Watan-In a surprising statement that sparked wide controversy during an interview with the Yemeni channel “Al-Mahriya,” the well-known Saudi activist Omar Abdulaziz Al-Zahrani claimed that there are Arab countries secretly participating with Israel in its aggression on Gaza.
Omar Al-Zahrani, a member of the opposition Saudi National Assembly, stated in his intervention that Israel “does not want to remain alone in its massacres and continuous violations in the Gaza Strip.”
He claimed, “Israel wants more than one country to participate with it, and it even desires Arab and Gulf countries to participate in the aggression on Gaza. Some of them participate secretly, but it wants them to come out openly.
عمر الزهراني: دول #عربية تشارك سراً في العدوان على #غزة pic.twitter.com/OBcPHyO824
— قناة المهرية الفضائية (@AlmahriahTV) January 4, 2024
The Saudi activist pointed out that Israeli operations have been more intense in the past months, and the massacres continue, along with ongoing violations, although not at the same intensity.
He attributed this to the pressures faced by the occupation in the Red Sea, which hastened the approval of some aid and necessities to enter the Gaza Strip, fearing escalation.
Hezbollah and the war on Gaza
Regarding Hezbollah and the war on Gaza, and whether Israel seeks to drag the Lebanese Hezbollah into a comprehensive battle in the region, Al-Zahrani stated that the intention behind the assassination of the Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Saleh al-Arouri, on January 2, 2024, in the southern suburb of Beirut, is not specifically targeting Hezbollah. Instead, the goal is to strike at all the leaders associated with Hamas.
He explained that this is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes actions and pushes for retaliatory operations against the leaders of the resistance abroad, whether in Qatar, which plays a mediating role, or in Turkey, which hosts some leaders of the resistance. He also pointed out that Turkish government sources announced the arrest of a group of cells linked to Israeli intelligence planning assassinations.
عمر الزهراني: #صنعاء صار لها قوة ردع ولا مجال للتشكيك بعمليات البحر الأحمر @oamaz7 pic.twitter.com/Jz4SfErV4c
— قناة المهرية الفضائية (@AlmahriahTV) January 4, 2024
Amr Adib and wishing for the bombing of Qatar
The Saudi opposition activist commented on the tweet by the Saudi-Egyptian TV presenter Amr Adib, where Adib expressed a wish for the bombing of Qatar. Al-Zahrani hinted that he posed a question whose content was not explicitly mentioned: “Will we see such an action in Qatar?” He commented on this by saying, “Governments actively seeking to implement the Israeli agenda, whether secretly or openly, must be confronted. You can confront Israel when it is an apparent enemy, but you cannot do so when it hides under an Arab or Gulf disguise.”
Regarding the perspective of some Arab countries on the necessity of political solutions to the crisis in Gaza, Al-Zahrani mentioned that Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and many other Arab countries have collaborated with the occupation, and it continues to build new settlements and colonies in the West Bank and elsewhere.
He continued by stating that violations persist at Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the UAE Ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al-Otaiba, said that this matter is beyond our control. Al-Zahrani added, “All attempts at rapprochement with the occupation have not stopped it or forced it to retract from any operations or violations against the Palestinians. Even Israel, particularly under the leadership of Netanyahu’s government, rejects unequivocally what the United States and major powers used to talk about as the two-state solution and says, ‘We do not believe in peace,’ and there is nothing called Palestine.”
Analysts emphasized that the official Arab regimes are not expected to send armies to fight in Gaza. Instead, what is required of them is to take a unified Arab stance to rescue the people from the humanitarian tragedy related to the siege and killing of an isolated population.
They attributed what they referred to as the official Arab position’s reluctance to support Palestinians being killed by the occupation in the besieged Gaza Strip to the connection of most ruling regimes with dominant forces, especially the United States and its ally Israel.