A moment of shame
It had been in the air – and on the ground – for some time now; Arab states strongly aligned with the US finding an increasing convergence of interests with Israel. It became prominent when the Spring came to Syria, and Tel Aviv rejoiced at the sight of Riyadh and friends funding and arming rebels bent upon overthrowing one of its staunchest enemies in Damascus. And since the GCC lobby, and Egypt, were the principal protagonists, and they practically wrote the book on controlling information flow via the Arab press, there would be little Muslim backlash. It played out well for a while, but media spin depicting Bashar as a Ba’athist Hitler sold only till Saudi al Qaeda proxies’ beheadings, cleansings, and shari’a exposed themselves as the bigger evil. Yet the Muslim elite’s hypocrisy was put on display like seldom before.
And regardless of the tragedy that has visited the Arab world before and since, that duplicity remains. The Saudi king, for example, finally spoke out against Israeli aggression the other day, but only after a The New York Times report about Arab governments’ silence – implying complicity – over Israeli war crimes. It does not matter that nearly two thousand Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children. But such concerns have rarely mattered in the unforgiving game of Middle East politics. What makes this particular episode somewhat novel, however, is that Arabs have started coming out openly about their own inner hatred of each other, even if that means supporting a far bigger enemy, one with only its own preservation and expansion in mind. Cairo, Baghdad, Tripoli and even Riyadh of a generation ago, despite their dictatorial streaks, would have been aghast at today’s new trend. If there was a moment of shame for the combined Arab/Muslim world, surely it is now.
Hamas, too, must recalibrate. For the moment its defiance wins it legitimacy, but it cannot continue with a position that, however morally or legally justified, brings only death and destruction to ordinary, helpless people. The days when the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis had its back are gone, and there is only Hamas to blame for it. The rise of social media has exposed Israel’s brutality like never before and a wave of disgust has arisen among progressive circles across the world. It is time to tap this energy and make it work in favour of justice.
