But for the Corrupt, Client Arab Regimes, Israel’s Holocaust in Gaza Could Have Been Prevented
As Rumy
Hassan, an Emeritus Associate Professor at Sussex University explains, there
was nothing inevitable about Israel’s Holocaust in Gaza. It could have been
prevented from the start if the Arab regimes had exercised their economic and
political power to prevent it.
Saudi
Arabia’s Mohammed
Bin Salman, Qatar’s Al Thani
clique, Kuwait’s Sabah dynasty and all
the other corrupt cliques that rule the Middle East are more afraid of their own
people than the imperialist powers. These Arab elites are parasites who rob their
people of their wealth. They prefer to fete and
fawn over Trump than insist on an end to Israel’s genocidal
rampage.
One of the
ways that the West has achieved domination is by playing on the divisions in Islam.
They have used the Islamic religion in order to divide and rule, playing on the
differences between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam.
Ibn Saud was plucked
out of the desert in the early 20th century and both armed and
funded by British imperialism. The austere Wahabi sect was used to attack Arab
nationalism and Hussein
bin Ali, King of the Hejaz. Islam was their justification for repressing
their own peoples. We have seen many iterations of this subsequently.
ISIS under its original name, Al
Qaeda of Iraq, was a consequence of the American invasion of Iraq. Al Qaeda
itself was a product of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan and consisted of the
fighters that Saudi Arabia exported to that country at the US’s request. As Hilary
Clinton admitted
Al Qaeda too was a creation of the US funding all manner of Islamic
Fundamentalist groups as was the Taliban (in concert with Pakistan’s ISI –
intelligence agency). See Whose
Monster? A Study in the Rise to Power of al Qaeda and the Taliban
Hamas are exceptional in being from the
Sunni branch of Islam although originally they were intended by Israel, which supported their
creation, as a counter-weight to secular Palestinian nationalism. Netanyahu in particular made support
for Hamas
an integral part of his opposition to a 2 State Solution. It is because they
morphed into becoming a resistance organisation that Saudi Arabia has become
their bitter enemy.
In the Yom
Kippur War in 1973 Egypt and Syria attacked Israel,
hoping to reconquer the territories they lost in the 1967 War. After initial
successes they were pushed back by Israel with the help of the US
Administration under Henry Kissinger.
Egypt’s Third
Army, having crossed the Suez Canal, was surrounded in the Sinai peninsula. The
Americans under Henry Kissinger applied extreme pressure on
Israel not to attack them.
The Arab
regimes, led by Saudi Arabia, instituted an immediate halt to oil supplies.
There were 50% cuts in the first week increasing after that. Oil prices rose
four-fold and the United States got the message and forced Israel under
Prime Minister Golda Meir to call a halt.
The same could have been done anytime during the current Holocaust if the client Arab regimes had done the same. Unfortunately the situation in the Middle East today is not what it was in the wake of the disastrous Oslo Accords that Yassir Arafat signed up to which normalised relations with the Israeli state.
Having
recognised Israel the PLO gave the green light to the Arab regimes to do the
same. It is unfortunate that it was the leadership of the PLO led by Fatah who paved
the way for America’s client regimes in the Arab East to also recognise and
normalise relationships with the Israeli state, in what became known as the Abraham
Accords.
It is
significant that no Palestinian faction has made the demand to stop the oil (as
far as I’m aware). This disastrous attitude to the Arab masses, who hold the
key to the situation, has allowed Israel to attempt to complete the Zionist
project unopposed by ethnically cleansing Gaza. The West Bank is set to follow
if they are successful in Gaza. Indeed it is already happening.
It is a
matter of shame that the Arab masses and the working class in particular have
sat idly by watching the unfolding horror in Gaza. The death of these wretched
regimes is long overdue. Not only are the Palestinians experiencing Genocide
and unspeakable horrors but the Arab masses also have an interest in seeing
that the wealth of the region is not squandered by their rulers in the casinos
of the West and in buying up prestigious parts of London and Paris.
The Arab
Spring of 2011 needs completing. The key Arab regimes that need to be deposed
are those of Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Al Qaeda HTS
regime in Syria,
which the West has given its full
support to, should be next in line. The United States and the West are doing
all they can to force the
Lebanese state to disarm Hezbollah in order that Israel can have free reign to
reconfigure Lebanon according to their confessional plans and no doubt begin to
colonise the southern part up to the Litani river.
So far
Hezbollah have rejected calls to disarm, knowing full well that if they do so they
will leave Lebanon defenceless against Israeli attacks. Those, led by President
Aoun, who are trying to strong arm the Shi’ite militias are doing Israel’s work
for them. So far Hezbollah has refused to disarm.
All the
Arab Kings and Sheiks, from the UER and Kuwait to Qatar need to be overthrown
and the Arab people can then take their destiny in their own hands. Instead we
saw, with Trump’s visit to the region, the Arab regimes from MBS in Saudi
Arabia to the al-Thanis in Qatar fawning over Trump, a political gangster and
felon.
Amazingly
these regimes offered Trump trillions of dollars in arms contracts. The Al
Thanis of Qatar outdid themselves in their fawning obeisance, obscenely
offering Trump a new $400m presidential jet. The thanks that the Qatari
Emir got was Israel’s bombing of the
Hamas delegation in Doha.
Rumy
Hasan’s article lays bare the fawning and treacherous behaviour of the
Arab regimes in all its gory detail.
Tony
Greenstein
This article first
appeared in Savage Minds, September
2025
The Moral Rot of the Arab and Islamic World
These Countries Have Been Complicit in the Genocide
and Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza
Sep 21, 2025
Outside the mainstream media, there has been much commentary
on the inaction of western governments regarding Israel’s genocidal assault on
Gaza, many of whom are complicit, and in the case of the USA, not only
complicit but a participant joined at the hip with Israel. So, when it comes to
Israel, they are morally bankrupt and rank hypocrites by their complete
disregard for international laws and conventions that they implore other
countries, such as Russia, to follow. But there has been little comment on the
role of the Arab and Islamic world—this is important because Palestinians are
overwhelmingly Sunni Arabs. This article provides a small contribution to
filling this lacuna.
On 11 November 2023, just over a month after the 7 October
attacks by Hamas on Israel, Arab and Islamic countries held an extraordinary
summit in Jeddah with the objective of discussing “the Israeli aggression
against the Palestinian people” (OIC, 2023). By then, it was clear that Israel
was not just going after Hamas but systematically destroying Gaza and its
citizens: the commencement of genocide. The lengthy resolution (which does not
have paragraph numbers; Saudi Press Agency, 2023) that was adopted on 12
November stipulates:
We decide to: Condemn the Israeli aggression against
the Gaza Strip and the war crimes as well as the barbaric, inhumane and brutal
massacres being committed by the colonial occupation government against the
strip and the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, including East
Al-Quds. We demand ceasing this aggression immediately.
It further states:
Inaction is considered a complicity that allows Israel
to continue its brutal aggression that kills innocent people, children, the
elderly, and women, and turns Gaza into ruin.
Call upon member states of the OIC and the Arab League
to exert diplomatic, political, and legal pressures, and take
any deterrent actions to halt the crimes committed by
the colonial occupation authorities against humanity (emphasis
added).
So, these two paragraphs point for the need for concrete
actions to halt Israel’s “brutal aggression” and “crimes”. It further makes
this commitment:
Activate the Arab and Islamic Financial Safety Net …
to provide financial contributions and support — economic, financial, and
humanitarian — to the government of the State of Palestine and the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
(UNRWA).
It sets out this precondition: “The precondition for peace
with Israel and the establishment of normal relations rests on ending its
occupation of all Palestinian and Arab territories.”
So, what happened in the weeks and months after this summit?
Pretty much nothing as no concrete actions were ever taken. Hence, no
deterrence was provided and the slaughter and destruction continued. The
countries which had normalised relations—Egypt, Jordan, and the signatories to
the Abraham Accords (UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco)—did not rescind these.
UNRWA was banned by Israel in early 2025 without a peep from the Arab and
Islamic world.
The resolution makes this reference to Egypt: “Support all
steps taken by the Arab Republic of Egypt to confront the consequences of the
brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza. We support its efforts to bring aid into the
strip in an immediate, sustainable and adequate manner.”
This was a grotesque distortion of the truth as Egypt, the
largest Arab country with a population of over 100 million, has been complicit
in the blockade of the Gaza strip: it has allowed Israel to control its border
with Gaza, so that little aid has been allowed through, contributing to
starvation and disease. Moreover, like Jordan, it ruthlessly represses public
anger at the genocide. Egypt’s priority has been to ensure that it continues to
receive the almost $2 billion aid from the USA each year, so adheres to the
Camp David Accords and, accordingly, refrains from challenging Israel.
Leaving aside the actions of the non-state actors Hezbollah
and the Houthis, since the 2023 summit, true to form, the governments of Arab
and Muslim countries continued to do nothing despite the mounting toll
amounting to over 200,000 deaths and injuries, the vast majority civilians, and
Gaza being reduced to an uninhabitable rubble. A glaring example of their moral
rot came in September 2024 when, during a meeting with the then US Secretary of
State, Anthony Blinken, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
confessed: “Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my
people do …” (The Atlantic, 2024).
A further example is that of the UAE which had kept a
deafening silence throughout Israel’s assault and never hinted at leaving the
Abraham Accords, when suddenly, following Israel’s announcement of more Jewish
settlements in the West Bank in August 2025, its foreign minister Lana
Nusseibeh piped up by proclaiming “Annexation in the West Bank would constitute
a red line for the UAE” (BBC News, 2025). It beggars belief that the
genocidal assault on Gaza and the killings and destruction in the West Bank did
not cross a red line.
Wind the clock forward by 22 months, on 15 September 2025,
the Arab and Islamic countries again held an extraordinary summit—this time in
Doha, Qatar. The trigger for this summit was the bombing by Israel on 9
September of premises in Doha where Hamas representatives were deliberating
upon a ceasefire deal. The Qataris naturally reacted with fury; housing the
USA’s largest military base in the Middle East, they felt betrayed by the
Americans, a supposed ally, for not preventing the attack. They now know that
future Israeli attacks are possible and will, again, be greenlighted by the
Americans.
There was some hope, even expectation, that this time, the
summit would agree on concrete measures against Israel. The Final Communique
makes many forceful points including:
1. Reaffirm that the brutal Israeli blatant aggression
against the sisterly State of Qatar, and Israel's continued aggressive
practices, including crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation and
siege, as well as settlement activities and expansionist policies, undermine
prospects for peace and peaceful coexistence in the region.
Paragraph 6 stipulates:
6. Support the efforts of States engaged in mediation,
in particular the State of Qatar, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the United
States of America, to end the aggression on the Gaza Strip, and, in this
context, to reaffirm the constructive role played by Qatar and its valued
mediation efforts with their positive impacts in support of endeavors to
establish security, stability, and peace …
The truth is that the USA is militarily and diplomatically
assisting Israel in its aggression on the Gaza Strip and Egypt has been
complicit in the blockade—hence, notwithstanding Qatar’s mediation efforts,
there is no “security, stability, and peace” in the Strip. Quite the opposite.
There is as usual much condemnation and appeals to
international law. Paragraph 14, however, makes a general reference to “urgent
action”:
14. Reaffirm the necessity of urgent action by the
international community to halt Israel's repeated aggressions in the region and
to stop its ongoing violations of the sovereignty, security, and stability of
States …
This is naïve and self-delusional as the “international
community” (a meaningless epithet) has never taken any action “to halt Israel's
repeated aggressions in the region” especially in the past two years when
Israel’s actions reached genocidal levels.
Finally, paragraph 15 does advocate concrete action:
15. Call upon all States to take all possible legal
and effective measures to prevent Israel from continuing its actions against
the Palestinian people, including by supporting efforts to end its impunity,
holding it accountable for its violations and crimes, imposing
sanctions on it, suspending the supply, transfer, or transit of weapons,
ammunition, and military materials — including dual-use items — reviewing
diplomatic and economic relations with it, and initiating legal proceedings
against it (emphasis added).
But there is no sign of any sanctions being imposed. The
“supply, transfer, or transit of weapons, ammunition, and military materials”
is done by western countries, above all the USA, which has shown no interest in
halting this nor of ending economic relations. There has been no indication
that the Arab countries who normalised relations with Israel, are reviewing,
let alone terminating, these.
Paragraph 20 makes this false statement:
20. Commend the pivotal role played by the
representatives of Arab and Islamic States that are members of the Security
Council, foremost among them Algeria, Somalia, and Pakistan, in defending the
Palestinian cause, in putting an end to the Israeli aggression on the Gaza
Strip, securing a ceasefire …
These countries certainly argued for it, but they decidedly
did not put an end to the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and secure a
ceasefire. As usual, the USA blithely ignored such overtures.
Paragraph 24 is, to put it euphemistically, economical with
the truth:
… calls upon OIC Member States to exert diplomatic,
political, and legal efforts to ensure Israel’s compliance, as the occupying
power, with its binding obligations under the provisional measures issued by
the International Court of Justice on 26 January 2024 in the case concerning
the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
There is no mention that the ICJ’s ruling stemmed from the
initiative of South Africa—not of any Arab or Islamic country—to charge Israel
for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
So, just as in the 2023 summit of Arab and Islamic states, no
concrete actions were set out in the communique of the 2025 summit for OIC
members to take. With 57 member countries, comprising of an estimated 1.8
billion people or nearly a quarter of the world’s population, the Organisation
of Islamic Countries boasts that after the UN, it is the largest bloc of
nations. But when it comes to these countries’ co-religionists being
mercilessly starved and slaughtered in Gaza, they have proved resolute in not taking
any actions that could put real pressure on Israel and its backers to stop the
genocide.
In May 2025, US President Donald Trump visited the Gulf
states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. While some $2 trillion of
investment deals were reached, there was no mention by the Gulf leaders of
Gaza, let alone their leveraging this enormous commitment, to pressure Trump to
stop Israel’s assault. Qatar could also have used its personal “unconditional”
gift to Trump of a Boeing aircraft valued at $400m to apply pressure but
refrained from doing so. It acted as a US vassal and was rewarded by being
bombed by Israel four months later with Trump’s knowledge
By wilfully ignoring a key point of the 2023 summit, Arab and
Islamic countries thereby acknowledged their complicity in the genocide: Inaction
is considered a complicity that allows Israel to continue its brutal aggression
that kills innocent people, children, the elderly, and women, and turns Gaza
into ruin.
Concrete actions that could have been taken
The most effective measure, with an immediate impact, would
have been the Gulf states halting exports of oil and gas, and they could have
asked other OPEC member states to join the embargo: spot prices would have shot
up with governments becoming worried about the deleterious impact on their
sluggish economies. There would have been inevitable anger from consumers,
already suffering from high energy prices caused by the Ukraine war, and
pressure on their governments to take firm measures. In turn, real pressure would
likely have been applied to Israel to stop its offensive and withdraw from the
Strip. This has a precedent: the 1973 OPEC oil embargo against countries that
had supported Israel during the 1973 October (Yom Kippur) war.
Furthermore, they could have threatened to not follow through
with investments promised to Trump with a further threat of disinvesting. This
would certainly have concentrated western leaders’ minds, and the penny would
have dropped that support for Israel was having a profound cost.
Another important measure would have been the annulling of
all treaties with Israel: Egypt rescinding the Camp David agreement and Jordan
annulling its peace treaty. True, the USA would have threatened to withdraw
aid, but they could have retorted that stopping genocide is more important. The
UAE, Bahrain and Morocco could have annulled the Abraham accords and so ended
normalisation. The Palestine Authority could have terminated the Oslo Accords,
thereby stopped being a quisling entity—and started to vigorously lobby Arab
governments to take these actions, as well as lobbying western governments,
especially the USA, to stop supporting Israel’s genocide and other myriad
crimes.
The Arab League and OIC could have submitted a motion to the
UN General Assembly similar to that of resolution 3379 of 1975 which deemed
that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”—this would have
doubtless again been adopted. They could also have called for an annual public
holiday on May 15th to commemorate the Nakba demonstrating that the
Palestinians are not isolated.
Not only were these actions of solidarity not taken but there
is little sign of their even being seriously considered. The ineluctable truth
is that over the genocide in Gaza, the Arab and Islamic world has demonstrated
a deeply set moral rot.
References
BBC News (2025) September 4, UAE warns Israel that
annexing West Bank would cross 'red line' - BBC News
Final Communique
Issued by Arab-Islamic Emergency Summit in Doha (2025) September 15, Qatar
news agency
OIC (2023) Joint
Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit, November 11,
https://www.oic-oci.org/
Saudi Press Agency
(2023) November 12, Joint Arab
Islamic Extraordinary Summit Adopts Resolution on Israeli Aggression against
the Palestinian People
The Atlantic (2024) Franklin Foer,
September 25, The
War That Would Not End - The Atlantic
Previous articles
by Rumy Hasan on Savage Minds:
The Gaza War - by Rumy
Hasan - Savage Minds
Free Speech
and Hypocrisy - by Rumy Hasan - Savage Minds
An Assault
on Free Speech - by Rumy Hasan - Savage Minds
(3) The
BBC’s Coverage of Israel - by Rumy Hasan - Savage Minds
