“Nothing will be achieved” in the peace process with the Palestinian Authority,
Mossad director Meir Dagan told a top American diplomat in the summer of 2007,
according to a secret cable the US Embassy in Tel Aviv sent to the State
Department.
During a two-hour meeting with Frances Fragos Townsend,
assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, Dagan –
who is believed to be hawkish but whose opinions on diplomatic affairs are not
publicly known in Israel – reportedly said that a completely new approach to the
peace process was required, without elaborating.
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leaked by WikiLeaks on Sunday, Dagan told Townsend that IDF operations against
Hamas in the West Bank were preventing the terrorist group from taking over the
Fatah-controlled territory.
If Hamas took over in the West Bank, Dagan
said, PA President Mahmoud Abbas would likely move to Qatar and join his
“mysteriously wealthy” son there.
Moving on to Iran, Dagan was strangely
optimistic, the cable said, that sanctions could have an effect. He said during
the meeting that Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states all feared Iran, but
wanted someone else “to do the job for them.”
The Mossad director accused
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal of playing a “very negative role” and
characterized Qatar as “a real problem,” accusing its leader Sheikh Hamid bin
Khalifa al-Thani of “annoying everyone.”
He then told Townsend that, in
his view, the US should pull its bases out of the country.
The US Central
Command (CENTCOM) has a major base in Qatar.
“I think you should remove
your bases from there...seriously,” Dagan said. “They have confidence
only because of the US presence.”
Dagan added that Al-Jazeera could cause
the next war in the Middle East, since Arab leaders, specifically in Saudi
Arabia, hold the Qatari leader personally responsible for the cable station’s
so-called provocations.
Dagan was particularly harsh regarding Moroccan
King Mohammed VI, who he said had little interest in governing his
country.
He also urged the US to keep the Pakistani president at the
time, Pervez Musharaf, in office, citing a Pakistan ruled by radical Islamists
with a nuclear arsenal at their disposal as his biggest nightmare.