The two main problems with Ayalon’s analysis is that he seems not to have actually read the WikiLeaks cables—which offer ample evidence confirming the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the minds of Arab leaders—or bothered to understand how promoters of linkage define the concept.

(Matt Duss has an excellent post up on the Wonk Room that covers many of the same problems with Ayalon’s rather selective (when not downright misleading) interpretation of WikiLeaks and linkage.)

Linkage, as defined by Gen. David Petraeus last March, is [my emphasis]:

The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.

Rather conveniently, Ayalon’s definition of linkage misinterprets the concept and fails to address the concerns raised by Petraeus and members of the Obama administration who have endorsed the idea. Matt Duss accurately describes Ayalon’s description as “an obvious strawman.”

While right-wing blogs, political pundits, and columnists quickly embraced the talking point that WikiLeaks showed an Arab world that is deathly afraid of Iran’s nuclear program — but didn’t have much to say about the Arab-Israeli conflict — an actual reading of the cables suggests a very different message.

Here are a set of excerpts from WikiLeaks that show Arab leaders endorsing the concept of linkage (the Petraeus definition, not the Ayalon one) in the most blunt way possible.

The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, in a December 9, 2009 meeting with the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman:

Emphasized the strategic importance of creating a Palestinian State (i.e., resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict) as the way to create genuine Middle Eastern unity on the question of Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.

A cable from the U.S. embassy in Amman, written shortly after the end of the Gaza War in January 2009, reads:

Speaking to PolOffs [political officers] in early February 2009, immediately after the Gaza War, Director of the Jordanian Prime Minister’s Political Office Khaled Al-Qadi noted that the Gaza crisis had allowed Iranian interference in inter-Arab relations to reach unprecedented levels.

An April 2, 2009 cable from Amman repeated the Jordanian position:

Jordanian leaders have argued that the only way to pull the rug out from under Hizballah – and by extension their Iranian patrons – would be for Israel to hand over the disputed Sheba’a Farms to Lebanon.

It went on:

With Hizballah lacking the ‘resistance to occupation’ rationale for continued confrontation with Israel, it would lose its raison d’etre and probably domestic support.

And a February 22, 2010, cable describes UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan as he warns a Congressional delegation against a military attack on Iran, led by Nita Lowey:

The cable remarks that bin Zayed:

Concluded the meeting with a soliloquy on the importance of a successful peace process between Israel and its neighbors as perhaps the best way of reducing Iran’s regional influence.

During a February 14, 2010, meeting with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, Qatar Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-thani suggested one reason that Israel might be hyping the threat of a nuclear Iran.

The cable summarizes bin Khalifa as saying:

[The Israelis] are using Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons as a diversion from settling matters with the Palestinians.

Ayalon twisting the definition of linkage and misstating the messages contained in the WikiLeaks cables is indicative of the increasing desperation that the Israeli right-wing must be experiencing as authoritarian Middle Eastern governments, that have helped Israel maintain the status quo, are under increasing pressure to make democratic reforms. There’s no guarantee that the governments in Middle Eastern capitals will be as cooperative in helping Israel maintain its occupation of the West Bank or its siege on Gaza in the future. The time for Israeli hardliners to face their nation’s political realities and make difficult but necessary concessions may be drawing closer. Danny Ayalon is choosing to ignore the shifting political winds.

Jim Lobe and I took a closer look at the cables and found ample evidence that Arab leaders consistently mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the biggest impediment to countering Iran’s growing regional influence.

Indeed, as documented in our article, diplomats from the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar made statements which clearly endorsed linkage.

The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, in a December 9, 2009 meeting with the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman:

Emphasized the strategic importance of creating a Palestinian State (i.e., resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict) as the way to create genuine Middle Eastern unity on the question of Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.

Gamal Mubarak, son of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was described in a May 27, 2008 as telling Rep. Jeff Fortenberry:

“Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Jordan, are the ‘heavyweights’ that can counter Iran.”

The cable goes on to describe Mubarak as:

Advocat[ing] movement on the Israeli/Palestinian track to remove a prime issue that Iran can use as a pretext

A cable from the U.S. embassy in Amman, written shortly after the end of the Gaza War in January 2009, reads:

Speaking to PolOffs [political officers] in early February 2009, immediately after the Gaza War, Director of the Jordanian Prime Minister’s Political Office Khaled Al-Qadi noted that the Gaza crisis had allowed Iranian interference in inter-Arab relations to reach unprecedented levels.

An April 2, 2009 cable from Amman repeated the Jordanian position.

Jordanian leaders have argued that the only way to pull the rug out from under Hizballah – and by extension their Iranian patrons – would be for Israel to hand over the disputed Sheba’a Farms to Lebanon.

It went on,

With Hizballah lacking the ‘resistance to occupation’ rationale for continued confrontation with Israel, it would lose its raison d’etre and probably domestic support.

And a February 22, 2010 cable, describes UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan warning a Congressional delegation led by Nita Lowey against a military attack on Iran.

The cable remarks that bin Zayed:

Concluded the meeting with a soliloquy on the importance of a successful peace process between Israel and its neighbors as perhaps the best way of reducing Iran’s regional influence.

While Jennifer Rubin writes that the cables have shown that Obama misrepresented to the American people that “the non-peace talks are necessary to curb the Iranian threat,” and David Frum writes that, “Governments in the region do not in fact care very much about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,” our examination of the cables reveals the extent to which Iran hawks must go to claim that Arab leaders don’t buy into the concept of linkage.

Indeed, even Netanyahu espoused this rather backward reading of the WikiLeaks cables.

He told a media conference in Tel Aviv, immediately after the first WikiLeaks were released:

[T]here is a gap between what is said by leaders in private and what they say in public, especially in our region, because our region is hostage to a narrative, and that narrative is the result of nearly 60 years of propaganda.  In this narrative, the single greatest threat to regional peace and to the region’s future is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s alleged aggression.

The Obama administration and the U.S. military leadership appear to embrace the concept of linkage. So too do Arab leaders, when speaking in private with U.S. diplomats. Despite the misrepresentations of the WikiLeaks cables by American Iran Hawks and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that voices opposing linkage represent an increasingly small minority of people who deny the fundamental truths of the linkage argument.

During a February 14, 2010, meeting with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, Qatar Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-thani suggested one reason that Israel might be hyping the threat of a nuclear Iran.

The cable summarizes bin Khalifa as saying:

[The Israelis] are using Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons as a diversion from settling matters with the Palestinians.

• The Wall Street Journal: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines that the European Union should do more to sanction Iran’s worst human-rights abusers. Such sanctions, he argues, will help lead to “regime change.” “If the opposition were to topple the revolutionary Islamist leaders, Iran’s nuclear project would be instantly less threatening.” Those governments that still have embassies in Tehran, says the op-ed, should downgrade diplomatic relations with Iran by withdrawing ambassadors “if their demands are not met” and visiting Iranian officials should “no longer deserve the red-carpet treatment” when they visit the West. Ottolenghi concludes that a strengthened public diplomacy campaign to speak directly to the people of Iran is necessary to explain the West’s “…policies and condemn the regime’s atrocities.”

• The Atlantic: Century Foundation fellow Michael Hanna writes that, despite the howling of some on the left and right, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s support for a new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not mean that Iranian influence in Iraq has reached a high point. “Not only does this misunderstand the fundamental nature of Iran-Iraq relations, it repeats a mistake we have made repeatedly since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,” he writes. Hanna demonstrates how even in the most recent election, which gave rise to the current political impasse, Iran has been unable to exert its will on Iraqi politics. The roots of exaggeration of Iran’s influence stem from partisan U.S. domestic politics, he says: “For years, both parties have exaggerated Iran’s role to score political points.”

• Fox News: Writing on the Fox News website, Judith Miller does an analysis about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Lebanon. She writes that the trip is “shaping up as a potential powder keg and a huge political embarrassment for Lebanon whose reverberations are being felt in many capitals, not just in the Middle East.” She cites a number of right-leaning sources such as MEMRI, an expert from the AIPAC-formed Washington Institute, and neoconservative journalist Lee Smith. Though Miller acknowledges that Hezbollah officials have not yet been indicted for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (charges are reportedly in the works), she states that Ahmadinejad and Iran, as Hezbollah’s patron, are “indirectly responsible for having killed” him.

• Haaretz: Jack Khoury writes that renewed opposition to U.S. military aid to Lebanon appears to be gaining momentum in Congress in the midst of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s high-profile visit to Lebanon. In August, Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Howard Berman (D-CA) held up $100 million in military aid to Lebanon after a deadly border clash between Lebanon and Israel. The two Democrats are now opposing the transfer of military aid to Lebanon, scheduled for next month, in response to Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon.