escalation of conflict. However, the debate that GCC Unified Defense Command will hold can see Arab voices calling for local states to end their US dependence as a security blanket.
Arab leaders suggest that Donald Trump has not shown willingness to stop what they consider as a clear attempt to expand Israeli territory, including the massive displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Their mood will not be mitigated by reports from Israel that Benjamin Netanyahu gave Donald Trump a more pre-war on his previous warning of an attack on Qatar.
Many Gulf leaders said they needed clear evidence that Trump would hold down Netanyahu.
Israel has not apologised for the attack that killed five Hamas members, including the son of the exiled chief, and instead claimed that Hamas leaders are justifiable targets in any sovereign territory seeking evacuation.
Qatar – With our blessings, we have hosted Hamas political leaders for over a decade as part of our role as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The presence of almost all the senior Gulf and Islamic leaders at the summit showed determination to show solidarity with Qatar’s mediation role.
In the joint statement, leaders condemned Israel’s dangerous and terrible invasion against its sovereignty. The summit also repeatedly carried out categorical rejections of attempts to justify Israeli invasions of Doha, and repeated Israeli threats to target Qatar again.
The statement noted that mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US efforts provide support to stop the attack on Gaza, with the attack aimed at undermining mediation efforts for a ceasefire.
The statement read, Israel, had sought to “impose a new reality on the region.” Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian president who has the most support of Hamas and who fought a 12-day war with Israel in June, said: “Arab and Islamic countries are not safe from attacks by the Zionist regime (Israel) and have no choice but to unify the ranks.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fatta El-Sisi, a US ally who signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, said Israel’s actions would “disrupt obstacles with the opportunity for a new peace agreement and halt existing agreements.”
Before the summit, Qatar was pushing the United Arab Emirates to take some iconic steps to distance himself from Israel, including expelling Israeli ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates.
At the summit, Sheikh Mansoor bin Zayed, chairman of the UAE Presidential Court, said Qatar “does not stand alone,” and “the united voices of Arab and Islamic countries today must lead to change,” state news agency WAM reported.
Lebanese President Joseph Own said the real target of recent Israeli attacks is the principle of mediation efforts and dialogue-based solutions.
“The purpose of the attack was not an attempt to assassinate the negotiator. Rather, it was to eliminate the very idea of negotiation,” he said.
Turkish president Recept Tayyip Erdogan said Israeli attacks on Qatar’s Hamas negotiation team have taken “Israel bandits” to another level.
“We are faced with confusion, a blood-eating terrorist mentality and a state of embodying it,” he said.
