The international community is complicit in Israel’s torture of Palestinians

Ramona Wadi

The torture suffered by Palestinian prisoner Samer Arabeed at the hands of Israel’s Shin Bet interrogators has proved, once again, that the prohibition of such treatment as enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute and the UN Convention Against Torture is little more than a series of reference points used by human rights groups as reminders to the torturers.

Arabeed was transferred to Hadassah Hospital following intensive torture after being arrested for his alleged involvement in a bombing attack in August. A statement by the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, mentioned that Israel admitted to having used “extreme and exceptional techniques in interrogations that actually amount to torture.”

Israel’s Justice Ministry has announced an investigation to decide whether criminal proceedings should be instigated against the Shin Bet officials. Arabeed’s torture resulted in broken ribs and loss of consciousness. His situation is now life-threatening and he is on a life-support machine. His family and lawyer were notified belatedly of his transfer from prison to hospital.

Last July, Palestinian prisoner Nasser Taqatqa died following torture and interrogation at the hands of Shin Bet. Testimonies from former Palestinian prisoners testify to the fact that torture is used systematically by Israeli interrogators. In 2013, Arafat Jaradat died under torture while detained in Megiddo Prison.

In November 2018, Israel’s High Court ruled in favour of torture if the Palestinian detainee is a member of “a designated terrorist organisation”, involved in armed resistance or if there are no other means to obtaining information. If Israel has self-established such immunity, how is it expected that the constant referencing of international laws and conventions will be enough to halt the torture of Palestinian prisoners?

In laying down the specifics on the prohibition of torture, the international community absconded from accountability in order to make human rights profitable for the perpetrators and a labyrinth of dead ends for the victims. Between these polarities, human rights organisations have tasked themselves with upholding principles in place of governments, yet their limited potential or, in some cases, partial agendas, have failed to implement any viable system of  justice.

Israel is well aware of this dissonance and it exploits the absence of accountability to manipulate what constitute acceptable means of interrogation tactics. The international community’s complete marginalisation of Palestinians when it comes to their rights has facilitated Israel’s constant normalisation of torture, in full breach of international law, without as much as a collective condemnation.

The result is a permanent severing between information dissemination and the kind of legal recourse which would provide Palestinian prisoners with the chance of justice. Human rights organisations like Addameer are forced into an unwitting collaboration with diplomacy, navigating endless and repetitive cycles to raise awareness, which is what the international community intended in the first place when it failed to uphold accountability.

Calling for Arabeed’s release will not be the end of Israel’s predatory violence. It is a preventive step against further torture, yet behind this story there are several others which have escaped the meagre media attention that catapults the victims’ names, albeit briefly, into the headlines. Addameer alone cannot accomplish justice for Palestinian prisoners. At the very least, there must be a collective global approach to expose the international community’s complicity in torture and its fraudulent human rights agenda.

Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem

Asa Winstanley

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia 

on 16 June 2018 [Saudi Press Agency]

It is open season for Arab normalisation with Israel. The brutal absolutist monarchies which rule in the Arab Gulf countries have increasingly found common cause with Israel in recent years. And this sickening mutual appreciation society for oppressors is only getting more blatant.

Despite not having any formal diplomatic relationship with Israel, I believe that it is now only a matter of time before Saudi Arabia opens an embassy, but not in Tel Aviv. Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem.

If and when that day comes, we can expect to see the timid criticism of the Saudi government and its maniacal de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, which occasionally seeps from Western politicians and establishment media to evaporate swiftly. Forgotten will be the grizzly death that “Mohammad Bone Saw” ordered for Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist murdered at Bin Salman’s command in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October. Forgotten too will be the people of Yemen, who for years now have died in their droves thanks to the crushingly brutal Saudi intervention in the civil war in their country.

What’s more, the Palestinian people will not even factor in the considerations of the cynical leaders of Western governments, as they use cliché upon cliché in praise of a Bin Salman “peace” initiative with the racist, occupation Israeli regime. The apartheid military dictatorship that dominates the lives and deaths of millions of Palestinian people, though, does not deserve any kind of validation or recognition.

For more than 70 years, Israel has illegally occupied Palestinian and other Arab lands; imposed military rule in historic Palestine on Palestinian Arabs alone; created a form of apartheid against the indigenous people of the land; and, above all, denied the internationally-recognised right of the Palestinian refugees to return to the homes from which they were driven by Zionist militias. This Nakba (Catastrophe) began in earnest in 1947 and has continued ever since.

The unjust conditions that Israel imposes on the Palestinians, along with the periodic military invasions and occupations of Arab countries neighbouring historic Palestine, is the perennial reason for popular Arab rejection of the Israeli entity. Israel’s latest unprovoked bombing campaigns across three different countries in recent days only further illustrates this point. It bombed targets across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in the latest in a long history of such attacks.

Saudi attracts US attention by singing Israel’s tunes – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

Due to such rejection of Israel among Arab people themselves, its far-right government relies on making allies of undemocratic Arab monarchies, secret police forces and militaries, political quislings and the stenographers of Arab power who pose as journalists. Hence last month’s delegation of Saudi and other Arab individuals organised by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The move backfired, with clueless nobody Mohammed Saud heckled by local Palestinians in Jerusalem as he toured the city and its holy places under the auspices of an Israeli government propaganda trip. In viral videos, Palestinians can be heard denouncing Saud, calling him “cheap” and telling him to “go pray in the Knesset”, Israel’s parliament building.

As is quite typical when undemocratic governments in the Arab region want to agitate for more normalisation with Israel, the Saudi line has been open xenophobia against the Palestinian people. “The level of meanness and villainy that the Palestinian people have reached, they have ruined the image of Islam and Muslims,” cursed Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ghabin, a pro-government Saudi tweeter and activist.

Speaking on Israeli TV, Al-Ghabin openly called for Israel to remove Jerusalem’s Islamic holy places from Jordanian custodianship, and made a veiled call for Palestinians to be driven out of Palestine. He claimed that Jordan’s recent warming-up of diplomatic relations with Qatar and Turkey “will not save it from its inevitable fate as an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.”

Compulsory “transfer” of indigenous Palestinians out of their land and into a neighbouring Arab country like Jordan has been the primary goal of the Zionist movement from its inception, half a century before the formal creation of Israel in 1948.

In contrast to this Arab elite trend of normalisation with Israel, some Saudi citizens have been tweeting solidarity with the Palestinians using the Arabic hashtag “Saudis against normalisation”. In a totalitarian state like that run by the Saudi “royal family”, this is a brave gesture.

Such popular pushback is no doubt a large part of why the Saudis and most of the other normalising Arab dictators have not yet established full, formal diplomatic relations with Israel. However, my estimation is that that time is likely to be coming soon. Like Trump moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv of Jerusalem in violation of international law, plans for a Saudi embassy to be opened there as well are probably already prepared.

India annexes Kashmir under the dark shadow of Netanyahu and Modi’s far-right embrace

Nasim Ahmed

The depth of love between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi has few parallels. Many traits unite the current crop of populist, power-hungry, authoritarian strongmen that have been on the rise of late, but few have enjoyed the kind of relationship that has blossomed between Modi and Netanyahu. The two are in a league of their own; conjoined twins some may say, whose friendship is forged through similar racist ideologies and deep dislike of minorities.

Both leaders again expressed their affection for each other yesterday. Netanyahu responded to Modi’s declaration of “eternal” friendship by saying: “Thank you, my friend, Indian PM @narendramodi. I could not agree with you more. The deep connection between Israel and India is rooted in the strong friendships between Israelis and Indians. We cooperate in so many areas. I know our ties will only strengthen in the future!”

Netanyahu’s adoration was prompted by a Modi tweet in which he thanked an Israeli Embassy message on Twitter: “May our ever-strengthening friendship & #growingpartnership touch greater heights.” Replying in Hebrew, Modi said: “Thank you; I wish the great citizens of Israel and my friend @netanyahu a happy Friendship Day. Israel and India have proved their friendship over time. Our ties our eternal and strong. I hope that our friendship will continue to thrive and grow even further.”

The exchange took place as India prepared to more or less annex the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir by revoking its special status. Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist government pushed forward with a hostile move to revoke the part of the constitution that gives Indian-administered Kashmir special status in what is seen as an unprecedented move. It is not unlike Israel’s ongoing attempt to seize the whole West Bank and is just as likely to spark unrest.

OPINION: Modi’s ‘de-hyphenated’ policy on Palestine contradicts India’s struggle against British colonialism

Article 370 is sensitive because it guarantees significant autonomy for the disputed territory by allowing the 12 million people who live in Jammu and Kashmir to have their own constitution, a separate flag and independence over all matters except foreign affairs, defence and communications. India’s decision has been denounced by the former chief minister of the state, Mehbooba Mufti, who is reported by the BBC as saying that the move effectively made India an occupying force. “Today marks the darkest day in Indian democracy,” she tweeted, adding that the government’s “unilateral decision” is “illegal and unconstitutional.”

Modi’s decision, which upheld a promise made by his right-wing Hindu nationalist party during its 2019 election campaign, is expected to lead to violence and arrests. Activists on the ground in Kashmir spoke to MEMO of the “total communication blackout since midnight” and reported that the “whole of Kashmir is under strict indefinite curfew.” In recent days, the Indian government has also moved 10,000 troops to what is already one of the most militarised regions in the world and ordered tourists and Hindu pilgrims to leave the Himalayan valley.

The newly dispatched soldiers will join the nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers already deployed in Indian-administered Kashmir, where civilian protesters and armed rebels either want freedom for the Muslim-majority Kashmir from India or merger with Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan claim the region of Kashmir in full and have fought two of their three wars over it.

Modi’s plan for India-administered Kashmir has uncanny similarities with the way in which Netanyahu, with a similar right-wing extreme nationalist government, is looking to annex the West Bank. The ideological bond between the extreme version of Zionism represented by Netanyahu and the extreme Hindu nationalism of the Hindutva, represent by Modi, is almost identical: both are political ideologies; both subscribe to the same concept of a far-right ethno-nationalist movement that uses religion to achieve its aims, and both misrepresent history to justify atrocities against minorities in pursuit of an exclusivist and discriminatory political vision.

Hinduvta members, like their ideological counterparts in Israel, speak openly of ethnic cleansing and expelling minority communities: that includes Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Ravidassias and Buddhists in the case of the extremist Hindus, and Christian and Muslim Palestinians in the case of Israel. Their vision is rooted in fascism and white supremacy. Hindutva is identified commonly as the guiding ideology of the Hindu Nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of which Modi is a member.

OPINION: Kashmir from Nehru to Modi; what’s changed?

A profile of RSS ideology shows that its leaders draw their inspiration from right-wing, fascist European groups and their leaders, including Hitler and Mussolini. Its long-time chief, M S Golwalkar, is said to have openly admired Hitler’s “final solution” and wanted to apply the same approach in India to eliminate the country’s minorities. This makes the strong bond between Modi and Netanyahu even harder to understand.

While the two countries under their current rulers can be said to enjoy an ideological affinity and subscribe to the exclusivist political vision of the far-right, both are also locked in a struggle with a large minority group challenging military occupation and human rights abuse, thus making them allies in ways that are rare on the global stage. Relations between the two countries have never been better. India is now the largest weapons market for the Israeli arms trade; the two countries carry out joint military exercises; and Israel uses the Negev Desert to train Indian soldiers in the tactics of suppressing civilian populations, its expertise learned through the suppression of Palestinians in the Gaza and the West-Bank.

It’s in this regard that Israel, perhaps more than any other right-wing government, has excelled. It is in an enviable position, according to Israeli author Jeff Halper, to “secure insecurity” having had decades of experience suppressing Palestinians. In his 2015 book, War Against the People Halper argues that Israel’s security exports are unmatched due to its ability to develop weapons and techniques for urban warfare, surveillance and intelligence; what Halper calls “full-spectrum domination”. Israel’s success is put down to its knowledge and experience of developing control technologies and battle-tested weapons that have become the “must-have” items in the armoury of every authoritarian dictator facing a restive population. This was demonstrated clearly when Israeli-made Rafael Spice-2000 “smart bombs” were used by the Indian air force in its strike against Kashmiri “terrorists” inside Pakistan in February.

Beyond trade and arms sales, Israel has also found an ally in Modi on the international stage where the Zionist state regularly comes under sharp criticism from the UN and other international bodies. In June, New Delhi’s representative at the global body voted in favour of Israel in a vote to grant consultative status to a Palestinian human rights NGO, which eventually lost its bid to join the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The vote marked an unprecedented stage in relations between the two countries. India’s history in the anti-colonial movement once made it a strong ally of the Palestinian cause. Previous Indian prime ministers, including the country’s founder and revered leader Mahatma Gandhi, opposed Israel, believing it to be a colonial enterprise. The leader of the Indian independence movement against the British was strongly opposed to the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine, he believed it was an an expression of ethnonationalism that was inimical to the values of secular liberal democracy.

With his embrace of Netanyahu, Modi has turned his back on the legacy of Gandhi and his vision of a secular democracy based on civic nationalism and equality for all, irrespective of race and religion. Indian democracy has indeed taken a serious hit.

Will the UN act if the US recognises Israel’s sovereignty over West Bank?

 Ramona Wadi

The UN has advanced no further than acknowledging that Israel is seeking to “advance a claim of sovereignty” over settlements in the occupied West Bank. As the Israeli elections approach, the main contenders – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz from the Blue and White alliance – are prioritising settlement expansion and the elimination of all possibilities of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu’s alliance with US President Donald Trump has reaped an entrenching of violating Palestinian rights, which the international community has refused to consider as a strategy to displace Palestinians physically and politically. In his latest demands to the US, Netanyahu is reportedly asking Trump to support Israeli sovereignty over settlements. While official diplomatic confirmation of such reports is not yet available, such a move would tie in to the annexationcomments made in June by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

US-Israeli actions do not leave space for manoeuvre unless this is for further colonial expansion. While the UN was busy churning out its usual statements on violations dissociated from the wider colonial framework, Israel benefited from US decisions which run contrary to the Palestinian political demands the UN purportedly supports.

In less than two years, the US recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved its embassyfrom Tel Aviv, recognised Israel’s control over the Golan Heights and set in motion plans to exacerbate UNRWA’s financial crisis by withholding funds. The US has also announced its intent to redefine the Palestinian refugee identity in order – ostensibly to render UNRWA defunct. However, the underlying motive is to eliminate the Palestinian right of return from political discourse.

School children in an UNRWA institute fly kites carrying the hashtag ‘dignity is priceless’ to highlight the dire situation in Gaza [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

While the US was divulging its economic plans as part of the “deal of the century”, the UN was looking the other way, preoccupied with saving the two-state hyperbole. Israel’s settlement expansion has also elicited a predictable response by the international community – save the two-state compromise to save international diplomacy regardless of whether it fails Palestinians. The absence of action by the international community has facilitated this alliance between the US and Israel in contempt of international law.

With no political will forthcoming from the rest of the world to halt the colonisation of Palestinian land, Israel generates additional impunity as well as the possibilities for the international community to align itself gradually with US-Israeli interests.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is calling for international sanctions over Israel’s recent approval of additional settlement construction, yet “welcomes the principled statements of condemnation by responsible international actors”. This constant downgrading of political expectations reinforces the international community’s reliance on perfunctory statements, which also include the occasional deviation from condemnations to suggesting holding Israel accountable. The latter are disseminated as if constituting a breakthrough in a process dominated by international complicity, thus further harming the Palestinian cause for liberation and political rights.

It is no secret that the Trump administration has set an overt plan in motion to support Israel unequivocally. Meanwhile, the international community has yet to clarify its true stance over the colonisation of Palestine. Its refusal to hold Israel accountable at least for its violations points to a tacit agreement to allow a complete deterioration of Palestinian rights before spelling out its duplicitous diplomacy.

We must boycott Israeli sports as we did with Apartheid South Africa

Ramzy Baroud

The Palestinian Football Association is struggling to survive. Combined US-Israeli pressure on Palestinian organisations that provide aid and support to the Palestinian people is now felt in the field of sports as well. In recent months, the association’s budget has been slashed by more than half, and the new football season may be cancelled entirely.

In Palestine, football in particular, represents more than just a game. It provides respite, continuity, hope, and unity.

The Palestine Football Association has been in existence since 1928, that is 20 years before Israel was founded on destroyed Palestinian cities, towns and villages. But, not even the tragic Nakba would end the sport in Palestine. When Palestine was admitted as a full member of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1998, a rare moment of triumph prevailed over the sense of political stagnation. The Palestinian national team became a representation of a collective sense of pride and defiance. It meant that despite Israeli military restrictions, the targeting of Palestinian athletes and the bombing of stadiums and sports facilities, Palestinians continue to embrace life and thrive.

Argentina cancels football match with Israel – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

Even after the factional clash between Fatah and Hamas and the subsequent political disconnect between Gaza and the West Bank, sports continued to provide a critical outlet for unity. While Gaza and the West Bank have their own football leagues, they still competed in a final match to determine the winner of the Palestine Cup.

Alas, last month, Israel prevented the Rafah football team from reaching the West Bank, to meet its Balata Youth Centre rivals in the Cup’s final match.

Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian sports is relentless and is part of a long record of making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to pursue activities that should have no bearing on “Israel’s security”.

The Palestine national team is possibly the most beleaguered football team in the world today.

“Due to Israeli restrictions, the Palestinian national team has been banned from playing their home games in Palestinian stadiums for many years and is forced to host them in nearby Arab countries,” wrote Hazem Balousha in Arab News. Effectively, this means that all Palestinian football training camps have to be held outside Palestine, often with the team’s Gaza squad unable to join their peers. Meanwhile, no foreign trainers are allowed to enter besieged Gaza.

Moreover, the occasional news of a Palestinian footballer being shot, beaten or imprisoned, though tragic, is routine news for Palestinians.

Israel has, however, hardly received any serious reprimand for its unlawful actions. Despite Tel Aviv’s constant violations of Palestinian sports rights, FIFA and other international sports federations continue to treat Israel with kid gloves. Worse, instead of being punished for violating international law regarding sports, Israel is often rewarded. The fact that Israel’s Football Association includes six teams from illegal Jewish settlements (colonies that are built on stolen Palestinian land) seems to be of no consequence to FIFA’s bosses.

Recently, the sports brand, Puma has replaced Adidas as the sponsor of Israel’s national football teams. The decision indicates that the company is completely oblivious to sports apartheid in Israel. Puma’s lack of sportsmanship is now the subject of a major international boycott campaign led by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Over 200 Palestinian sports clubs support the call on Puma to end its dealings with Israel, in an attempt to pressure Israel to put an end to its violations of Palestinian human rights.

In fact, Israel should be boycotted in every possible way until it relents and respects international law regarding the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people. Often, however, we overlook the centrality of sports boycott in the overall boycott strategy.

Sports boycott engages, not only politicians and intellectuals but also ordinary people around the world. “The case for football boycott of Israel is just as compelling as that of football boycott of South Africa,” BDS wrote on its homepage. For one, “boycott would spread awareness of Israeli racism and abuse of Palestinian human rights across the football community worldwide.”

Moreover, boycotting Israeli sports, especially football, will deny Israel an important tool aimed at normalising its military occupation, apartheid, and racism. It will force ordinary Israelis to think about the consequences of their support of right-wing racist governments. It could, in fact, it will espouse a serious debate in Israel.

Argentina cancels football match with Israel – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

This same logic worked in Apartheid South Africa and was a powerful tool in the international support for the anti-Apartheid movement in that country.

But with FIFA and others turning a blind eye to Israeli violations, Palestinians continue to suffer while Israel continues to sell itself as a sports-loving member of FIFA and other sports organizations.

“Divestment and boycotts are familiar tactics from the international anti-apartheid movement, but they didn’t match the psychological power of the sports boycott,” wrote Tony Karon in the National.

“Rugby was an essential part of the identity of the South African regime’s base, and denying their ability to compete on an international stage was one of the most painful sanctions in the minds of many apartheid supporters.”

As for FIFA, it suspended the membership of the Football Association of South Africa in 1961, followed by a decision, in 1968 by the United Nations General Assembly that called for boycotting all sports bodies in South Africa that practiced apartheid. The pressure continued to mount, uniting international solidarity around clear and achievable objectives.

Many organisations have taken the lead in their respective countries to create a similar movement for Palestine. Israel must not be allowed to participate in international sports while simultaneously cementing its apartheid, racist regime in Palestine.

Has the UAE jumped the Saudi ship in Yemen?

Two days ago, Dubai-based academic Dr Abdul Khaliq Abdullah said that the war in Yemen is over for the UAE. Of course, we can’t say that his tweet was posted by an official individual, but it does indeed represent a new trend in the Emirates, which has taken a sharp turn on Yemen and relations with Iran. It is worth noting that this new position has appeared suddenly, and there is nothing to suggest any coordination between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi recently.

The UAE entered a coalition with Saudi Arabia with the intention of defeating Iran and its proxies in Yemen. It is also an original partner in the blockade of Qatar, based on the fact that the government in Doha has ties with Tehran.

In this sense, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been in step, which some saw as making a difference in international and regional politics. However, the UAE’s measures over the past two weeks reflect a change in its reading of its role and abilities, as well as the threats to its policies.

Abu Dhabi has realised that the war in Yemen will not be settled militarily. Four years into the coalition’s involvement, there is no indication of a victory any time soon. On the contrary, the UAE has become an occupying force opposed by the Yemenis, who accuse it of seeking to divide Yemen into two distinct entities.

The ballistic missile and drone attacks by the Houthis have posed a new threat which Abu Dhabi did not take into consideration when it agreed to join the Saud-led coalition. There is also no doubt that the UAE has started to read US intentions more precisely, as President Donald Trump is not intending to engage in a war with Iran, especially while he is preparing a re-election campaign. Moreover, the warnings by Iranian-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to the UAE have set alarm bells ringing; his talk of the high price that the “glass cities” will pay has prompted Emirati leaders to accelerate their withdrawal from Yemen and rapprochement with Iran. The withdrawal was not phased, and until recently the Emirates had behaved like any other colonial force in southern Yemen.

Houthis patrol Sanaa, Yemen on 5 December 2017 [Mohammed Hamoud/Anadolu Agency]

We do not know the exact degree of coordination between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, but we do know that Saudi Arabia tried to dissuade the Emirates from withdrawing from Yemen, but to no avail, apparently. The UAE has started to reconsider its positions and it seems that it does not want to be cannon fodder in an upcoming war. Distancing itself from Saudi Arabia and its policies in the region has become its means of survival in advance of the storm clouds gathering.

Such independent moves are expected to anger the Saudis. Ultimately, though, the Emirates’ decision to withdraw and reach an understanding with Iran is realistic and rational. There are signs that Dubai in particular does not agree with the official UAE policy. The wealthy emirate acted as the trade outlet for the Iranians, but this has declined as a result of the sanctions imposed on Tehran and the UAE’s alignment with Saudi Arabia in its approach to Iran. The attacks on oil tankers in Fujairah port was another cause for concern about the future of the UAE’s political, economic and security stability.

The leaders of the Emirates may have noticed that the US has pulled back in its threats to Iran. They may also have reasoned that playing such games with the Iranians will not happen without the UAE paying a heavy price.

In short, the UAE has realised that the Saudi boat is no longer safe and that it will, almost inevitably, sink; this has pushed Abu Dhabi to jump ship and seek safety. It would not come as a surprise if Riyadh eventually follows suit and also pulls out of Yemen, prompting a similar change in policy with regard to Iran.

Who is setting the Middle East on fire?

Adel Suleiman

The Middle East is in so much disorder that chaos barely disappears in one place before it reappears in another. It is as if a hidden fiendish hand is controlling the destruction. Furthermore, it so happens that the flames only burn Arabs in the region and exhaust Arab resources.

Yemen, which was once a relatively happy country, is now suffering from the worst humanitarian disaster of this century so far, thanks to a futile war now in its fifth year. It is only Arabs involved, from the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf, and it has affected western and central Saudi Arabia, as well as the UAE, places which have not witnessed war for decades.

Beloved Syria has become the scene of civil war for over eight years, during which time millions of people have been displaced, with hundreds of thousands killed and wounded while regional and international forces take advantage of their land. The blood being shed on Syrian soil is almost all Arab blood.

The people of Libya looked forward to freedom after ousting dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, but as soon they looked like doing so, chaos erupted at the hands of one of Gaddafi’s former officers. Khalifa Haftar had been imprisoned in Chad before he announced his split from Gaddafi and became a refugee in the US, sponsored by the CIA and taking American citizenship. He is now behind the divisive and bloody fighting that is shedding Libyan blood; more Arab blood.

Now further chaos is erupting in Sudan as the people try to rise up against the regime of Omar Al-Bashir. After 30 years of oppression, tyranny and bloody repression, a group of generals raised the slogan of support for the popular revolutionary movement, arrested Bashir, formed a military council to take over the government, and then revealed their true face by ending a peaceful protest with violence at the hands of a compliant militia. More Arab blood shed by Arabs.

We should not lose sight of the tension in Algeria for the past four months. Weekly protests continue peacefully, albeit under the tight control of the army chief of staff. Let us hope things stay that way to allow the people to fulfil their aspirations.

Meanwhile, the chaos in Iraq continues. It’s nothing new, and the shedding of Arab blood is ongoing. In Palestine, the unrest and bloodletting has been going on for more than seventy years. The resistance against Israeli aggression has led to much Arab blood being spilt. Palestinian civilians are the main victims.

Does the Arab world have room for any more chaos? Who is behind it all, and why? Answers can be found in events in the heart of the region. The recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman sent a clear message that the oil supply routes from the Arabian Gulf can be cut very easily. While the fingers of blame pointed to Iran and its proxies, the government in Tehran denied any involvement. Analysts concluded that the attacks sought to escalate the conflict between the US and Iran, in favour of regional states, and Iran sought to ease the pressure of US economic sanctions. Interestingly, both the US and Iran helped to rescue tanker crews caught up in the dispute.

Elsewhere in the region, America may be accusing Iran of threatening international peace and security, but its own ally, Israel, has laid the foundations of an illegal Jewish settlement in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights named after a certain Donald Trump. The ceremony was attended by the US Ambassador in Israel, a confirmation that Washington accepts Israeli sovereignty over the occupied territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen at the dedication of an Israeli settlement to US President Donald Trump, in the Golan Heights on 16 June 2019 [USAmbIsrael / Twitter]

Next week sees the economic workshop being held in Bahrain to discuss the Palestinian issue through “investment for peace”, not land for peace. Washington has announced that the Arab parties which will participate are primarily Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. The programme is apparently a prelude to the political aspects of the “deal of the century”, the announcement of which has been delayed yet again, until November, following Israel’s second General Election this year, to be held in September.

In the midst of all of this, with contradictions galore between beating the drums of war and Arab states normalising relations with the Israeli enemy, Trump has spoken of his readiness for dialogue with Iran.

So who is causing all of this chaos in the Middle East, and what is the purpose? America will not strike Iran to please any regional party, nor will it stop blackmailing Arab oil states on the pretext of protecting them from the “Iranian threat”. More importantly, its “deal of the century” to liquidate the Palestinian cause is on its way. In the meantime, it is happy to let the Middle East remain in flames, as long as only the Arabs get burnt.