How to Lose Friends and Influence—and Enable Terror—in the Middle East

[Valin]

PJ Media:

Obama’s gang slams Israel, abandons Egypt.

P. David Hornik

Nov. 3 2014

 

The other day a 17-year-old Palestinian (or according to some reports, 14-year-old) named Orwa Hammad stood poised to throw a Molotov cocktail at Israeli cars near Ramallah. Fortunately, Israeli troops posted nearby shot him dead. The purpose of Molotov cocktails is to burn victims to death.

 

 

Among other cases, it happened in 1988 when a Molotov cocktail thrown by Palestinians at an Israeli bus in the Jordan Valley burned an Israeli woman, her three children, and a soldier who tried to save them to death.

 

 

In this case the Palestinian, Hammad, was a U.S. citizen whose father lives in the U.S. In response to the incident,

 

 

 

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US “expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a US citizen minor who was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces.”

 

Calling for “a speedy and transparent investigation,” Psaki said officials from the US consulate in Jerusalem were in touch with the family of the slain youth.

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But while U.S.-Israeli strategic ties remain strong and the alliance will survive the Obama era, the same cannot be said about U.S. ties with another Middle Eastern ally—or former ally—Egypt. In the summer of 2013, Egyptian general (now president) Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, backed by the largest popular protest in world history, overthrew the short-lived, Obama-backed Muslim Brotherhood regime. The administration has been embargoing arms to Egypt ever since.

 

That comes at a time when—as described by Zvi Mazel, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt and expert on its affairs—Egypt is under jihadist siege. Last weekend an attack near its border with the Gaza Strip killed 30 of its soldiers. The situation is serious, with, as Mazel puts it, “Islamic terror trying to destroy Egypt as it has destroyed Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.”

 

Along with Egypt’s now terror-infested Sinai Peninsula, Mazel reports that dozens of Egyptian soldiers have been killed recently by jihadists infiltrating from Libya. That was the country where an odious but no-longer-belligerent leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was bombed out of power by the Obama administration and its European allies—leaving a jihadist maelstrom in his wake.

 

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[Valin]

Egypt, Gulf Arab allies eye anti-militant alliance

HAMZA HENDAWI

Nov. 3, 2014

 

CAIRO (AP) Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussing the creation of a military pact to take on Islamic militants, with the possibility of a joint force to intervene around the Middle East, The Associated Press has learned.

 

The alliance would also serve as a show of strength to counterbalance their traditional rival, Shiite-dominated, Iran. Two countries are seen as potential theaters for the alliance to act, senior Egyptian military officials said: Libya, where Islamic militants have taken over several cities, and Yemen, where Shiite rebels suspected of links to Iran have seized control of the capital.

 

The discussions reflect a new assertiveness among the Middle East's Sunni powerhouses, whose governments after three years of post-Arab Spring turmoil in the region have increasingly come to see Sunni Islamic militants and Islamist political movements as a threat.

 

The U.S. Arab allies' consideration of a joint force illustrates a desire to go beyond the international coalition that the United States has put together to wage an air campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have participated in those strikes in Syria. The officials said the alliance under consideration was not intended to intervene in Iraq or Syria but to act separately to address other extremist hot spots.

 

Three Egyptian military officials discussed details of the talks and a fourth confirmed their comments.

 

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