Israeli-Arab cyber relations will be disastrous for the region: Hamas official

Strengthening Israeli-Arab cyber relations will bring disastrous consequences to the region, mainly as the United States seeks to impose more control over the Middle East,  a senior Hamas official said to The New Arab.

Speaking under the condition of anonymity, the official said, "For decades, both the US and Israel are well aware that the next war will be a cyber war, not a military one."

"They (US and Israel) are doing their best to control all the Arab countries, including those that normalised their relations with the Israeli occupation through establishing cyber relations between each other under the pretext of fighting the Iranian threats," the Turkey-based official added. 

The official argues that contrary to the rhetoric, the Israeli occupation and the US sought to control the Arab regimes and put them under surveillance for the benefit of US interests in the Middle East region.

"The countries that have normalised relations with Israel will find themselves in a real dilemma within a few years (...) but we fear that it is too late for those countries to save themselves," he said, warning that they will be "under the American and Israeli occupation."

On Tuesday, US Department of Homeland Security Cyber Chief Robert Silvers said that "Abraham Accords paved way for cyber relations"  and that "shared cyber intelligence is the way to fight the Iranian danger."

Extending Abraham Accords engagement into cyberspace is a major step "toward a broader security architecture in the Middle East," the official added.

The US expressed hopes to expand digital ties between the countries in the near future.

In 2020, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco normalised their relations with Israel under the US-sponsored Abraham Accords, breaking the country's relative isolation in the Middle East.

The top US cyber official said that to date, the accords "have mainly been focused on economic and diplomatic ties," whereas enhancing cyber security ties has not been fully explored.

He said that Washington is using the Abraham Accords as a platform for "transforming partnerships with both foreign partners and industry to protect" the data of both the US and its allied partners.