JINSA Distinguished Fellow IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror: “What Qatar Is Doing Is Trying to Destroy the State of Israel”

Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and former head of the National Security Council, spoke with Ron Kofman and Aryeh Eldad on 103FM about “Trump’s swing,” as Aryeh Eldad called it.

“All kinds of people are trying to understand Trump, it’s meaningless,” he said, adding: “The Gulf states are divided. Those who want an agreement because they are afraid. Those who walk with the Iranians behind the curtain, for example, such as Qatar and those who are more opposed to the Iranians, but are also not willing to attack Iran. Saudi Arabia asked the president, of course, if the president told the truth about the conversation with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which the Saudis asked him to reach an agreement.”

“Ten years ago, I was approached by a group of American Jews who were excited because the Qataris had invited them to visit the country and meet with the heads of state. I told them that they are interested in the Qataris like a garlic ball, they want legitimacy because what they are doing is trying to destroy the State of Israel – not by military force, because there is no such force, but through Al-Jazeera and the money they invest in the world to buy everyone who is possible against us.”

“As soon as the war is over and things stabilize, we have to go to Qatar’s head with all our might”

“Unfortunately, over the years, we gave them too much legitimacy, and in some places we had no choice because they brought us quiet.” He later attacked Qatar: “I think that Qatar is a negative country, and as soon as the war is over and things stabilize, we have to go on top of it with all our might.”

“We don’t need to violate the agreement, but it can’t be done without the State of Israel. Our country has interests and must stand up for them,” he explained. “We have to see what happens, because the Qataris won’t send an army here, but if we go into warehouses and whoever guards it from Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) then we might be able to live with it. I would prefer the weapons to leave the Gaza Strip, but I don’t know what’s in the agreement.”

“If the weapons are in the warehouse, and we know that Hamas has opened them, we will bomb the warehouse and then there is no agreement and nothing.”

“The American command has a headquarters here, and it commands the foreign forces that arrive. No one will open fire except us at Hamas members,” he said. “If the weapons are in the warehouse, and we know that Hamas has opened them, we will bomb the warehouse and then there is no agreement and nothing. We won’t ask the Americans if we find out that Hamas comes to the warehouse and takes the weapons. We will inform them that we are attacking the warehouse, that they will withdraw all the forces from there, because Hamas has arrived at the warehouse and we are not willing for it to take the weapons.”

Are the international forces likely to interfere with the IDF’s activity in the Gaza Strip? | Amidror responded: “They will be very disturbing, because we will hesitate to harm them and Hamas will not hesitate to harm them. International power is not a good thing for us, but if the Americans command me, then we should expect them to succeed in creating a degree of security.”

“The Lebanese government wants Hezbollah to not exist”

“The Americans are looking at Iran as two stages – first opening Hormuz, then making sure that Iran is not nuclear. They are still in the Hormuz stage, which is less interesting to us, but the president keeps saying that Hormuz should be opened and that Iran must not be nuclear. In the meantime, they are saying the right things, we don’t know what will happen in Hormuz, but as far as they are concerned, this is a preliminary stage for negotiations on the nuclear program.”

“An agreement will weaken Hezbollah, but will it weaken it on the military level? Not until we see the dismantling of the organization. We are entering the experiment and the Lebanese government also wants Hezbollah not to exist, because it is disturbing all the residents of Lebanon except for a certain group in the Shiite community, which they also understand that they are paying a high price. The Lebanese government is imposing, which it did not dare to state in the past, that it does not want Hezbollah as an organization with weapons. We have to try to help them, because if they succeed, it will be significant for the entire Arab world.”

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