DHAKA: Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia have come out belatedly against Israel’s attacks against Hamas in Gaza in response to rocket fire, as their antipathy to Hamas has been overshadowed, as of late, by anti-Israel rhetoric meant for the masses.

As the war against Hamas began, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE were uncharacteristically silent. The New York Times ran an article highlighting this point on July 30 titled, ‘Arab Leaders, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel, Stay Silent’.

But as the war has dragged on and casualties have mounted, with pictures of dead children plastered across the Arab media, it became difficult for the leaders of this bloc of countries to stay silent as the masses seethed in anger.

This bloc of status-quo powers is fighting to maintain their regimes’ stability against revolutionary Islamic regimes and terrorist groups, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood movement, its Palestinian version Hamas, the Islamic State or the Shia axis of Iran and Hezbollah, or its ally Syria – this bloc of states is coordinating and aiding each other in an alliance against them.

But as of late, this anti-revolutionary bloc has become jittery and has begun to lash out against Israel.

Jordan’s King Abdullah, in an interview with the country’s Al-Ghad newspaper on Sunday, criticized Israel harshly. And in what seems like a move to placate international public opinion, it was published in English on its US embassy website.

‘The pain and suffering that we have been witnessing and living through during this aggression, which has indiscriminately taken the lives of innocent people, refutes Israel’s claims that the war is justified,’ said Abdullah.

‘Israel is responsible for the aggression’ and ‘the international community must hold Israel accountable for what it has committed’, he said.

Justifying his country’s relative silence until this point, the king stated, ‘Jordan could have easily captured the headlines during the aggression, by issuing populist statements and slogans. Instead, we have been working diligently to end the Israeli offensive…’

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah broke his silence after three weeks of fighting in Gaza, condemning what he saw as international silence over Israel’s offensive, and describing it as a war crime and ‘state-sponsored terrorism’.

‘We see the blood of our brothers in Palestine shed in collective massacres that did not exclude anyone, and war crimes against humanity without scruples, humanity or morality,’ Abdullah said in a brief speech read out on his behalf on state television.

And Egypt’s foreign ministry said that the country’s border with Gaza at Rafah remains open, despite media reports claiming the border was closed with exceptions for humanitarian or aid transfers.

‘Since Israeli attacks commenced, Egypt has been adamant in keeping the Rafah crossing open continuously and exceptionally to allow for the passage of people and humanitarian aid convoys and to receive the wounded,’ said the ministry in a statement, Ahram Online reported on Sunday.

In fact, the ministry said, it is Israel that continues its ‘inhumane’ blockade on Gaza. The ministry demanded the blockade be lifted.

Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, who previously served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense and a senior director at the National Security Council, told The Jerusalem Post that ‘we are witnessing the solidification of an Egypt-Saudi-Jordanian bloc to counter not only the Muslim Brotherhood, but also Iran’.

‘This bloc has given Israel extraordinary latitude to fight Hamas,’ he said, adding that these governments ‘are threading a line between their strategic interest and popular Arab opinion, which supports the Palestinians’. 

‘After more than a month of conflict it is difficult for them to remain silent,’ noted Doran.

‘From the vantage point of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan what is at stake is the very continuation of their own rule,’ said Prof. Yoram Meital, chairman of the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

BDST: 2114 HRS, AUG 13, 2014