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Reporting in Middle East Eye, Victoria Alabaster offers this exchange between the ambassador and ex-felon, Elliot Abrams:
In a May 2017 email thread with former US diplomat Elliott Abrams, Otaiba wrote that conquering Qatar would “solve everyone’s problems. Literally. And King Abdullah of Saudi came pretty close to doing something in Qatar a few months before he passed” in January 2015.
Abrams, clearly surprised, replied: “I didn’t know that. Dramatic!”
“How hard could it be?” he asked, pointing out that the local Qatari population numbers around 250,000 to 300,000 people.
E-mail correspondence between Yousef Otaiba and Elliot Abrams
“Foreigners won’t interfere,” he added. “Promise the Indians a raise, promise the police a raise and who is going to fight to the death?” he wrote, presumably referring to Qatar’s high migrant population of South Asian workers.
Otaiba replied: “That was the conclusion. It would be an easy lift.”
“Obama would have hated it,” Abrams replied, “but the new guy …” he added, appearing to imply that current US President Donald Trump would support such a military takeover of Saudi Arabia’s Gulf neighbour.
“Exactly,” Otaiba replied.
Otaiba was originally responding to a suggestion from Abrams that Jordan should conquer Qatar.
“The Hashemites need to conquer Qatar,” Abrams wrote, as “that solves their cash problem and the problem of Qatari support for extremism.”
Abrams is the guilty party who conspired to mount that Palestinian coup I mentioned in the above paragraph. Its failure led to a decade-long split between Hamas and Fatah, which remains unhealed. In the e mails, Abrams chortles at the prospect of Saudi Arabia mounting a military coup against the Qatari regime. He suggests as an alternative that Jordan could do the job.
I’ve approached the Council on Foreign Relations, where Abrams is a Fellow, for comment. I will update if they respond. It would seem to me that one of their official Fellows advocating military assaults on sovereign nations, a violation of international law, might trouble them.
The interesting aspect of this suggestion is that the Israeli far-right regularly notes that not only is there no such thing as Palestine, but that Palestine is Jordan. In essence, they’re advocating ethnic cleansing of West Bank Palestinians and their absorption into Jordan proper. Given the recent unpleasantness between Israel and Jordan, in which an embassy Shin Bet agent murdered two Jordanians in cold blood, this option doesn’t seem particularly viable.
Silverstein has published Tikun Olam since 2003, It exposes the secrets of the Israeli national security state. He lives in Seattle, but his heart is in the east. He publishes regularly at Middle East Eye, the New Arab, and Jacobin Magazine. His work has also appeared in Al Jazeera English, The Nation, Truthout and other outlets.
Yes, the Hamas-Fatah fight is not referred back to much nowadays. To explain it comes out of the current frame, as it were: the complete objectification/demonisation of the Palestinians.
Something else: Letting Gaza go.
It was mighty expensive for Israel to keep it under direct thumb while keeping the boot on the face of W.B. Palestinians. WB costs them about $600m p.a. or something. The figures for settling the WB are staggering.
https://i24news.tv/en/news/israel/146915-170603-billions-spent-on-settlers-since-israel-captured-west-bank
Think I read somewhere that giving up Gaza was seen by the Israelis [we’re talking Sharon..] as a way of reducing the PLO/Fatah’s influence by giving Hamas an open door. Hamas didn’t suddenly appear from nowhere – after all they are Muslim Brotherhood. And it wasn’t just Hamas and Fatah fighting: it was Fatah refusing to hand over the reigns of the security apparatus to Hamas, after Hamas won the Gaza election.
Hamas gets elected even in the W.B. They are the ones many people take to, because they help the poor, as the Brotherhood do in Egypt, and unlike the PLO [which of course is an umbrella group of wide spectrum of groups including George Habash’s PFLP] as well as wanting to see the back of Israel are seen as un[in]corrupt. Though the security org in Gaza is ruthless and balks not opposition, and of course Hamas is not too keen on secularism.
Is there a therefore?
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