Arabs don’t all stand with Hamas

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Arab views on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Earlier this month, the New York Times ran an article citing a Hamas media advisor who said the following: “I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us.”

NICK EICHER, HOST: While Arab nations like Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have called on the United States to pressure Israel for a cease-fire in Gaza, they have largely stayed out of the conflict, apart from supplying humanitarian aid.

But so far, much of the Arab world is not standing with Hamas’s mission to create permanent war for Gaza.

REICHARD: On Saturday, the Crown Prince of Bahrain stepped out as the first Arab leader to take Hamas to task for its brutal attack.

CROWN PRINCE OF BAHRAIN: I condemn Hamas unequivocally. This is so everybody in the room can understand that I stand on the side of civilians and Innocents and not on the side of political posturing.

Is the Crown Prince alone in the Arab world, or the tip of an iceberg?

EICHER: Joining us now is Hussain Abdul-Hussain. He’s an Arab journalist and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Hussain, good morning.

HUSSAIN ABDUL-HUSSAIN: Morning.

EICHER: Well let’s start with the basics. Last Monday you published an article in Newsweek in which you say you can’t understand why the world can’t feel Israeli pain following Hamas’s attacks, only Palestinian pain. Why is that the case, do you think? And maybe that plays into the larger issue of why the Palestinian cause is so important in the Arab world.

HUSSAIN: Well, the main reason is that we have at least 1 billion Muslims, and at most we have 20 million Jews. And no matter who’s right and who’s wrong, the voice of 1 billion is always much louder than the voice of 20 million, even if the other side is right, and even if the other side is still hurting from the massacre that Hamas committed against 1200 Israelis. So this is a case where the Israelis were clearly on the defensive. They were clearly the victims, and yet you have the majority of the Arabs still blaming Israel for whatever we see unfolding today.

REICHARD: What are Arab nations in the Middle East saying about the conflict? Are they all on one page, or are there differences you’ve noticed, country to country?

HUSSAIN: On the surface it may seem that they are on the same page asking for a ceasefire, but if you look deeper you will see great differences. You have the bloc that includes Qatar, Turkey, to an extent Iran, and these guys when they call for a ceasefire, they want a ceasefire because they want to spare Hamas the bitter fate that Israel is going after this terrorist organization.

On the other hand, if you look at the moderate Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Jordan, these guys want a ceasefire because they believe that peace talks are the only alternative here, the only option and the only choice. So while both might be calling for a ceasefire, each one of them imagines what happens next differently. One wants it as a pitstop to more fighting, the other wants it as a full stop to have peace talks.

EICHER: Let’s talk a little more about Qatar, you brought that up. The New York Post recently ran a story about top Hamas leaders living in luxury in Qatar while the Palestinian people of Gaza suffer as the result of Hamas’s attacks on Israel. What do we know about the extent of Qatar’s support for Hamas…and what can Israel and its allies do to persuade Qatar to end that support?

HUSSAIN: Well, we know for a fact that the Hamas leadership is corrupt and is wealthy compared to the rest of Gazans, and the two main leaders of Hamas, Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh, they do live in Qatar, enjoying a lot of luxury. There was a leak showing that Ismail Haniyeh spent over $5,000 only going to spas and getting massages. So this is known even inside of the Gaza Strip itself. Gazans have often put out footage showing that the Hamas leadership inside the Strip lives in luxury, they drive luxury cars. In August there were protests, the Gazans took out to the streets to protest Hamas’s corruption. They were saying, “We’re hungry, we’re impoverished, and you’re just driving your luxury cars.” Now the point here is that Qatar has two faces. On one side, they are an ally of the United States. They host our air base in Al Udeid. On the other hand, they’re funding Hamas, they’re funding Al-Jazeera, which to me now sounds like a mouthpiece of Hamas that instigates violence not only against Israelis but against everything that’s Western at this point. What we can do is that we have a lot of leverage here in the United States. We can ask the Qataris to cut it out. We can just say, If you don’t stop funding, your people will face sanctions, or your banking system will face sanctions. And I’m sure at this point the Qataris will not be willing to sacrifice their own wealth and banking system and their own connection to the global financial system only to support a bunch of terrorists that are called Hamas.

REICHARD: A part of the current conflict comes down to whether Hamas really has a system of tunnels and command centers underground in Gaza. Since Israeli forces took control of the Al-Shifa hospital last week, the IDF has been releasing footage of what it found inside the hospital complex. Some mainstream media aren’t taking the Israelis’ word for it and are demanding more concrete evidence.

Are the Israelis providing enough evidence and the mainstream just doesn’t want to accept it, or is there more to the story?

HUSSAIN: Well, I think the Israelis have provided a lot of evidence that offers a strong case, and I think in this case, most of the Arab media just refuse to believe. Now, if we take the statements of Hamas officials themselves, they have talked about the tunnels that they are managing. Sometimes they use them to threaten Israel, to say that, “If you come into the Strip, you will not be able to beat us because we have the tunnels.” So this is not a secret. Everyone knows that the Hamas fighters are hiding in these tunnels. Now the point is that no matter what amount of evidence Israel offers, even footage of brutal acts of violence that Hamas committed against Israeli citizens, even this footage is sometimes not being taken as solid evidence. So I see bias in most of this. And I think if you get a neutral observer, they’ll absolutely believe the evidence that Israel is putting out. And thankfully, Washington at this point and this administration, they believe what Israel is putting out. 

EICHER: Hussain Abdul-Hussain is an Arab journalist and research fellow for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Thank you for your time.

HUSSAIN: Thank you.

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