Bahrain: An archipelago saturated with intrigue and intrigue Israel today

The Arab Spring in Bahrain was the largest in relation to the number of protesters for the general population • Dr. Guzensky: "Without external intervention, the royal house might have fallen"

• Demonstration during the Arab Spring in Bahrain

  Photography: 

  IP

The "Arab Spring" was entered in Manama from a very problematic starting point.

The royal family, Beit Khalifa, is part of the Sunni minority that controls the Shiite majority - and this year King Hemed made it the second country with a Shiite majority in its population to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, after Azerbaijan.

However, a decade ago - normalization with Israel would have seemed like a distant dream.

Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the ayatollahs' regime has been stirring up what is happening in the archipelago they aspire to become the 14th province in their country.

What actually helped King Hemed stay in power was the fact that a large part of the Shiites in Bahrain are not pro-Iranian - and did not serve Tehran's interests during the Arab Spring.

And yet, this period will forever remain as traumatic for a suit house since they did survive - but with great difficulty.

Similar to the backing of the normalization agreement with Israel, it is very doubtful whether the Sunni monarchy would have survived the events of the Arab Spring without Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Protests in the archipelago erupted with great momentum on February 14, 2011 - when 6,000 protesters took part in demonstrations across Bahrain.

Unlike Arab countries, such as Egypt, Bahrain is a small country, and therefore had a significant impact on the protest from its inception.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were quick to understand the gravity of the situation and in mid-March of that year sent the "Peninsula Defense Force," the military department of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The deployment of the forces meant that within about two weeks, with the help of the use of physical force, the thwarting of the Iranian weapons shipments and the fear of the Saudi and Emirati forces - the protest subsided.

In the decade since, the ayatollahs' regime has not stopped trying to harm the internal security situation in the archipelago.

Iran has activated Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah, to form a "proxy-led proxy" within the Shiite-majority island nation.

Therefore, on April 10, 2013, Bahrain became the first Arab country to outlaw Hezbollah.

King of Bahrain Hemed / Photo: E.P.

Later, a local political organization that opposes the monarchy, the Coalition of the Young People of the February 14 Revolution, is ousted, and its leader, who is portrayed as pro-democratic, moves to Beirut - and receives political guidance from Hezbollah.

Also, another significant political movement outlawed in July 2016 is Al-Waqf, and all its assets have been confiscated.

Its important figure is a spiritual leader named Ayatollah Issa Qassem, and he is considered the representative of the supreme leader of Iran Ali Khamenei in Bahrain. 

The royal house in Manama realized it was a "ticking time bomb".

They denied him citizenship - and he was deported to Iran.

All of these actions did not stop Nasrallah and his men from using local extremist Shiite civilians to operate local terrorist cells, and even providing them with training in their camps in Lebanon.

At the same time, although Hezbollah is the middle echelon between Quds Force commander of the Revolutionary Guards Ismail Kaani and the organization's terrorist cells in Bahrain, there are also organizations that see themselves as a separate body - such as the al-Ashtar battalions.

The organization, which sees the ayatollahs' regime in Iran as its patron, has carried out dozens of terrorist attacks in Bahrain - but it is far from Hezbollah's capabilities.

The most serious attack he carried out was in March 2014 - in which two local policemen and an UAE officer were killed.

And only on December 15 this year, another organization called the Al-Mukhtar Brigades was defined by the United States as a terrorist organization.

One of the demonstrations held in Manama in the Arab Spring / Photo: EP

"Bahrain is a unique country"

"Without external intervention, it could be assumed that the riots in Bahrain could have overthrown the monarchy in Manama," Dr. Joel Guzensky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, an expert on the Gulf states and a former member of the National Security Council, told Israel Today. "Bahrain is a unique country, where in relation to the population, the largest number of demonstrators took to the streets in the Arab Spring.

Most of the population went out to demonstrate. "

Regarding the Shiite population in Bahrain, Dr. Guzensky notes that “a part is pro-Iranian but not all.

At first, the unrest was Shiite and Sunni alike who wanted to improve their lives.

Only then did it seize ethnic dimensions of Shiites against Sunnis.

Most of the dead were from the Shiite community that makes up 80% of the population.

"Not only did the intervention of the Sunni states lead to the turn of the inter-ethnic struggle in the Arab Spring, but also the Sunni monarchy, which acted mainly against the Shiites, who came with allegations of systematic discrimination."