“Wake Up Arabs! What Happened To You?”

By Prof.Acl.Ameer Ali

University of murdoch Australia 

Pulverized by the IDF, when Gazans were killed and mutilated in their thousands and when millions of Palestinians were forced out of their homes as continuation of the 1948 Nakba, the cowardly silence of the Arab rulers spoke volumes about their complicity in Israel’s pogrom and their continuing betrayal of the Palestinian cause. In contrast, these same rulers are not remaining silent on the US-Israel war with Iran, but they are collectively and shamelessly encouraging and even demanding the aggressor duo to punish Iran for its attack on their countries. When supporting Hamas in Gaza, Iran neither directly nor indirectly attacked any of the Arab countries, but in this war, it is targeting the American bases and other US facilities in that region because those bases and facilities have become launching pads for Trump and Netanyahu to bomb Iran. Doesn’t Iran have the right to defend itself?

Even without the Iranian counterattack US bases in that region provide no safety and protection to the Arab nations, all of which are caught between US’ drive for global domination and Israel’s resolve to rule over the Middle East. In short, Trump is destroying Iran not to remove any threat to US but to protect and enhance the power of Israel.  What began as a limited mission to disable Iran’s nuclear arsenal, which was investigated years before by experts and found to be non-existent, has turned out to be a war of attrition to destroy anything and everything in that country as Israel did it in Gaza and doing now in Southern Lebanon. Just as Trump’s ceasefire in Gaza failed to stop Israel killing Gazans so seems to be the Pakistan mediated ceasefire to stop Israel bombing Lebanon.

Be that as it may, the words of that angry and frustrated mother cited above were addressed less to draw the attention of Arab rulers who she must have known already were in bed with US and Israel, but more to rouse the sleeping Arab masses whose indifference to what was happening in Gaza for more than one half of a century was shocking to say the least. Even when hundreds of thousand demonstrators all over the non-Arab world were daringly expressing their disgust at and condemnation of Israeli carnage and were demanding meaningful action from the world community there was hardly any protest from the Arab masses. That silence appears to continue even today while Iran is being bombed and pulverized by the US-Israel duo perhaps to the satisfaction of Arab rulers. That is understandable given the abject dependence of these puppets to survive as heads of states. But how does one account for the silence and indifference of Arab masses to what is happening at their doorstep?

Hardly any news about mass reaction come out of this region partly because of strict control over the media by governments. Even Aljazeera has become a mouthpiece of Western propaganda. In general, however, two observations could be advanced to explain this silence and indifference. In the affluent half of that world its rulers may have bought that silence in return for sharing a part of the oil wealth by creating a cradle to grave welfare state in which employment is assured for the young and educated in the public sector. In almost all these oil rich countries the public sector is overstaffed and underperforming.  But that is a small price to pay by governments in return for political calm and subservience of their subjects. In contrast and in the poorer half of the region that calm and subservience is invariably forced out by the barrel of the gun. The Arab Spring of 2011 which sprang with high hopes in Egypt and threatened to engulf the whole region ended unsurprisingly in a winter of despair because of armed interference led by the current president with support from the White House. Dictators and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East always carry the support of US so long as they do not challenge US supremacy and disturb the US-Israel designed Middle East order.