Salafi Islamists And Gulf Leaders Agree: Iran Is More Dangerous Than Israel

-Analysis-

CAIRO — Last week the Salafi Call, an Egyptian Muslim Sunni movement, held an event in the Egyptian city of Alexandria entitled: “The Arab Region Between the Zionist Project and the Shia Project.”

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the event, but the conference’s title says it all. It reflects that the Salafi movement equates the Zionist and Shia projects as parallel threats to the Islamic nation.

This happens to also be a position close to the undeclared policy of the oil-rich Gulf states, specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which feel that the Iranian-Shia threat is even closer, larger and more urgent than the Zionist project of occupying Palestine and other Arab lands.

These positions of a significant segment of supporters of the Salafi movement — and the Sunni political Islamist movement in the Arab world — are everywhere on social media, and mirror the official position of the influential Gulf states. These two factors may indeed explain to some extent how the Zionist war against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples continues unabated despite the enormous death toll.

The Israelis are reassured that positions of the influential Arab states are limited to statements of public condemnation, and perhaps secret encouragement.

Can’t let Tehran win

All the groups leading the Resistance now in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq under the slogan of “Unity of Arenas” are directly supported and armed by Iran. Therefore, any victory of these movements to force Israel to stop fighting in Gaza without completely crushing Hamas and its leaders would be equated with a victory of Iran, the arch-rival of the wealthy Gulf states, and the growth of its role in the Middle East.

Eliminating the Houthis will represent the achievement they failed to obtain.

While supporters of the resistance to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist enemy may celebrate all its groups regardless of their ideology or doctrine, this point of view appears naive and unable to realize the extent of the danger posed by Iran, with its pursuit of regional hegemony and the spread of its Shia doctrine to the Gulf states and the Salafi movements.

For the Saudi regime, eliminating the Houthis, who are funded by Iran and trained by the Lebanese Hezbollah, will represent the achievement they failed to obtain through years-long war in Yemen, especially after the Houthis attacked Saudi and Emirati oil facilities.

​MBS and the Palestinians

With the newly released book, War, by U.S. journalist Bob Woodward, there has been lots of coverage of the profanity that U.S. President Joe Biden directed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet there has been little mention of the book’s reported conversation between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS.

During his visit to Saudi Arabia in January, about three months after the October 7 attack, Blinken asked MBS about his position on establishing a Palestinian state in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel and signing a security agreement with the United States.

The Crown Prince’s response, according to Woodward, was direct and frank. He pointed to his chest and said, “Do I want it? (The Palestinian state). It doesn’t make much difference to me. Do I need it? Absolutely.” According to Woodward, Blinken described MBS as “nothing more than a spoiled child.”

Therefore, Bin Salman fears for his personal fate if he proceeds with normalization with Israel without making tangible concessions to the Palestinians, recalling the fate of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Cairo to Tehran

In Egypt, the Salafi groups have been extreme compared to the Muslim Brotherhood, who adopted a pragmatic approach when late Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi visited Tehran and delivered a speech before the Iranian parliament.

The Salafis — like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states — consider the Shias as a greater threat to Islam than Zionism.

Of course, no one can forget the horrific scenes of hundreds of Egyptian villagers killing four Shias, including the preacher Hassan Shehata, dragging them through the street and mutilating their bodies just a week before the June 30, 2013 demonstrations that led to the overthrow of the Brotherhood.

These goals will not be achieved if the confrontation between Iran and the oil-rich Gulf states continues.

The balance of the Egyptian regime’s relationship with the Gulf states, which provide economic support, also represents an obstacle to developing Cairo’s relations with Tehran, even though Egypt is practically more qualified than any other country to reach binding understandings to end the tensions and the undeclared war between Iran and the Gulf states. Such tensions and the undeclared war between the two camps caused the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese on the altar of the Sunni-Shia dispute and fear of Iran.

Sunni Muslims in Egypt, regardless of the positions of the Salafis, are still inclined towards moderate religiosity and love the Prophet and his family. And our immediate interest is to end the Israeli genocide, which the world and the Arabs ignored, and to establish an independent Palestinian state.

These goals will certainly not be achieved if the confrontation between Iran and the oil-rich Gulf states continues, since the ones paying the price are the innocent people of Palestine and Lebanon.