Mainly, the Palestinian people are angry at the lack of support from Arab governments, especially the residents of the stricken Gaza Strip, who are creating legends of steadfastness and adherence to their land, whereby this is a topic of its own. The reasons for popular Arab anger are clear in general, but why do Arab governments seem hesitant to react, their behaviour mostly submissive, and are the reasons in any way understandable
Arab governments are mostly not elected, and people generally do not pay taxes due to weak incomes in poor countries, while in rich countries taxes are not levied in exchange for acceptance of the government. This means that poor countries follow the policies of the donors to their annual budgets, and rich countries follow those who provide their government with symbolic or actual protection, which in both cases means Western colonial countries, now and in the past. The colonialists linked the peoples of the region to their own precepts. Arabs came to believe in the existence of human rights, justice, and the Western pursuit of humanitarian principles. Thus, whenever the Arab region encounters a severe problem public complaints increase: What about human rights and justice? Where are the international institutions? Why are our governments silent
Despite the repetition of events and their results over and over again, even in the lifetime of a single generation; the public repeats the same questions, and does not want to accept the inferred answers: our governments do not have independent self-decision, our rulers are concerned with power, and our economies are reliant on the West, or rather completely dependent on it, since the people do not pay taxes to maintain the budgets, and where taxes are paid, the money disappears into specific hands and pockets, due to the lack of democracy, with periodic elections and lack of consequences for corruption and the corrupt
By and large, the West is humane, just, legal, and democratic, as regards its own citizens, but its governments are racist and colonialist, seeking to absorb others, Arab, African, and Latin American, to strengthen European and American sovereignty… This is known and has been written about in books, explained in Western plans, and is manifested daily in politics, economics, war, and diplomacy, and they are unfazed by the current situation. The West has observed the massacres of the Palestinians and the denial of their rights for decades, but their attitude is no different than to the rest of the massacres, wars, killing and plundering outside their geographical framework. As for the international institutions, they are subject to the politics of the powerful, who exploit them to achieve their aims under the cover of those very institutions. No sane person believes that the United Nations and its organizations have the power to implement the independent decisions of the majority; The majority of the countries of the world, for example, according to their vote in the General Assembly support Palestine, but the General Assembly was castrated at birth, and colonialist countries can use their veto to obstruct or justify, as we see daily, and sometimes the same veto is repeated in the Security Council more than once in a day
In addition to the official and popular Arab dependency on deceptive Western policies, there are other reasons that paralyze the capabilities of Arab governments in the issue of the ongoing massacres in the Gaza Strip. Yes, they are governments linked to the West, and rulers who cling to power, but this is not all that is at issue in the case of the Gaza Strip. Many decades ago, with the end of the Ottoman Caliphate, the Muslim Brotherhood was formed; it seeks to assume power, and thus opposes other forms of government, such as dictatorship and monarchy, or secularism that allows freedom of religion. They want to rule, dominate, and impose the law according to their vision. During the so-called Arab Spring, the Brotherhood managed to take control in some countries and imposed their policies there. Before that, many governments funded them, such as the Gulf governments and Turkey, in order to undermine the relatively democratic governments and republics then existing. Therefore, no monarchical state fell during the Spring, and no republic survived… It’s a long story but in short; the conflict is over the leadership of Sunni Islam, with Riyadh, Doha, and Erdogan in Turkey as the main competitors who have wreaked havoc throughout the world through their support for extremist Sunni Islamic militias. When the financiers disagreed and fought in the media, many circles turned against the Brotherhood, and only the Hamas movement survived, which took refuge in the masses as a Palestinian resistance movement
When the October 7th Hamas incursion occurred the Arab regimes were more terrified than Israel. For the Arab regimes, the victory of Hamas signifies the refulgence of resistant, combative political Islam, and what a refulgence…achieved with the support of Shiia political Islam, the eternal opponent of Sunni Islam. If Hamas is victorious with Iranian support; this paves the way for religious and political change in the region in favour of Iranian thought, and it is not at all certain that the Arab nation wants to move from the rule of its miserable regimes to the rule of the mullahs, which is even more miserable, as Iran’s experience with regard to freedoms, progress, prosperity and democracy proves. The Arab rulers, of course, did not look at the matter from the perspective of freedoms. Rather, they thought that Hamas’s victory was the beginning of the shaking of their thrones in favor of rulers affiliated with the mullahs, or at least to political Islamic movements… Thus, they resorted to silence, stuck their heads in the sand, and are waiting for a quick result that has yet to materialize… Therefore, they are silent, helpless and confused, and there is no love of Israel or hatred of the Palestinian people involved
Why then does Iran, or the resistance movement it supports, not clearly support Hamas and the Palestinian people? This brings us back to the deep-rooted relationship between Israel and the Western colonial powers, which moved with everything they had from the first hours of the conflict to support and protect Israel, whether unjust or oppressive. Fleets arrived and informed Iran and Hezbollah that intervention, meaning the destruction of Israeli cities similar to Israel’s destruction of Gaza, would mean the destruction of Lebanon and Iran from the ground up. No discussion. Despite this, to be clear, Iran has instructed its forces in the region to gradually exhaust Israeli and Western interests, and it can do no more than that in view of the overwhelming Arab-Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip
What prevents the Arabs, Iran and its proxies from actually supporting Gaza, such as introducing support from the Rafah crossing, without waiting for coordination, or destroying major cities with long-range missiles to deter Israel, is the clarity of Israeli madness and their newly developed sense of an existential threat as a result of their deterrence being undermined as a consequence of the October 7th invasion. This has engendered Israel’s readiness for crazy responses, including the use of nuclear weapons, the West’s military intervention, leading to a global war in which the Arabs will have no clear side, since China and Russia are waiting to reap the benefits from any outcome of the war without getting involved in hostilities
There is another important reason for the half-hearted response of Arab governments, and for the hesitant position of Iran and Hezbollah: the Hamas movement did not inform them of the invasion in advance, and therefore they were unable to prepare for it properly, and they were not able to participate and gain the element of surprise in the beginning. Perhaps if they had been consulted, they would have been able to additionally arm Hamas, such as providing some capability to confront military aircraft and drones among other things. But, had Hamas informed any party about the invasion it was planning, it would have meant that the news would reach Israel via a live broadcast
When we examine the situation of the Arab countries, we find that everything mentioned fully applies to them, in addition to the existence of two peace agreement signatories who suffer from virtual economic bankruptcy, and two Abrahamic signatories who cannot escape their commitments. Bahrain wants protection against Iran abroad and the Shiia at home. The Arab Emirates are dominated by Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which have been linked from their inception to Zionist financiers and developers who contributed to its design. Qatar is suffering from the consequences of its support for the Brotherhood and is effectively the sole supporter of the Gaza Strip, while Kuwait is captive to its elected parliament, which is in conflict between the Islamists and the rest. …The situation in North Africa is well-known, but what about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
When the prince took over the reins of power on behalf of his father, he made rapid, radical social changes and made plans for a costly future economic approach. Thus, he benefited from the support or even the silence of the Western powers because he was left without an internal ideological supporter. Rather, the sheikhs were imprisoned and became the opposition. Then came the story of the consulate in Turkey and the saws; Democratic President Biden turned against him and threatened to designate the kingdom a rogue country. The Ukraine war rehabilitated the prince and the kingdom due to the West’s need for alternative sources of energy to Russia, so Biden and the West submitted, whilst the prince had approached China and Moscow and made peace with Iran, which the West was using as a scarecrow for the Arabs. In short, the American-Western position changed and they forgot about human rights and wished for the prince to join the procession of normalization. They pressured him until the prince found a way out by putting conditions that he thought were difficult to achieve as an alternative to normalization with Israel, including the establishment of a Palestinian state. They bargained with him and argued with him over the nature of the Palestinian state. The October 7th invasion came to the aid of the Emir, strengthening his resolve, and adherence to the state’s demand, which had now become the demand of everyone near and far, except for the Israeli government
During the massacre in Gaza, the Kingdom held a joint Arab-Islamic summit and left the participants free to make their own decisions. Then Saudi diplomacy contributed to all Arab-Islamic endeavours, and Riyadh repeated its statements of support for the rights of the Palestinian people and their resistance, without mentioning the Hamas movement, which is something that the majority of Arab countries did not do, i.e. support the resistance. It can be said about the Saudi position that it refrained from normalization for a long time, withstood Western pressure in anxious internal circumstances, and did not give up on the demand to secure the Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, as the price for normalization. The prince thus responds to the vision and demands of his people. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy conducted a poll inside Saudi Arabia about the ongoing war in Gaza last December, which stated that 96% of Saudis support the idea that Arab countries should sever all relations with Israel
In other words, normalization with the Kingdom will only take place at the price of establishing a Palestinian state, a position which was abandoned by those who concluded agreements of all kinds, and by those who normalize politically and economically without formalities, and we as Arabs, and as the Palestinian people in particular, must not direct the accusations of the Muslim Brotherhood against Saudi Arabia, and accuse it of that which it does not do, so that we do not pressure it and pave the way for normalization… We should attack the silent people, the normalizers and the conspirators, but we should not fall victim to the Brotherhood’s tricks and repeat their accusations against their opponents
The Palestinian people are in dire need of everyone’s support both now and later. Right is clear, wrong is clear, the perpetrator is clear and the victim is clear… Above all, we as Palestinians must reflect on our situation, criticize ourselves, and correct our distorted views… If our leaders had not repeatedly delayed renewing the elections, in order to maintain their positions in Gaza and the West Bank, we would not be in this situation, or at least we would have reached it as an expression of our democratic electoral will, and then we would bear responsibility for our own choices
Abdel-Gabbar Adwan
Citizen of Gaza
