Faulty compass
Amid the suffering of the Palestinians, pundits worry about the absence of Arab action. Rasha Saad reveals the indifference
As the Israeli military machinery sows destruction, mothers in Gaza have been crying: Where are the Arabs?
"It seems that mothers in Gaza know little of the terrible Arab silence. The Arabs have been exhausted by struggle," wrote Adel Malek in the London-based Al-Hayat.
According to Malek, the Arab system, once again, failed in the Gaza test. The Arab street also, argues Malek, seems too fatigued to effectively practise pressure or show sympathy with the Palestinians except for some limited demonstrations that took place in a few streets in Arab capitals.
In its editorial, "Who would prevent the crisis?" the UAE's Al-Khaleej wrote that everyone is warning of a humanitarian crisis threatening the Palestinians as a result of the escalation of Zionist terrorism but that no one is exerting any real effort to avert a crisis situation which could affect nearly one and a half million residents in Gaza alone.
According to the editorial, the Israeli aggression did not start with the capture of one Israeli soldier and will not end by his release. It argues that 145 Palestinians were assassinated, 660 wounded and hundreds detained at the hands of the Olmert-Peretz government.
The editorial also questioned the absence of the Arab role. "If the world today turned deaf and blind due to the existence of an axis of evil between the US administration and the Zionist war criminals, where are the Arab countries? Why are they turning their backs on the issue as if they were in another world or on another planet?"
Maher Osman wrote in Al-Hayat that it was not true that the Arab governments were lagging in their efforts to resolve "the crisis of the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier." The truth, according to Osman, is that some of these efforts are being channelled in the wrong direction. He added that Israel was aware of this and was feeling comfortable with the Arab stance.
In "The Arabs in a dark maze", Osman said the Arab world, or most of it, had taken action for the release of the soldier, not because of the horrible war crimes committed daily by the Israeli army against the Palestinians at an escalating pace since the start of the military campaign Summer Rains.
"Have we lost our sense of direction and become lost in a dark maze where we cannot distinguish friend from foe?"
Osman wrote, "the captured soldier held by the Palestinian resistance -- this is what it should really be called -- in the Gaza Strip, is a soldier in the enemy's merciless army. He was taken as a prisoner of war while dressed in his uniform. It is true that he had not killed any Palestinians up to the moment he was captured, but he may have had he not been captured.
"This soldier's mother may be set against 9,000 Palestinian mothers whose sons, children and daughters are held in Israeli prisons."
Osman charged that some Arab governments were proud that their role in the crisis of the kidnapped soldier was the result of a US request, as though this was an honour -- not an assault on their dignity, considering that, for several years now, US foreign policy has been held hostage to the Israeli lobby: the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Its supporters exist in all the major institutions and circles of the US administration, and in the White House in particular.
"Hence, gentlemen members of Arab governments, the US request to some Arab governments in this case serves only the interest of Israel."
Osman provided Arab governments with recommendations to better serve the Palestinian people. He urged them to stop what they were doing to better support the demands of the resistance concerning Palestinians in Israeli prisons. He also suggested that Arab governments assist the Palestinian government in overcoming the unjust international financial siege which Israel brought on in cooperation with the Americans and the European Union. "These governments must offer additional support to repair the damage caused by the Israeli criminal war machine, such as the damage to the electric power stations, the drinking water station in Gaza, and the three bridges which link its neighbourhoods and over which medicine and equipment are transported to hospitals."
In the Jordanian Al-Dostour, Hussein Al-Rawashdeh wrote that Gaza was facing the aggression alone and called on Arab countries to adopt jihad and resistance instead of diplomacy in dealing with the Palestinian crisis.
Al-Rawashdeh wrote that at the time when "our" Arab and Islamic worlds are forcefully defending themselves against accusations of extremism and violence, Israeli planes and tanks exercise their habit of killing civilians and demolishing their homes, schools and hospitals, in front of the whole world and on TV screens, without shame about this official terrorism.
He wrote that Israel was challenging the entire world with the pretext of legitimate self defence, "this self- defence justifies the killing of dozens of innocents in order to release a captured soldier whose kidnappers would not hesitate to swap him with other Palestinian detainees captured without a charge."
Al-Rawashdeh criticised the Islamic world's diplomatic way and believes that its calls upon the world to stop the aggression on Palestinians are falling on deaf ears.
Instead he called on the Arabs for jihad and resistance, believing that the Arab people know exactly what it takes but cannot afford to take action at a time when the political Arab regimes are taking their last breaths and are totally exposed to themselves and others in a way never experienced by any nation in its worst times of defeat and breakdown.
Al-Rawashdeh denounced Arab reaction to the crisis which comprised "empty and cold political analysis, perceiving possible future scenarios, the continuation to act in self-defence against tailored accusations, trying to realise the qualifications of the good and accepted Arab."
According to Al-Rawashdeh, "we need those who will bring back self-esteem to our wounded being and to push these nations to restore insistence on resistance and refuse to bargain over its dignity.
However, Abdul-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat that no one has the right to call on Arab governments to rescue them when these governments were not consulted in the first place.
"Indeed, the Hamas government turned its back on Arab decisions and advice. Those who became involved in this vicious fight and who involved the Palestinian people with them should bear responsibility and prove what wisdom, if any, lies behind it."
Al-Rashed argues that the Arab governments can do nothing in this case except condemn and denounce the Israeli aggression. "No Arab government or people want to be dragged into a battle they know they will lose. The history of the four countries which border Palestine, is ample proof of this. Why should they destroy their countries? Is it for the sake of defending the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier? What victory is worth all this bloodshed and destruction?"
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/803/pr2.htm