The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. For those who prefer a audio podcast: At an emergency summit in Doha on Monday, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Arab nations condemned last week's Israeli bombing of Doha, where Hamas leaders were discussing the latest ceasefire proposal. James M. Dorsey, senior fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, discusses on TRT World the significance of the summit. Transcript [Adnan Nawaz] Let’s go to Singapore and speak to James Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Welcome to the programme, James. The Doha summit was previewed as possibly coming up with some concrete measures for those countries in attendance to place pressure on Israel. Where did they go wrong and what sort of tools do they have to be able to place that pressure, James? [James M. Dorsey] Good to be with you. I think what you've seen is expectations were far too high and unrealistic. There is only that much that Arab and Muslim states can do. I think that there are four things that came out of this summit. One, the palpable anger at particularly Israel was evident in the statement as well as in the speeches that various leaders gave at the conference. Second of all, I think that one thing you will see next week at the United Nations General Assembly is a move by at least some of the members of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation to suspend Israeli membership in the United Nations on the grounds that it has violated the charter. I think the second thing that you may see is Gulf and Arab and Muslim support by joining the South African case in the Islamic Court of Justice against Israel, in which South Africa accuses Israel of genocide. The third thing you're probably going to see is a greater move, particularly among the Gulf countries, towards integration of their air and missile defence capabilities. Now, that's something that the United States has long wanted the Gulf states to do. So that is not so much a measure against the US, but actually a reaching out to the United States in terms of trying to ensure that the US remains a reliable rather than an unreliable guarantor of regional security. [Adnan Nawaz] That's very interesting, James, because if there is some kind of future collective security arrangement for Middle Eastern nations, would that not actually diminish American influence? Because if they can't trust the Americans, with Donald Trump apparently having known in the morning before the Israeli jets bombed Doha, if they can't trust the Americans to keep them safe, they have to do something for themselves together. And yet there are countries who are part of the Abraham Accords who may not agree with that and still side with the US in terms of security arrangements. [James M. Dorsey] I think there are several issues here. One is your last point, which is clear that those countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel, particularly the five Arab countries—the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan—at this point are not going to tinker with those relations. I think that's been very clear, and it's one reason why there's only a really mild reference to that in the final statement of the conference. The second issue is joint or enhanced defence cooperation does not necessarily reduce US influence. Keep in mind that the bulk or much of the weaponry that's going to be integrated in such a defence cooperation is US-made. And as the leaders were meeting, you had a joint military exercise led by the United States and Egypt, in which Gulf states and Jordan participated. So I'm not sure that enhanced regional cooperation necessarily leads to reduced US influence. More important is going to be that the United States will have to demonstrate that it is a reliable partner. That's not something the United States has demonstrated in recent years. [Adnan Nawaz] James, could you expand a bit about the effects of Israel's political isolation, which you referred to earlier, which Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted to? If it's only political isolation, is that something that Tel Aviv can handle? [James M. Dorsey] In fact, Netanyahu went much further than what your correspondent in Jerusalem accurately described. There was, in a conference yesterday attended by the largest US congressional delegation ever to visit Israel, Netanyahu basically said—acknowledged that Israel would be isolated, accepted that, said Israel would have to become a modern-day Sparta, the Greek state that fought against Athens in ancient times, and would have to become totally self-reliant. Now, the interesting point here is not only that is acceptance of that, but implicit in that is a rupture or a breaking with a cardinal principle of Israeli policy, which was you always ensure that the United States has your backing. An Israeli Sparta may no longer do that. The pain is going to be felt. There's no question about it. You saw yesterday Spain cancelling a $800 million military contract with Elbit Systems, one of Israel's largest military industries. You're seeing boycotts across the board by civil society, companies being much more cautious. And that's something Israelis are going to feel. And the question is, at what point do the Israelis feel that the price is getting too high? [Adnan Nawaz] Ancient Sparta was a violent place, James. Thank you very much indeed, James Dorsey. My pleasure. [James M. Dorsey] My pleasure Thank you for having me. |