Ayoon Wa Azan (Terror and exposed lies)

Benjamin Netanyahu told President Barack Obama, “Don’t believe Iran. It’s the biggest liar in the world (and lying is the least of the Israeli war criminal prime minister’s crimes)", as he warned the US president against believing Iranian President Hassan Rohani. I am not a gambler by any means, especially when it comes to my work. Perhaps one day I will meet the same fate as al-Jahiz, buried in an avalanche of documents and sources for my articles that I keep in my office. Nonetheless, I gambled last Tuesday, several hours before the speech by Netanyahu at the United Nations General Assembly. I wrote a commentary about the speech, because I was sure that I knew what he was going to say (the article was published in Wednesday’s edition of Al-Hayat). And so, the prime minister of an entirely terrorist state, based on occupying the land of Palestine, and possessing a confirmed nuclear arsenal, said he wanted to destroy the nuclear program of another country, which does not have nuclear weapons. After his speech, Netanyahu remained in the United States for several days to drum up support for his stance. He had a favorable reception in Congress, where there are members bought by the Israeli lobby. I noticed that among those who welcomed Netanyahu was Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Jewish émigré from Cuba, who heads the sub-committee on the Middle East and North Africa. To me, she represents Israel in Congress, even when the prime minister of that country is an extremist war criminal of the likes of Netanyahu. Everyone welcomed the new ambassador of Israel to the US, Ron Prosor, another American who emigrated to Israel. He’s originally from Miami Beach in Florida, which is represented by Ros-Lehtinen. If Netanyahu is not a liar, he has a lot of nerve. He accused Iran of supporting terror on the day they found Mojtaba Ahmadi, responsible for cyber warfare, dead in a wooded area near Tehran. I am not accusing Israel of killing him, as I await the report by investigators. However, Israel has killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007, and many other people around the world. Thus, the prime minister of state that has engaged in terror since it was established accuses another country of terror. I should pause here and note that I have a thousand objections to Iranian policy, but they are based on reasons having to do with the Arab world. I hoped that Rohani’s efforts to improve relations with the US would have been matched by efforts to improve his country’s ties with Gulf states and eliminate reasons for tension. He would have benefited, and benefited others, if he had managed to convince Hezbollah to withdraw from the civil war in Syria, to remain strong against Israel. I propose that Iranian efforts begin in the Gulf with the UAE; it truly has reasons to complain about how Iran deals with it, especially during the days of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I say this because the Israel lobby, the Likud in the US, the neoconservatives, and other members of the cabal of evil and warmongering have promoted the idea that the Gulf states are in the same trench with Israel, against Iran. Unlike them, I know King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz of Saudi Arabia, and I know that it is a sheer impossibility for him to agree with Israel on anything. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, has taken clear stances on the issue, while the country’s address to the UN General Assembly was not delivered this year to protest the absence of a political plan for Syria, and the focus on that country’s chemical weapons. In the UAE, the sons of the late Sheikh Zayed will not abandon their father’s legacy, and in Kuwait you have Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad, a friend of mine for 40 years, and a true pan-Arabist, despite the actions of Saddam Hussein. I have also known the king of Bahrain, Hamad bin Issa, for decades, and Sultan Qabous of Oman since 1975 (Sheikh Tammim bin Hamad in Qatar is new in power). These leaders will never accept any cooperation with Israel against Iran, and time will tell if I am right. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arab Today.