The Arab governments and the Gaza war

History will not forget their silence or active collusion

Hamas and some of its officials and spokespeople, particularly Dr. Khalil al-Hayya and military spokesman Abu Obeida, are being fiercely criticised these days by Arab governments, both directly and via their electronic armies of social media trolls. Their crime? Their failure, in recent statements, to praise these regimes and thank them for their support during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza or acknowledge their role in foiling it.

In truth, Arab governments should thank the two men for having been so restrained and not exposing them as siding with the occupying power against the resistance. In private, their leaders constantly urged the US and Israel to destroy the resistance in the Gaza Strip (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) as soon as possible, as documented by journalist Bob Woodward in his book War.

Most Arab governments will be remembered by history for their silence about, and in some cases active collusion with, Israel’s mass killings and taking no effective action to end the starvation siege of more than two million of their fellow Arabs.

Hamas’s spokesmen were right to ignore them in their statements about the war. They would have been wrong to do otherwise. There is no place for hypocrisy and sycophancy in this struggle.

None of those governments provided the resistance with a single bullet during the war or annihilation on Gaza — nor will they in the near or distant future.

None of the Arab governments that normalised relations with the occupier expelled any Israeli ambassadors or closed down any embassies — unlike many African and Latin American countries. Israeli flags continue to fly over Arab capitals that refuse to host even a Hamas representative office.

Indeed, most Arab governments not only refused to extend even unofficial recognition to Hamas, but rounded up anyone they suspected of belonging to it to ingratiate themselves with the US. There are currently numerous Hamas members jailed in Arab countries whose governments refuse to put them on trial or even admit holding them.

And despite these governments’ close relations with the US and/or Israel — including collusion, security cooperation, and hosting military bases — they did not manage to secure the delivery of meaningful food or medical supplies to relieve the suffering population.

Instead, while helping tighten the siege on Gaza — as they did previously against Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen — some Arab states established trade corridors to help meet Israel’s food and weapons needs, while maintaining commercial ties and air links (as did the Turkish ‘caliphate’ state).

In his statement, Abu-Obeida expressed due gratitude to all who deserved it: Ansarullah and the Yemeni people; the Islamic resistance (Hezbollah) and the Lebanese people; Iran; the Iraqi resistance; and the free Jordanians who contributed to the al-Aqsa Flood. He also thanked all free people around the world for their solidarity and for demonstrating in their millions against the genocide and in support of the Palestinian cause.

One of the secrets of the success of the resistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and non-reliance on the support of Arab regimes beholden to the US and Israel. It thereby avoided falling into the deep hole into which the PLO descended, and from which it still shows no sign of emerging.

https://www.raialyoum.com/the-arab-governments-and-the-gaza-war/