Saudi Arabia says Israel’s Gaza wars fuelled by Muslim disunity

Prince Saud Al Faisal tells special OIC meeting on Gaza that divisions among Muslim nations encourage Israeli aggression and warns Israel that lack of peace threatens its existence.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud Al Faisal, right, attends a ministerial meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah on August 12, 2014. AFP

JEDDAH // Disunity among Muslim states has allowed Israel to launch its brutal armed assaults on the Palestinian people, Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat said yesterday.

Prince Saud Al Faisal called for support for Egyptian-led efforts to stop the fighting and end the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and warned Israel that without a peace agreement with the Palestinians it would not survive as a nation.

“Would it have been possible for Israel to carry out one aggression after another, had the Islamic nation been united?” the Saudi foreign minister asked a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah.

“What tempts Israel to commit its continuous crimes against the Palestinian people and Muslims as a whole is the weakness it sees in the Muslim nation due to fragmentation and divisions and the spread of sedition within it.

“As we see, Israel does not shy away from taking its terror to any level, with total disregard to any laws, rules, religious edicts or humanitarian considerations to achieve its goals.

“Its only objective is to uproot the Palestinian existence wherever it is,” Prince Saud told the meeting, which was attended by the Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah and ministers from the organisation’s 56 member states.

“Israel has to realise that peace is the only solution for its survival,” he said.

The OIC meeting condemned Israel, “the occupying force, for war crimes it doesn’t stop committing in the Palestinian territories.

“Israel should immediately cease its aggression against the Palestinian people and shoulder political and legal responsibility for war crimes,” the OIC said.

Negotiations in Cairo to end the fighting appeared to have made no headway yesterday. Hamas insists on an end to Israel’s crippling seven-year blockade of Gaza, while Israel wants Hamas to disarm or at least an assurance that it does not re-arm.

Palestinian officials described the talks as “difficult and gruelling”.

Israeli forces have killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians in the conflict, which erupted on July 8 when Israel launched military operations to halt cross-border rocket fire from Gaza. Most of those have been civilians, while all but three of Israel’s 67 fatalities have been soldiers.

Prince Saud yesterday rejected western backing of Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas rockets.

“Israel does not have a right of self-defence as an occupier. There is no rule under international law that says an occupier has a right of self-defence. For any country to take that position shows bad intentions towards the region and bad intentions towards peace in the region,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s fair to equate the actions of Hamas and Israel, either in scale or in substance. How can you say that Israel has a right to defend itself when it is the occupier and you do not give the same right to Hamas?”

Prince Saud said Saudi Arabia’s development fund would “continue to abide by the kingdom’s commitments” by contributing US$500 million (Dh1.84bn) for Gaza’s reconstruction, and offered 300m Saudi riyals (Dh78.3m) for medical relief aid.

* Reuters with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse