“An embarrassing movement that will have consequences”
As in the case of the status quo of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, senior Iranian foreign officials temporarily condemned Bahrain’s decision and described it as “disgraceful” and destructive to the Palestinian people.
“This shameful act of Bahrain,” the spokesman continued, “massacres Palestinian ideology and the struggle and suffering of Palestinians who have endured decades at the altar of American elections. To be sure, those oppressed by other peoples in search of the freedom of Palestine and Muslims seeking freedom from the global will never settle for relations with Israel’s usurped and rebel regime, and this shameful act will be remembered through the oppressed country of Palestine and the freedom-loving countries of the global. “
The spokesman warned of “an attack on the security of the region through the Zionist regime” and said that “the duty of such intervention rests on the shoulders of the Bahraini government. “
Hussein Amir-Abdollahian, adviser to the president of the Majlis, tweeted that “Bahrain will face difficult times” because of his resolve to make peace with Israel. “The Bahraini regime’s commitment to Israel is a wonderful betrayal of Islam. cause and the Palestinians. The reckless leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain will have to not pave the way for Zionist stratagems. They’ll find out about the story, tomorrow’s too late!The American lifeline has sold out for years,” he wrote.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said that in trying to widen the gap between the Bahraini government and the people of Bahrain, “the Bahraini government made a basic mistake in deciding who prefers to take refuge in the lap of the Jerusalem profession regime to obtain the legitimacy of its people “and” sacrifice the ideal of the Palestinian noblewoman in America’s internal elections. “
GRI: Bahrain’s Shiites will allow normalization with Israel
The IRGC Office of Foreign Affairs issued belicosity on its online page calling for the uprising and citizen protests in Bahrain. The IRGC Quds Force, true to its intentions, will impose the execution of such demonstrations, adding violent expressions and attacks through its terrorist agents.
“Bahrain’s execution leader deserves to be expecting serious revenge from the Wijahideen [Islamic fighters] to free Quds [Jerusalem] and the proud Muslim country of that country,” he said. He went on to state that “the shameful move of [King De Bahrain Hamad bin Isa] Al Khalifa and the regime dependent on [puppet] leading Bahrain in building relations with the Zionist regime opposed to the wishes and ideals of the Muslim country of this country is an idiocy devoid of all legitimacy, and will get adequate answers. »
Elsewhere, he says: “The domino effect of the normalization of relations with the Zionist regime, which passes through the leaders of some Arab countries and the engineering of the hated and reckless president of the United States and the American president, follows his imposition of humiliation on Muslims. plundering their resources and riches.
Arguing that the purpose of the United States and the Gulf is to make the Palestinian territories for Israel, the IRGC said this allocation will never take place and, on the contrary, will give Muslim nations a more powerful determination to “eliminate cancerous tumors, Israel. “
He warns “Al Khalifa and other arrogant traitors to bahrain’s regime oppose opening the door to the Zionist regime’s access and influence in the strategic dominance of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. “He goes on to say that those who help the United States and the “Zionist regime” will be the target of the “sacred anger and ardent vengeance” of the Islamic nation, and in particular “the Shiite citizens of Bahrain, who hold the banner of Imam Hussein bin Ali [a symbol of Shia martyrdom]. “
Press TV, iran’s English-language propaganda channel and al-Alem TV, which broadcasts to an Arab target audience, echoed calls opposed to the agreement, i. e. citizens protesting in Bahrain. “The agreement is a betrayal” and “Bahrain opposes standardization” have made headlines. Kayhan newspaper editorial said: “It is all too clear that the pirate regime occupying the island state of Bahrain’s Persian Gulf has signed its own death sentence through links with the illegal Zionist entity. “
Bahrain’s largest Shiite opposition party, the Al-Wefaq National Islamic National National Islamic Society (Jam’yat al-Wa-Wa-aq al-Wa-Wa-a-al-Isl-m-yah) or the “Block of Believers,” acted in the spirit of its boss, Iran, and called the government’s appointments to the “Zionist enemy” (Israel) a “crime. “The party said the agreement was illegal and that Bahrain’s leaders did not have the strength to make such a decision, which it called a “betrayal of Islam and Arabism, a deflection of the broader Arab and Islamic consensus, and prejudice towards the Palestinian people. “
Saraya Wa’ad Allah (The Promise of Allaah), an Iran-backed army wing of Bahrain’s Shiite opposition group, the first to officially respond to the peace agreement. “This false normalization is nothing more than an update of the activation of this cancerous tumor under the [Islamic] Ummah, and is rejected for reason, Sharia law and the people,” he said in a statement. On 16 September, Saraya Wa’ad Allah announced the creation of Saraya Suhada al-Quds (martyrs of Jerusalem) to combat “the Zionist presence in Bahrain”.
Bahrain, 14th province of Iran
Iran asserts sovereignty over Bahrain and produces old references from time to time. Bahrain was under Persian rule from 1602 to 1783, after a Portuguese occupation of 80 years. In 1799, Khalifa’s space moved to Bahrain from Qatar and maintained a protectorate prestige for the British. After the last 1960s, Britain withdrew its forces from the Gulf and Iran renewed its claims of sovereignty over the island.
However, in a referendum in 1970, the other people of Bahrain had to move between independence and accession to Iran. They chose independence. The Iranian Shah stopped raising the issue, but after the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979, Tehran put it on the calendar from time to time. In a dispute with the United Arab Emirates, Iran also claimed sovereignty over 3 islands (Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb) near the strategic Strait of Ormuz.
Iranian officials continue to argue that until independence, Bahrain, Iran’s 14th province and is even represented in the Iranian Majlis. They also strongly criticize the Shah’s “shameful” resolve to renounce it. For example, Hossein Shariatmadari, Editor-in-Chief of Kayhan and close collaborator of the Iranian leader, said in July 2007: “The governments of the Gulf states were created as a result of direct interference from the global condescension [western powers] Array . . . and have been accused through their other people of participating with the entityArray Zionists. They know very well that the earthquake that shook Iran [the Islamic revolution] would lead [sooner or later] to the collapse of its illegal regimes.
He said it was not his non-public opinion, but that of the Iranian and Bahraini people.
These statements, which have undermined Bahrain’s Arab identity, independence and sovereignty, are rare and fuel Bahrain’s considerations of Iran’s continued subversion and repeated attempts to overthrow the monarchy.
For Iran, Bahrain is a charged problem and, over the years, has tried to incite the Shia majority to speak out against the Sunni regime. Shiite protests in the kingdom. Shia majority (70%) calls from time to time and with different intensity to challenge the Sunni royal family.
The normalization of relations with Israel is still a sign of the profound transformation that is reshaping the political and social landscape of the Middle East and redefining the region’s relations with the United States and Israel, especially under the shadow of Iran through Sunnis and Arabs. Neckline.
Iran turns Arab Spring into an Islamic awakening
With the outbreak of the Arab Spring 10 years ago, the popular demonstration swept through the Arab world, adding Bahrain, who summarizes the weaknesses of the Arab world in the face of the developing projection of Iran’s military might. among Bahrain’s Shiites. They are still divided over the resources of Shia authority (embodied by Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei or his rival Ayatollah Sistani), as well as ethnic rivalries: Persians, Arabs, Shiites and Sunnis.
In the dramatic course of normalization of relations with Israel, it turns out that Bahrain has brazenly chosen the U. S. shield opposed to Iran’s shadow drawing, with the gap emerging between normalization with Israel and the solution of the Palestinian problem. U. S. Fifth Fleet Command The U. S. operates in Gulf waters as a counterweight and deterrence against Iran.
Bahrain is the scene of a primary confrontation in the Gulf between two primary regional forces. Iran (Shia), which still considers itself to define, constitute and govern the “new regional order” or “Islamic spring”, which sought to reconstruct its vision of the ruins of the ancient American/Western order and Arab regimes supported through it. Since the Arab Spring, Iran has tried partially to exploit the weakness and fragmentation of Arab countries (Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon) Since arab countries are primarily involved in maintaining stability and understanding America’s position towards them, Iran has greater political and military involvement. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia (Sunni) is involved in a desperate war (even in its own garden in Yemen) to keep anything of the old order collapsing beneath its feet.
Confrontation with Iran
During the 2011 Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia sent the Peninsula Shield Force to Bahrain to prevent Bahrain from falling into the hands of the Iran-backed Shiite majority. He sent it to the kingdom as a component of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) defense agreement. to help Bahrain protect its “vital comforts and interests” and, in fact, to prevent a coup d’eer in Bahrain.
In doing so, Saudi Arabia has indicated that it is in a position to confront Iran and has shown a new face to its historic rival. Bahrain’s fall to shiites, for which Tehran lobbied 10 years ago, would have granted Tehran direct access. from the east (Bahrain with Saudi Arabia) to the center of the Sunni world. Later, along with Houthi Shiite rebels, Iran controlled to entrench itself on Saudi Arabia’s southern border in Yemen.
Iran is constantly running for Shiite parties in Bahrain, such as al-Ashtar brigades. With the help of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran incited these parties to protest, even violently, against the regime.
As a component of the Iranian campaign, Greater Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Ahmed Qassim of Bahrain issued severe opposition to the normalization of relations between Bahrain and Israel. Sheikh Isa helps Khamenei’s absolute theocratic government (Velayat-e faqih) and even refers to him as the respected Imam Hussein of our time, Iran also seeks to weaken Shiite components that help Shia Shia style (separation of political and clerical force), which discovers the expression in the style of force in Iraq and its main representative , the great Ayatollah Ali Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani and even some of the Shiite clerics in Lebanon, such as Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, before his death in 2010.
Following Bahrain’s announcement to normalize relations with Israel, Iran brazenly called on the Kingdom’s Shiites to speak out against “treason,” as evidenced through that issued through the IRGC and other Iranian spokesmen.
Iran fears that Shiites in Iraq, Bahrain and other Gulf countries, Lebanon and even Iran will move their aid to Ali al-Sistani’s Shia brand. That’s why Iran is looking at the Shia clerics who worship Khamenei. To feed the Bahraini Shiites, some of whom are of Arab origin and others of Persian origin, an exclusive Shiite identity and an affinity with the Iranian leader. In this context, Iran provides charitable monetary assistance, is helping Shiite organizations, and even supplies weapons to some, with Hezbollah’s help.
Iran is not enough words and is running vigorously to destabilize Bahrain, basically through the recruitment and incitement of its Shiite and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon (and in the style of local Shiite militias in Iraq and Yemen). In this way, Iran promotes its interests, and sets the level to overthrow Bahrain’s government through secret intelligence-gathering cells and organize Shiites for protest and subversion.
The Malik al-Ashtar Brigades
In this context, in 2013, the IRGC Quds Force at the origin of the Status Quo of the Islamic Resistance in Bahrain, in the style of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Malik al-Ashtar Brigades, also known as Saraya al-Ashtar, aim to overthrow the Bahraini monarchy.
The IRGC even provided al-Ashtar brigades with explosives, weapons and training, some of which took a position in Iraqi camps. The terrorist organization carried out several car attacks, adding car bombings and killings, opposed to Bahrain’s security forces and security targets, in which police and members of the security forces were killed. One of the policemen killed in a terrorist car attack expelled through the organization in 2014 a policeman from the United Arab Emirates, stationed in Bahrain as a component of forces sent through the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 2011 to quell an attempted coup.
Since July 2018, the U. S. Department of State has beenHe has included al-Ashtar on his list of terrorist organizations. As a result of extensive and ongoing counter-terrorism activities through the Bahraini authorities, he discovered that several members of the organization had taken refuge in Iran Bahrain’s security forces arrested some members of the organization and some of them were executed.
Numerous diplomatic cables revealed through WikiLeaks pointed to senior U. S. officials that the monarchy of Bahrain and other Gulf states, adding to Saudi Arabia, were deeply involved in political threats (“Bahrain is a component of Iran”) and the army (nuclear and naval). Iran. Bahrain is also involved in subversion of its government and Iran’s development has an effect on the region, i. e. Iraq and the Gulf. It was discussed in the wires that Bahrain and other Gulf states needed to formulate a regional Arab reaction and create a foreign umbrella to protect themselves from these threats.
Bahrain accuses Iran of not overthrowing the regime, as it tried to do in the early 1980s, and back in 1994, when it established Hezbollah in Bahrain and even trained its agents in Syria.
In 1996, Bahrain discovered Hezbollah cells on its territory, known as Hezbollah Bahrain. These cells were encouraged through Lebanese Hezbollah and were created with their help. In early 1981, Bahraini security forces unveiled the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, which shaped and funded through Iranian intelligence and acted to organize a coup.
The Iranian operating approach is in all countries where there is a Shia majority or minority. Recruit Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has the wisdom and delight it has gained in the fight against Israel and Syria, and exercises agents in Lebanon and Iran. Iran manages the Quds Force and official Iranian establishments that paint to locate, recruit and exercise local agents, which will shape Hezbollah’s long-term cells. In this way, Hezbollah Al-Hejaz, the Hezbollah movement in Iraq, Hezbollah Bahrain (Al-Ashtar Brigades) and others.
Bahrain considers Hezbollah of Lebanon a terrorist organization. Over the following year, Bahrain has also taken a number of steps and imposed monetary sanctions on Iranian Americans and banks suspected of money laundering and bringing them to terrorism or to circumvent sanctions in the kingdom. Bahrain also established a committee to combat terrorism and extremism, focusing on stopping investment for these organizations.
Practical infrastructure for subversive activities
Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, Iran has discovered an infrastructure in Bahrain for political-religious subversion.
First, Iran’s proximity greatly facilitates Iran’s ability to help Shiites in Bahrain. in some kind of sning parliament. The good luck of Shiites in Iraq is a kind of stimulus for Bahrain’s Shiites.
Third, regional and foreign cases contribute to Shiites’ “growing hunger”: democratic elections in Iraq, the effects of which reflect the Shia majority there, Hezbollah’s strong position in Lebanon after the Lebanon war, and its political status. Lebanon, the successes of Houthi rebels in Yemen and their business stance opposed to Saudi Arabia. Array adding capture of Yemeni capital Sanaa.
Fourth, Iran continues to exploit the collective weakness of Sunni Arabs in the absence of a leading core of force, such as Saddam Hussein’s symbols in Iraq, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and, to some extent, Hafez al-Assad in Syria. In this way, Iran will use the vacuum to replace directly in Bahrain as it wishes.
Shiite social media in Bahrain and its association with Shiite social media in Shia-majority countries played a key role in the Arab Spring coup attempt in Bahrain in terms of broadcasting and incitement to protests, as well as coordinating Shiite parties outside Bahrain. Bahrain bloggers (some of whom were arrested by the authorities), opposition forums and Internet sites also actively participated in previous series of protests against the regime in 2007 and 2008.
Bahrain’s virtual area is a component of the broader context and Shia affiliations. In the cyber area, Shiites in Bahrain locate “sympathetic ears,” words of encouragement and practical advice, as well as concepts that are not unusual for Shiites in a broader context.
The Shia demonstration in Bahrain resonates on hezbollah forums in Lebanon. Images and videos posted in Bahrain echo Hezbollah blogs and forums in Iraq and vice versa. In this way, encouraged through Iran, a kind of “virtual Shia brotherhood” is created at the end, discouraging expression beyond the virtual.
Iran’s hopes of a rapid overthrow of Bahrain’s monarchy were temporarily dashed. Iran hoped that Bahrain would establish some other link in the series of what it has explained as “divine events” since the beginning of the 21st century, adding Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. , the time of the intifada, the time of the Lebanon war and the “Operation Hardened Lead”. Gaza.
At the Arab Spring demonstration in Bahrain, Khamenei under pressure that Bahrain’s struggle is similar to fighting in other Arab countries and will therefore have to be supported in a propaganda message published through Khamenei, also under pressure that Iran supports Bahrain not because of Bahrain’s Shiite majority , however, because of the way he has supported the Palestinian struggle for 32 years. In his message, he said: “We do not distinguish between Gaza, Palestine, Tunisia, Lithrougha, Egypt, Yemen – tyranny is doomed to failure. “
In 2011, the Iranians made similar statements to those made today in the face of the status quo of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, according to which the United States fed the monarchies of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Emirates. To your domain in the region.
Mohammad Ali Jafari, Pasdaran’s former commander-in-chief, under pressure in April 2011 that the common denominator of all revolutions opposed to “corrupt leaders in the region” is the loyalty of these leaders to the United States and Israel. He pressed that “the other people of Bahrain cannot tolerate such humiliation. “The Saudi army’s intervention in Bahrain explained through the IRGC commander as a “strategic error” that would bring Bahrain’s goal closer.
A strategic replacement in regional equations
The normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates reflects strategic advances in the region, some stemming from the Arab Spring and others stemming from growing fear among Gulf states about the extension of the regional shadow. From Iran. The Gulf states have to give in to the United States (and Israel), contrary to repeated claims through Tehran that the security of the Gulf deserves to be in the hands of the countries on their shores.
Iran had hope and hope that it will translate the surprise waves of the Arab Spring and the persistent weakness of the Sunni Arab countryside into a Shia-led Islamic awakening, where it takes center position in the direction of a new Middle East. In this context, Iran will continue to be faithful (with Turkey breathing around its neck) as faithful to the Palestinian vision of “liberating Palestine from coast to coast” and leading the resistance field, underlining the Palestinians’ betrayal. through Sunni Arabs.
In the face of Bahrain’s scathing resolve to normalize, a Shia-majority country, Iran will further highlight Shiites’ growing influence in the region. degradation through Sunnis are now encouraged by other Shiite successes in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. They aspire to take a historical position of honor that will lead the Islamic world to a new Islamic world order.
For Iran, Bahrain’s crusade is not yet over, yet it has just entered a new harmful phase. Iran’s attempts to destabilize Bahrain, through the Shia majority and terrorist organizations recruited from within and aided through Hezbollah’s successful style in Lebanon, all recommend a violent future. Iranian propaganda is already prompting the Shia majority to oppose normalization. Bahrain has many terrorist cells inspired by Iran, established the time of Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani.
Another question is whether Iran, motivated by a genuine concern of a “Zionist presence” in the Gulf, will attempt to conduct an invasion of Bahrain into Crimea to repair what it believes belongs to Iran, risking a direct confrontation with the United States. États. Il that Iran has most likely discussed such a situation and has contingency plans to put it into force. Iran also sees Bahrain as a springboard to exert its influence on Sunni territory and surround Saudi Arabia from Iraq (northeast), Yemen (to the south) and Bahrain (to the east) through Shia-majority countries. Moreover, Iran can shake up Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern component, where there is a giant Shia minority.
Lieutenant Colonel of the IDF. (retired) Michael (Mickey) Segall is a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Public Affairs Center and Acumen Risk Advisers.
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