Arab, western hypocrisy over Gaza

And a new low for America

The world has grown too used to America’s outrageous support for Israel, never mind the degree of the latter’s war crimes. But how weak Washington appeared the other day, unable to condemn Tel Aviv by name when forced to react to the shelling of a second Gaza school, and topping-up IDF’s ammunition despite international condemnation. It has become clear – though after much violence and bloodshed – that the Middle East of the 21^st century is different, even if Israeli and American policy betrays little such realisation. The rise of unprecedented media outreach, driven by Twitter and Facebook activists, has jolted Arab states from Africa to the Levant, rubbishing mukhabbarat regimes that seemed unshakable after all those decades in power.

A similar mentality-shift has already hit the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and a reluctant mainstream western media can no longer afford to be behind the curve in this monumental change. Rallies against Israeli aggression are not new, but the onslaught of the media – now bringing more pictures and videos of mutilated Palestinian women and children to everybody’s homes – will be far tougher to handle, for Israel and America, than Hamas’ rockets hitting dirt in Israeli suburbs. But the Arabs will not escape this change either. For far too long they, too, have played along with the status-quo since oil producing behemoths have traditionally relied on US security, and a comfortable double-coincidence-of-wants has existed. And surely it is more than coincidence that US military indulgence in the region, both in the war against terrorism and Arab Spring, has revolved around the anti-Israeli group. For Saudi and its GCC friends, despite funding, arming and supporting al Qaeda terrorism across the world, the arrangement with the Americans remains; hence barely a whimper from the custodians of Islam as their brethren continue to be butchered at the hands of the Zionist state, with vocal US support, and Arab silence.

Hamas discovered this failing when it ditched Damascus in the wake of the Spring. But with Cairo’s Brotherhood gone and GCC not willing to help, its very rationale for existence came into question. Surely Meshal realises his miscalculation, with the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis now cut off because of his own decisions. Ordinary Palestinians, meantime, pay for this politics in innocent blood and tears. How much more must they endure before the world, especially the west, realises what a nightmare they have created?