Nour Osama Elborno

Are Arabs and Muslims TRULY Sick of the Palestinian Cause?

In the past few years, lots of foreign and occupation newspapers published articles that claim Arab countries’ disinterest in the Palestinian cause in an attempt to legalize normalization between Arab countries and the Israeli occupation. The most recent article was published on September 11, 2020, in a local Jewish newspaper in Britain called ‘the Jewish Telegraph’; the title of the article went Arab World is ‘Sick of the Palestinians’. 

In the article, Shabtai Shavit, Mossad Chief from 1989 – 1996, presented some ‘evidence’ on why the Arab countries are sick of the Palestinians, as he claims. He mentioned a private meeting with the late Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Saeed, in which the latter said there was no place for Palestinians in Oman. Shavit also claimed that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hated the late President Yasser Arafat; and that the Palestinians depend entirely on the Arab world, so if they wish to survive and have a two-state solution, they must accept normalization between the occupation and the UAE.

It is quite strange that the two examples presented are by two dead people who cannot deny such allegations. The Chief Editor of Al-Siyasi Magazine said, “Palestine, both the land and the cause, have always been part of the Sultan’s national speeches and interviews directed at the Omani people inside and the world”. In addition, despite the previous disagreement between President Mubarak and the resistance’ methods, the Egyptian people has always supported the Palestinian cause.

          Peoples’ Positions on the Palestinian Cause

The Arabs’ positions; i.e. the peoples’ word; are far more important. While the Arab regimes are becoming more loyal to the Israeli occupation and willing to normalize with it for various reasons such as standing against Iran and preventing it from controlling the region, and protecting shared economic interests; the people are not. Since Camp David until this day, all normalizing countries are headed by individuals who studied in Britain and joined military colleges there. Therefore, they may have an Arab identity, but the pro-Zionist British mentality and ideology must have influenced them one way or the other.

The Arab Center in Washington carried out a poll in 2017 to see whether the Palestinian cause still occupies the Arabs’ minds or not in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. 88% said yes, and 74% of them said that the Palestinian cause matters to them at a personal level. This is completely natural since Arabs and Muslims have been raised to love and belong to the cause, and to detest the occupation for its crimes and theft of lands. These peoples still remember their grandparents’ participation in wars against such occupation.

Other official institutions have carried out a group of polls to see the Arab peoples’ opinion on normalization from (2010 – 2020). The results showed that the majority in Arab countries are completely against normalization. These institutions include: the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, BBC World Service Poll, Gallup Analytics, Pew Research Global Attitudes, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the occupation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Indeed, the Arab regimes in the Gulf have established relations with the occupation, both secretly and openly. Saudi Arabia, for example, cooperates with the occupation in intelligence, Bahrain seeks ‘peace’, and the UAE works with Israeli defense companies. However, Kuwait still refuses to follow their shameful footsteps. Researchers Adam Hoffman and Dr. Moran Zaga said in February 2020 that Kuwait was the only Gulf state against discrete normalization with the occupation. Jared Kushner, US President’s Senior Advisor, told Reuters that Kuwait has an extremist opinion on the conflict and sides with the Palestinians.

Arab and Muslim Positions

Social media has become a platform for the free to express their opinions fearlessly away from their countries’ censorship and constraints. Arabs from the normalizing countries immediately responded to their regimes’ normalization on their accounts showing political, legal, and religious awareness about the reality and dangers of the normalization on Palestine in particular, and the world in general.

Oman Mufti Sheikh Ahmed Al-Khalili said, “Liberating Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa and the lands surrounding it is a holy duty of the nation and a debt that must be paid”. Sheikh Ahmed Al-Raysouni, Head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, said, “Normalization means rewarding the oppressor, the thief, the murderer. It means opening doors to them, and this is something a real Muslim would never do”. It is the religious duty of all Muslims not to accept such move even if the leaders do. 

Women, too, stood up against normalization. Lo’lo’a Al-Mala, Head of the Women’s Cultural and Social Society in Kuwait, said, “Palestine is our cause. We will not say we are last to normalize. No. We will not normalize until Allah takes back earth. Palestine is an Arab country, and Al-Quds is its capital”.

The Palestinian Information Center reported Yedioth Ahronoth quoting Amos Gilad about Arab leaders who fear the reactions of their peoples towards any form of normalization and how it affects the stability of their regimes.

At a popular level, a group of Emirati scholars, cultured and academics formed the Emirati League Against Normalization. The League aims to raise more awareness among the citizens about the dangers of cooperation with the occupation. The League also announced in an online broadcast that the people’s rejection of normalization make agreements null and void.

Strangely enough, some Arab countries that are working with the occupation had already set laws that criminalize any cooperation with the Israeli occupation. One country is Bahrain, which, 50 years earlier, enforced Law (5) that criminalizes such collaboration. The change in the country’s position could be for the change in the rulers and the general interests and inclinations they tend to protect, or Bahrain’s search for new windows to improve its economy. Only this window overlooks the Arab conflict with the occupation, and the Palestinian people’s blood, rights and lands.

In 1963, Bahrain issued Law (5) that dedicated the establishment of an office that boycotts ‘Israel’ in Bahrain, banned Bahrainis from dealing with the ‘Israelis’, and punished anyone who did not abide by the law.

In 2001, the official newspaper in Bahrain published in issue 2456 the seventh chapter of the National Action Charter of Bahrain. It said, “Bahrain supports and affirms the Palestinians’ legal rights, especially the people’s right to establish an independent state with Al-Quds as its capital”.

The public normalization wave began in the UAE and was soon followed by Bahrain. There have been talks on SA joining the race. However, Arab countries which had enacted laws that criminalize cooperating with the occupation and ordered boycotting it must remember this well before committing a horrendous crime against the Palestinian people and cause, which have been embraced by the Arab peoples and glorified in Islam.

Oman in 1972 enacted Law (9) that was called ‘Boycotting Israel’ and banned any form of work between Omani commoners or officials and conducting agreements with people settling in ‘Israel’, have the ‘Israeli nationality’ or work for it and serve its interests wherever they are. Any person who violates this law is sentenced no less than three years of hard labor and no more than 10, and is fined 5,000 SA Riyals.

In conclusion, the conflict with the occupation has not ended. We stand before a cancerous cell whose hunger is endless. This was clear with the Israeli-American plan and annexation project. The occupation wants to further expand in the Arab world. Therefore, before racing to normalize, the Arab countries must realize the dangers of enabling this cancer from the nation’s body.

The Palestinian people has proven to the world its ability to look after itself amidst the suffocating siege that has been imposed for more than 14 years. The Palestinian people will never normalize. The popular and armed resistance will be the people’s first choice. The Palestinian people knows that the Muslim and Arab nations will continue to embrace the cause despite the occupation’s attempts to spread false rumors. All free peoples must now boycott the occupation’s products, concerts, and trips, and end all forms of normalization. Arabs and Muslims must ignore the false rumors that aim to break the trust between the Palestinians and other Arab and Muslim peoples.