Opinion
by Dr Hichem Karoui
Except for Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, all of which border Israel, no Arab state has waged a war to liberate Palestine from Israeli rule since 1947.
The Arab governments\’ rhetoric is intended for internal consumption. The Arab peoples want a free and sovereign Palestine. However, their governments don\’t want trouble with the United States or the Western states, which have banded together to sur-arm Israel since the beginning of the historical conflict, with France even offering Israel what all Western nuclear powers deny to any country outside the club: a nuclear reactor for military use.
Peace treaties with Israel also bind its former war enemies, Egypt and Jordan.
Syria and Lebanon, which have remained opposed to Israel, have been deliberately destroyed by Arab money arming civil war factions over political-religious issues to get rid of the Palestinian resistance at the time based on their territories.
Any Arab country that crosses the \”red lines\” of the hypocritical (declared or undeclared) peace with Israel will face the same fate: Arab money, with American support and incitement, will arm factions to fight a civil war or bring down the government. Iraq and Libya (the latest anti-Israel governments) are in shambles. Yemen was also destroyed for the same reasons since the Houthi group is pro-Iran, which implies opposed to Israel.
Make no mistake: countries are not destroyed because of their official or media rhetoric. It is allowed to show hate for the Israeli occupation and even to condemn Israeli crimes. They all do this. However, as soon as any government wants to pass to action, the cabal self-organises against it and starts buying off opponents, factions, militias and all kinds of disenchanted people ready to wage war against the culprit that wants to help the Palestinian armed resistance: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and so on.
If it weren\’t for Hamas and other Palestinian armed resistance forces, no one would remember Palestine as an occupied country. That is why the Arab states did not and will not intervene to stop Israel\’s carnage in Gaza, as they continue to hope that Netanyahu will demolish Hamas and eliminate all resistance in occupied Palestine… for their sake.
Why so? Are the Arab countries helpless? Certainly not. Some have the best weapons in the world and are glad to show them off. Better yet, specific Arab regimes have issued Fatwas to mobilise Muslim youth to fight the Great Jihad in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and even Yemen and Somalia, among other places. But they would never release a Fatwa calling for Jihad in Palestine, even though they consider the Mosque of Jerusalem, which is regularly attacked by Israeli zealots, to be the \”third sacred place in Islam.\”
I do not understand why people continue to believe that Arab states are anti-Zionists or hostile to Israel when, in fact, every Arab government that is a member of the Arab League is Israel\’s closest ally, from the Atlantic to the Gulf coasts. While Palestinian civilians, children, women, and the elderly continue to be killed by Netanyahu\’s war machine, Arabs continue to celebrate the good life without any sense of shame in comparison to those forsaken people of Palestine.
Just a last word for our leaders: why not invite Israel to be a member of the Arab League? It won\’t change anything anyway. Business will continue as usual.
Cheers!
