Israel, Saudi, UAE Team Up In Anti-Qatar
Lobbying Move
US legislation threatening Qatar for Hamas
support is tied to donations from UAE, Saudi,
and Israel lobbyists.
By Creede Newton
June
12, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Washington, DC - US legislation threatening
to sanction Qatar for its support of
"Palestinian terror" was sponsored by 10
legislators who received more than $1m over the
last 18 months from lobbyists and groups linked
to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab
Emirates.
The bill was introduced to the US House of
Representatives on May 25, but the text wasn't
available until Friday morning, hours after
Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt put 59 people and
12 institutions linked to Qatar on a "terror
list".
The
nations abruptly ended diplomatic relations with
Qatar on Monday, accusing Doha of supporting
"extremism" and siding with their regional rival
Iran.
"Hamas
has received significant financial and military
support from Qatar," the
Palestinian International Terrorism Support
Prevention Act of 2017,
also known as HR 2712, said. It went on to list
sanctions including an end of exports of defence
technologies, arms, and loans or financing
totalling more than $10m.
For Trita Parsi, author and founder of the
National Iranian American Council (NIAC),
a nonprofit that aims to strengthen the voice of
US citizens of Iranian descent, the similarities
between the US-allied Arab nations' "terror
list" and HR 2712 show growing cooperation
between Gulf Arab states and Israel.
"The
coordination between hawkish pro-Israel groups
and UAE and Saudi Arabia has been going on for
quite some time," Parsi told Al Jazeera. What is
new, he continued, is pro-Israel groups such as
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
"coming out with pro-Saudi [articles] and
lobbying for them on Capitol Hill".
Israel,
Egypt and Saudi
Arabia all view the
Muslim Brotherhood,
an Islamist political group, as a threat.
Deposed Egyptian President
Mohammed Morsi
belonged to the group, which endured a
heavy-handed crackdown in Egypt since a military
coup installed
Abdel Fatah el-Sisi
as president in 2014.
The Brotherhood was the ideological base for
Hamas, the
Islamist rulers of the besieged
Gaza Strip that
have fought three wars with the Israelis. The
Saudis demand that Qatar stop supporting the
Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in a move that
aligns with Egyptian and Israeli policy.
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Israel's influence on US policymakers is clear.
HR 2712's sponsors received donations totalling
$1,009,796 from pro-Israel individuals and
groups for the 2016 election cycle alone,
according to data collected by the
Center for Responsive Politics,
an independent research group tracking money in
US politics and its effect on elections and
public policy, and then compiled by Al Jazeera.
"They're not traditional pro-Saudi legislators.
They're in the pro-Likud camp," Parsi said,
referring to the party of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
The
bill has bipartisan sponsorship. Five of the
legislators come from the House Committee on
Foreign Relations (HCFR), including sponsor
Brian Mast, a first-term Republican congressman
from Florida, and Ed Royce and Eliot Engel, the
ranking Republican and Democrat of the HCFR,
respectively.
Royce
received $242,143 from pro-Israel sources for
the 2016 election cycle, $190,150 went to Engel.
Mast, who volunteered with the Israeli military
after he finished serving in the US Army,
received $90,178.
Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, received
$150,300 in 2016, pushing her 27-year career
total of pro-Israel dollars to more than $1m.
In contrast with the $1 million donated by
pro-Israel entities in 2016, HR 2712's sponsors
received roughly $25,700 in donations by
pro-Saudi and UAE lobbying groups over the last
18 months, according to filings with the US
Department of Justice made public under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act
(FARA).
The act
requires that lobbyists track and submit
donations and contacts between themselves and
legislators when working for foreign
governments.
Al Jazeera's investigation covered 10 firms
associated with Saudi and Emirati lobbying
efforts. However, these are not exhaustive. Both
Gulf nations have rapidly expanded their
lobbying in
recent years and could include further donations
from individuals.
FARA
filings also document frequent emails and
meetings between the 10 legislators and Saudi-UAE
lobbyists, as well as calls to major
media outlets
concerning news coverage of major events.
Texas Republican Ted Poe, who
said in a release
he was proud to support HR 2712 because it "will
make countries like Qatar, Iran, and others pay
a price for their support for terrorism" was the
only legislator who does not have a record of
any donations from lobbyists linked to Israel,
Saudi or UAE.
Al
Jazeera's requests for comment from several
sponsors, including Brian Mast and the HCFR,
were not immediately answered.
Regarding the increased collaboration between
the Gulf nations and Israel, which recently
entered its
50th year of occupying Palestine,
Parsi said even though there are disagreements
they share a common goal.
"To use
the opportunity they have with the Trump
administration to restore an order in the region
that is appealing to them - an order based on
Iran's isolation and the re-prioritisation of
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel," he said.
The previous Obama administration shook the
status quo of the
Middle East by
making the landmark nuclear deal with
Iran that eased
sanctions and allowed for the Shia regional
power to continue researching nuclear power. The
agreement was based on an end to Iran's efforts
to develop nuclear weapons, and it has complied
with the terms such as intermittent inspections
by international agencies.
Obama famously
said the Saudis
need to find "an effective way to share the
neighbourhood and institute some sort of cold
peace" with the Iranians.
"But then Obama okayed billion-dollar arms deals
to assure Gulf partners he wasn't entirely
pivoting towards Iran," William Hartung,
director of the Arms and Security Project at the
Center for International Policy,
a think-tank in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera.
Now, Trump has adopted an "all-in" approach to
Saudi relations, including a controversial
$110bn arms deal regardless of
human rights
concerns surrounding
the use of
these weapons in the ongoing
Yemen
conflict.
Arms
sales have long acted as a means of influencing
US policy. "There was always a sort of tacit
quid pro quo," Hartung continued. The Saudis
would buy US weapons and receive the
superpower's protection, the arms expert
explained.
Israel has historically raised concerns about
arms deals with Gulf Arab states, who last
fought a war in 1973. But the Israeli leadership
has "kept quiet" about the
$110bn arms deal
with Saudi Arabia inked by the Trump
administration because "there was a shift from
viewing the Saudis as a potential adversary",
Hartung said, because Iran is a common enemy.
"In the
old days, there was a pro-Israel block in
Congress … that would have been very sceptical
and possibly pushed for votes against arms sales
to Saudi Arabia. That hasn't happened in a long
time," he said.
The
geographic and corresponding congressional
realignment will continue, Parsi predicted, and
pressure on Qatar will remain.
The
small Gulf country "is a problem because it is
independent and doesn't share Saudi Arabia's
obsession with Iran", he said.
For its part, Qatar
has vowed to
retain its independence.
Source -
Al Jazeera
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
See
also
Iraq says it still has
Qatari money sent to free ruling family members:
Press reports had suggested some of the money
had ended up in Iran, angering Saudi Arabia and
the other Gulf Arab neighbors of Qatar and
contributing to their decision to severe ties
with Doha.
