This is the continuation of The Muslim Rulers’ Support of Israel (Part 1), posted previously.
The Muslim rulers have cited many excuses for their inaction, the main one being the superiority of Israel’s military and that confronting Israel will bring harm to their national economies. Let us examine what options are actually available to these rulers:
Military – Direct confrontation
Economic and cultural isolations of Israel.
Militarily
Published figures show that the Muslim armies combined outnumber the Israeli forces by a ratio of 68 Muslim soldiers to one Israeli soldier. The Muslim countries spend almost 17 times more on their military budgets than Israel. So it is clear that a united Muslim armed force is the dominant military power in the region. Even with their advanced military technology, the Israelis cannot overcome such a large military force.
Population | Military Manpower | Military Manpower | Military Expenditure $bn | |
Israel | 7,112,359 | 3,353,936 | 2,836,722 | 11.8187 |
Egypt | 81,713,520 | 41,654,185 | 35,558,995 | 13.7836 |
Iran | 65,875,224 | 39,815,026 | 34,344,352 | 19.0725 |
Jordan | 6,198,677 | 3,371,706 | 2,886,132 | 2.4467 |
Syria | 19,747,586 | 10,218,242 | 10,218,242 | 5.33183 |
Saudi | 28,146,656 | 14,928,539 | 8,461,049 | 54.6 |
Turkey | 71,892,808 | 39,645,893 | 33,444,999 | 45.2567 |
Yemen | 23,013,376 | 9,932,593 | 3,585,947 | 3.71184 |
Libya | 6,173,579 | 3,293,184 | 2,821,855 | 2.91408 |
Lebanon | 3,971,941 | 2,229,474 | 1,883,155 | 1.25364 |
Kuwait | 2,596,799 | 1,601,065 | 1,393,356 | 7.42 |
Oman | 3,311,640 | 1,429,296 | 1,207,291 | 6.94146 |
Morocco | 34,343,220 | 18,233,410 | 15,382,861 | 6.25 |
Algeria | 33,769,668 | 19,327,735 | 16,357,759 | 7.3359 |
Tunisia | 10,383,577 | 5,905,068 | 5,005,257 | 1.06498 |
Sudan | 40,218,456 | 18,961,029 | 11,264,895 | 2.4294 |
Muslim - Middle East | 431,356,727 | 230,582,445 | 182,058,952 | 179.81263 |
Also, after a brief glance at the borders of Israel, it is clear that it would be virtually impossible for Israel to defend itself from a simultaneous land offensive from Egypt, Jordan and Syria. You may be wondering have not these states engaged in a war against Israel before. Yes they have, but those wars were in reality ‘scenario wars’ with the objective of seeking peace with Israel.
This was mentioned by Mohammed Heikal's in his book "The Road to Ramadan" - he quotes one of Sadat's generals, Mohammed Fouwzi who gave the analogy of a samurai drawing two swords - a long one and short one in preparation for battle. Fouwzi said that this battle ( the 1967-six day war) would be a case of the short sword, signifying a limited battle for certain motives. Indeed, this gross betrayal by of the Ummah by Egypt is currently matched by Turkey who assists Israel in her military exercises. As a Turkish news agency stated;
"Billion-dollar military agreements, intelligence cooperation, maneuvers and secret operations are being made between Turkey and Israel. Israeli war planes are flying over Konya. A common missile shield project is on the agenda between the two countries; it’s under consideration for the missiles to be located on the borders of Iran and Syria. In a 20 thousand square kilometre area in the Konya valley, there were maneuvers of hundreds of planes making a nuclear attack. Dozens of examples like this can be shown. In short, Turkey is Israel’s friend and ally" – (http://www.zaman.com/?bl=columnists&alt=&trh=20060824&hn=35945)