It is natural that the Palestinian tragedy occupies the largest space in Arab social dialogue – whether in daily life or in the public sphere where it dominates most media output. What is unnatural, however, is that the debate stops at chatter, shouting, and supplications, calling down God’s curse on the Jews and their allies, along with analyses and predictions riding on defeatist hopes that a “shift in Western consciousness” will somehow end this darkest chapter of history. Noise without flour – sadly, that is the conclusion.
Behind this smoke and clamour, killing, destruction, and displacement continue, aimed at creating a demographic reality that redraws the region’s map according to the extremist biblical visions of Israel’s ruling right.
Reflecting on recent events, I realised we were mistaken in accusing Arab regimes of mere weakness or passivity. Their role goes further: Arab armies assisted in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones headed toward Israel. Despite doubts about these regimes, I had never imagined their reality and degeneration could reach this level. The earlier assumption of regimes as helpless onlookers was in fact flattering; in reality, they play an active role in genocide and redrawing maps. Their strategy rests on the belief that Arab masses are divided between helplessness and exhaustion.
The so-called “frontline states” live under the heavy shadow of counter-revolution. Syria has been shattered by a decade of war and displacement; Lebanon suffers a prolonged crisis weakened by blows to Hezbollah; Jordan is economically exhausted and knows it will inherit the consequences of this war. But the focus here is Egypt, which mirrors the Gulf states in outlook and alignment on Palestine.
From the beginning, President Sisi made it clear that his concern with this massacre lay only in the threat of migrant waves, which he views as a security and logistical burden. Beyond that, he is unconcerned. The regime bet on its most reliable resource: cultivated apathy among a people tamed by violence and blackened by despair after the revolution’s defeat and declining living standards.
Despite media noise comparing Egypt’s army with Israel’s, military confrontation was never considered. The only violence the regime practices is against its own citizens when they protest occupation crimes. Today, Egypt and some Gulf states are managing or supervising the genocide – ensuring order until Israel eliminates Hamas and completes its mission: liquidating the Palestinian cause and seizing the land, under tacit blessing in public and explicit approval in private.
This is not neutrality. It is a green light: “Do what you will away from me, and I will control my people.” The only problem is the length of the war, which was not anticipated and now embarrasses these regimes. Prolongation exposes their nature further before their citizens, stirring resentment atop anger over economic mismanagement.
If the Gaza war has shocked us into remembering the unchanged reality of the Zionist project – something regimes had obscured with lies and normalisation – it has equally exposed the truth of Arab regimes and their real role: enriching themselves and controlling populations in service of Western capital and the Zionist project rooted in the region.
[by Yahya Mostafa Kamel in Al Quds Al Arabi]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque
