Arab Leadership’s Complicity to Support American-Israeli War on Gaza
[Photo: “Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi (3rd L), Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz (2nd L), Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah IV Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (L), Jordanian King Abdullah II (4th R), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (3rd R), Iraqi President Barham Salih (2nd R) and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) ahead of the opening session within the 30th Arab League Summit in Tunis, Tunisia on March 31, 2019 [Yassine Gaidi / Anadolu Agency]” via Middle East Monitor.]
By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD
In discussing internalized oppression (of which IC is one), Audre Lorde wrote:
Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.
Colonization is accomplished by perverting and destroying one civilization or cultural group and forcing them into a cultural and institutional model that on one hand is based on the colonizers’ society, and on the other creates a permanent sense of inferiority in the colonized group. This dramatically changes cultural socialization, and the perverted institutional structures reinforce this cultural mangling and perpetuate second-class citizenship (or worse) as the norm. Internal conflicts are often enflamed by the colonizers to keep the population fighting with itself rather than with them. This raises the question whether young, highly educated people in the Arab world or elsewhere are less colonized than current leaders.
I believe that it is perhaps an overestimate to believe that nations who (purportedly) have “freed” their former vassal states have washed their hands of colonization. Part of the reason internalized colonization persists is because colonization persists. There are glaring and subtle examples of persistent colonization. On the glaring side is the global media dominance of Western (white) media and entertainment. This includes bombarding the airwaves with shows from the 1950s onward that helped shape expectations and standards in the US and elsewhere. On the more subtle, but no less devastating side is burdening nations with horrendous debt to both colonizers (and venture capitalists who are protected by those same nations.
Even efforts at decolonizing get derailed by colonizers (academics, consultants, and various groups) who don’t even consult with recognized indigenous specialists and people of color. I recommend reading It’s Time to Decolonize the Decolonization Movement by Ijeoma Nnodim Opara, MD.
There is a lot that is not discussed here about internalized colonization, but one thing that we cannot skip is that if the colonized struggle against internalized colonization, colonizers are equally socialized to continue to hold the deep beliefs that underpin colonialism and maintain their belief that they are inherently superior to the non-white population of the planet and that their culture is inherently superior to the (under-developed) peoples.
Mahboob Khawaja, PhD
Palestinians in Search of Humanity
Once a people or a nation has been colonized by European imperialists, it remains colonized and subjugated by the Masters forever. The contemporary oil-producing Arab world represents that historic reality. The Israeli planned onslaught on Gaza for over six months and its catastrophic consequences of crimes against humanity and alleged genocide – all have imprints of the complicity of modern Arab -Muslim leaders.
Are global institutions of peace, security, and conflict management fast becoming obsolete in a real crisis? And global humanity is captive of the US-Israel’s intransigence and plans never experienced in history. Why should the global community allow the arbitrary terror of killing and expulsion of 2.5 million people in Gaza? Philip Giraldi (Global Research: 2/21/24 states in his article “The United States Vetoes Yet Another UN Humanitarian Ceasefire Over Gaza”
“…. several interesting developments relating to Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and its people, but one might well question the motives of at least one of the principal players in the drama, namely Joe Biden’s United States Government.”
How has the war dehumanized the Arab-Muslim world? The Arab-Muslim world is a world of bewildered fantasy – no strength, no power to think intelligently, no policies to defend Islam, and dubious spectators watching Western military actions to assign a final answer to the Palestinian movement for national freedom. If the people of Palestine had white Anglo-Saxon ethnicity like the Ukranians or the EU, the US-West European leaders would have rushed to help the victims and bomb the aggressor. Even drinking water, medicines, food, shelter, and clean oxygen are banned by the Israeli occupation forces. What is next after another inexplicable shocking cataclysm in the making seen on the political horizon?
Were Ancient Warriors More Civilized and Humane than Israel and America?
Those bombing and destroying the Earth and its life cycle are not normal human beings. Were the Stone Age people more intelligent and responsible for not destroying the earth and environment in wars and keeping mankind in safety and unity?
American-supplied weaponry massacred more than 34,500 innocent people of Gaza of which 14,000 were children, and 9,500 were women; and Israel bombed and destroyed the habitats and its citizens for no other reason except intransigence and animosity against Arabs and Muslims. The Earth belongs to all humanity and is a living entity that is a trust to humanity and trust includes accountability. The Earth sustains all forms of living things (known and unknown), it is the essential foundation of our very existence. Pathologically wicked leaders and nations claiming to be most powerful start acting like God to challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God; historically, they become an object of unthinkable natural calamities- earthquakes, wildfires, floods, deaths and destruction. “Say! Travel through the earth; And see what was the end of those who rejected Truth.” spell out the annals of human history. Those bombings and catastrophic events to destroy the planet Earth and mankind and all of its treasures and enrichments are not normal human beings.
There Are No Arab-Muslim Leaders to Protect the People of Gaza and Palestine
Steven Cook (“Arab Countries Have Israel’s Back—for Their Own Sake.” Foreign Policy: 4/18/24) explains that “Last weekend’s security cooperation in the Middle East doesn’t indicate a new future for the region.” Historically, wicked and aggressive people enjoin friendship and apathy for vicious plans against mankind. President Joe Biden pretended to support the two-state solution in the Middle East. He turned out to be an imposter when he vetoed Palestine’s full membership in the UNSC. Israelis friendly Arab leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and others were silent spectators, not challenging the wicked actions professed by the US diplomacy. They were submissive to the Master, not safeguarding the interest of their own people. Many Arab leaders (including the Saudi and the UAE princes) have investments in Israel via Jared Kushner- son-in-law of Donald Trump. America and Israel view all the Arab States as vulnerable to besiegement and political supremacy. Several centuries earlier, the Arabs were described as:
Thus have We made of you
An Ummah justly balanced, that ye might be witnesses over other nations……to Those guided by God. (Quran: 2: 143)
Living in the fantasy of time and power, Arab-Muslim states have no armies or leaders to protect civilians from the ongoing bloodbath in Gaza and the national interest of Palestine. America and Israel have working plans to conquer more Arab lands -Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and others to resettle the Palestinians and put a finished answer on Palestine as a future State. Would the Arab-Muslim leaders think outside the imperial box to plan for a navigational change in relationships with the US and its military hegemony? The time, history and future generations of conscientious people will curse the so-called tribal agents for their wickedness and greed to be kings, queens, and princes and nothing else to make their presence in the global arena of emerging conflicts. Please see: “How Did Arab Leaders Betrayed Islam and Defied the Logic of Political Change, Peace and Security.”
While the Arab leaders make melodramatic and misleading claims of security and peace with Israel and the West, the region is a highly militarized and destabilized landscape of continuous conflicts. To subdue and humiliate the “camel jockeys” of the oil-producing Arab world, now the US exports wars, weapons, and poisonous thoughts to divide and conquer the Arabian Peninsula. To change the future, America and Israel needed a just and strong political challenge to stop the war on Gaza but it was nowhere to be seen on the Arabian leadership horizon. For too long, Arab leaders have breathed oxygen steeped in moral and intellectual decadence and a delusional fantasy of oil-run economic prosperity. Israeli and the US strategic plans are working. At the same time, the Arab-Muslim leaders never thought of proactive critical thinking about the future except transitory oil-fed happiness and sports and erecting hi-rise buildings defying conventional wisdom.
Would the current so-called Arabian princes, kings, and ameers be phased out by the new young conscientious generations of political activists? The time and opportunities call for new Arab leadership of educated and honest people, rethinking and new ideas to reject violence and vengeance as contrary to the nature of humanity, peace, and intellect. To avoid the most dreadful tragedies in the making, the new generations of Arab-Muslim leaders would reject the tyranny of war as a means to solve political problems and take a firm stand with moral and intellectual strength to persuasive communication and dialogue for peace, security and conflict resolution.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and is the author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany, 12/2019.