Friday, March 29, 2024
 
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Gaza Slaughter, Muslim Causes and Arabs





By Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani



For Arabs self-preservation and power are more important than Muslims causes anywhere in the world in particular in Gaza or Kashmir (Kashmir is a Muslim majority cause). They are scared of one person one vote and democracy and have to shrug off any such political symbols in the region. Hamas has emerged as a politico-religious discipline and the neighbors are nervous.



Arabs abuse human rights of their people and of those resident in their countries and wash their hands clean as people throw banana peels and move on. A word on human rights opens a can of worms for them. Therefore Saudi Arabia the de facto leader of the majority Sunni Muslim world consciously shared collective silence on Gaza for over three weeks, which were enough for Israel to down grade the effectiveness of Hamas as a fighting discipline and slaughter as many children, women, men, youth and elderly that it would take Palestinians a generation to come out of mourning and grief.



On Friday 01 August 2014 a statement was read out on State television on behalf of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Gaza. It criticized international inaction over Israel's offensive in Gaza, which he described as involving "war crimes against humanity" and mass slaughter. One could see the depleted merit of this statement when he chose the occasion to slam militants who he said were killing innocent people and mutilating their bodies in contravention of Islamic teachings and called on the region's leaders and religious scholars to prevent Islam from being hijacked by militants. In fact he was referring to violence in neighbouring countries, including Iraq and Syria, where the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has captured swaths of territory, killing scores of people and forcing Christians to flee.



Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) – both oppose the al-Saud monarchy in favour of the establishment of a caliphate. So, the statement is really not so much a matter of love for humanity in Gaza as it must be clear from KSA’s record of human rights and foreign policies, as it is of self-preservation and power. Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, sees itself as a main player in the Middle East. But it has played only a low-key role in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Gaza, leaving the main Arab efforts to its close ally Egypt and fellow Gulf monarchy Qatar.



After more than three weeks since the beginning of the operation Protective Edge , Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has finally come out with a strong-worded statement accusing Israel of war crimes and taking terrorists to task for maligning Islam simultaneously. The Saudi King also lamented the silence of both the Muslim world and the international community describing it to be “inexcusable.”




Israel and USA would not read much into this statement. They know that leaders of Middle Eastern countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have been under immense pressure from the largely pro-Palestine populations and even the media, in some cases, to take a strong stance against the ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza. The public is naturally outraged to find that the spirit of Muslim unity and brotherhood isn’t truly reflected in their respective countries’ foreign policy. The statement is more of a political posturing to assuage the popular anger than to be of any consequence to the situation in Gaza.



It is a well-known fact is that Saudi Arabia doesn’t view Hamas favourably. Hamas, although a Sunni organisation, is supported by the Kingdom’s Shia rivals Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Syria, the KSA is funding groups which are fighting to overthrow the Iran-backed Assad regime. In the context of Middle Eastern sectarian politics, Saudi Arabia doesn’t mind Israel degrading a notable entity backed by Iran such as Hamas, which explains why the King has taken quite some time before sharing his thoughts.




Israel two years ago in her battle with Palestinian militants in Gaza found itself pressed from all sides by unfriendly Arab neighbours to end the fighting. Not this time. Israel is allowed a no holds barred by the Arabs against Hamas in operation Protective Edge. After the Arab Spring in Egypt, there is a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip.




Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington and a former Middle East negotiator under several presidents stated that “The Arab states’ loathing and fear of political Islam is so strong that it outweighs their allergy to Benjamin Netanyahu,” the prime minister of Israel. “I have never seen a situation like it, where you have so many Arab states acquiescing in the death and destruction in Gaza and the pummelling of Hamas. The silence is deafening.”





Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to Palestinian negotiators who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington says that “There is clearly a convergence of interests of these various regimes with Israel.” He holds that “In the battle with Hamas, the Egyptian fight against the forces of political Islam and the Israeli struggle against Palestinian militants were nearly identical. The dynamic has inverted all expectations of the Arab Spring uprisings. As recently as 18 months ago, most analysts in Israel, Washington and the Palestinian territories expected the Egypt and other Arab states, especially the Persian Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are finding themselves allied with Israel in a common opposition to Iran, a rival regional power that has a history of funding and arming Hamas.




Gazans have difficult times ahead and Arab betrayal is the most disturbing link in the chain of difficulties. The pro-government Egyptian news media has continued to rail against Hamas as a tool of a regional Islamist plot to destabilize Egypt and the region, just as it has since the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood one year ago. (Egyptian prosecutors have charged Hamas with instigating violence in Egypt, killing its soldiers and police officers, and even breaking Mr. Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders out of jail during the 2011 uprising.) The diatribes against Hamas by at least one popular pro-government talk show host in Egypt were so extreme that the government of Israel broadcast some of them into Gaza. “They use it to say, ‘See, your supposed friends are encouraging us to kill you!’ ” Maisam Abumorr, a Palestinian student in Gaza City, said in a telephone interview.





Kashmir

Arab dictators are more interested in keeping good relationship with Israel to retain a favourable US policy on these regimes than discharging their assumed responsibilities towards the world of Islam. Arab interest in particular and Muslim interest in general in Gaza has jolted the Kashmiri leadership into a realization that any reliance on these gulf countries for the resolution of Kashmir issue would be a serious mistake. Arab indifference towards Palestinian cause is a wakeup call and as I have been advocating that OIC interest in Kashmir does not travel beyond a clerical effort of issuing invitations to Kashmiri leaders, ritual meetings and a recycling of a resolution of solidarity with the people of Kashmir. All those who attend these meetings and beef up the propaganda of an achievement on the question of Kashmiris right to self-determination have been accomplices in misleading the people of Kashmir.




OIC should have assisted the people of Kashmir on the jurisprudence of the case through the United Nations. If it had supplemented the UN mechanism on Kashmir, things would have been a lot better than as we see them after 24 years since the start of an armed resistance. We have either failed in good faith or have done it as for ulterior purpose to hold it from the people of Kashmir that OIC countries off the Kashmir meetings have no issue with India on the question of Kashmir. It is a political posturing for the moment and does not carry any merit beyond the meeting.




Not all but only the conformists and opportunists who have turned Kashmir into a business enterprise carry the major blame for all the recent failures since 1990. A simple mathematics is required to point fingers towards the various variables engaged on one or the other pretext in seeking the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir, where the end game has been a personal profit or filial interest. Kashmir is not a private business project. It has been ratified by 194 member nations of the world and every discipline that works for the ‘equality’ of people has endorsed the right of self-determination.




Gaza has its impact on the streets of Kashmir. Every human habitat around the world has felt the anguish and pain. There is a real possibility that post Gaza scene might shape the political thinking in Kashmir as well. People of Kashmir are a real people and the fact that they are on the streets of Kashmir to support and sympathise with Gaza child, woman, man, elderly and those who stand up for their rights, accredits the people of Kashmir as selfless as well. Kashmiris are not selfish either. They need an independent non-party audit of the manner of their politics to succeed.



(Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani is Secretary General – JKCHR, NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations)


(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)


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