For the last four months, Israel has continued to kill Palestinians, including babies, children, women, elderly people, innocent civilians, journalists who cover the Israeli attacks and even United Nations employees. The number of people killed by Israel has approached 30,000. Israeli forces bomb civilian apartments, hospitals, schools, ambulances, mosques, churches, refugee camps and U.N. facilities. So far, Israel has destroyed most of the Gaza Strip, the home of more than 2 million people.
Despite all these atrocities, no one has taken a concrete step to save the innocent Gazan people from Israeli brutality. They continue to lose their lives daily. On average, more than 130 children are killed by Israel every day. This figure is more than the number of Jewish children killed daily by Nazi Germany.
On the one hand, Western governments continue to provide Israel with unconditional support for committing all the crimes defined in international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. On the other hand, no state or international organization can provide any help to the Gazan people.
Arab world’s shifting stance on Palestinian cause
Three primary political contexts shed light on the influence or ineffectiveness of international actors in Palestine. The first context involves the Arab world, where, regrettably, no Arab government today is reluctant to bear any cost for the Palestinians. Arab governments used to bring the issue to the international agenda and instrumentalize it in their domestic and foreign policies. However, nowadays, they abstain from even bringing the issue to the agenda of international politics. More interestingly, even the Arab street (the Arab public opinion) appears to have overlooked the Palestinians in the face of the most brutal Israeli attack of the last 80 years.
One of the main reasons why Arabs remain silent amid the genocidal acts in Gaza is the death of Arab society. After the so-called “Arab Spring” was turned into a harsh “Arab winter,” the new Arab governments maximized their pressure against their respective peoples and thus eradicated organized societal actors. However, the longer Israeli attacks and atrocities continue, the more likely the Arab people will revolt against the regional developments.
The second context is the Muslim Ummah. The overall population of Muslims worldwide is more than 1.7 billion. Muslims rule more than 57 states on different continents. Large and effective Muslim minorities live in almost every non-Muslim state. In spite of this huge population, Muslims cannot provide effective support to the Gazan people. They even cannot stop the Israeli atrocities against innocent civilians.
One of the main reasons for the ineffectiveness of the Muslim Ummah context is the ineffectiveness of the first context, the Arab world. Unfortunately, Muslim states cannot provide concrete support to the Palestinians without the contribution of some Arab states, which are the immediate neighbors of Palestine. Therefore, non-Arab Muslim states should seek alternative policies. Instead of convincing Arab states, Muslim states have to put pressure on their economic and political partners who support Israel.
Countering political otherization
Another significant reason for the ineffectiveness of Muslim states is their political otherization. The pro-Israeli narrative effectively categorizes all Muslim states as anti-Semitic and anti-Western. Therefore, Muslim states and peoples have to fight against this anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic political stance. In addition, Muslim states must find non-Muslim states and people who will cooperate on universal values and protect the future of humanity.
The third context is the global public opinion, most of which support the Palestinians. People around the world, including peoples of Western countries, largely criticize Israel’s atrocities and defend the rights of Palestinians. People representing humanity and universal values oppose Israel’s violations of international norms and humanitarian law. Muslim and non-Muslim states in Africa, Asia and Latin America, together with the peoples of Western countries, must unite against anti-humanity powers. Otherwise, they, we and the whole of humanity, will all lose. All Palestinian, Arab and Muslim actors must undertake responsibilities to mobilize both Muslim and non-Muslim states and peoples against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
