Gaza: Humanity’s litmus test

Silence of the Arab masses has been bought by their rulers with oily money and promises of earthly paradises

“My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity on the situation in Gaza shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma” (Desmond Tutu)

Today is the 635th day after Hamas fired those deadly rockets into Israel, killing 1,200 souls, according to Israeli official sources, before escaping with dozens of hostages as bargaining chips. The reason why Hamas did it is now public knowledge. After enduring the tyranny and brutality of Israel’s apartheid regime since 1967 peaceful resistance against settler colonialism proved ineffective, and the Palestinian expectation that the so-called world leaders would liberate them from their oppressive existence by at least implementing the celebrated two-state solution was fast becoming a mirage. Hence that rocket attack, which was virtually justified and endorsed by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. 

As Netanyahu and his military machine entered Gaza in response to that attack with a determination to wipe out that strip of land from the world map, Global North showered its blessings on Israel with weapons, funds and propaganda, and allowed the aggressor a free hand to finish off its genocide mission started in 1948. As the death toll and destruction in Gaza mounted the newly elected US President Donald Trump came out with his own solution to evacuate Gaza of its population, distribute them between Egypt and Jordan and rebuild that 365 s.km into another Riviera before handing it back to Israel sometime in the future. 

When the US puppet monarch of Jordan Abdulla II, whose father betrayed the cause of Palestine in the 1948 war by aligning with Israel with the expectation of absorbing Palestine into Transjordan, was invited to the White House to discuss Trump’s plan he tactfully avoided the trap by asking Trump more time to discuss the subject with his Arab friends. The so-called Arab Counterplan drafted by Egypt and Jordan as a result to rebuild Gaza without expelling the Palestinians seems to have had a premature death. Now Gaza is a killing field for Israel’s IDF to wipe out its Arab population by any means while the so-called civilised world and more pointedly its Arab contingent are watching helplessly. 

When UNRWA undertook to feed the starving Gazans Israel placed all kinds of obstacles to prevent that assistance from reaching the victims before banning it completely. Now, US and Israel operate the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) outside the oversight of UN and other established international agencies. But shockingly and shamefully, it has come to light that oxycodone tablets – an opioid analgesic drug – have been found in the bags of flour distributed by GHF and that Israeli soldiers have been asked to shoot Gazans crowding in front of food distribution centres. To Netanyahu and his IDF GHF is not feeding humans but only “human animals” and “cockroaches” to be eradicated wholesale. Hamas had been accused of stealing this drugged food perhaps to destroy it before it kills its people. While being a formidable force of resistance against Israeli settler colonialism Hamas is also, as Nancy Pelosi said, is a “humanitarian organisation”.    

The ultimate objective of Israel and Global North is to get rid of these 2 million “savages” and push them into Sinai desert for Israel’s friend el-Sisi to take care of them. One by one Arab countries are getting ready to sign Trump’s Abraham Accord and normalise relations with Israel. Post-Asad Syria is the latest to join the queue. That Accord is another building block for a new Middle East to be structured in the image of US and the West and whose foundation was laid already after World War I by that infamous Sykes-Picot agreement. The only country that is standing in the way and obstructing the US plan and heading an axis of resistance with Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansarullah is Iran. 

Iran

Unlike the Arabs who came into history only after Islam was born in the 6th century, non-Arab Iran has a history of grandeur and defeat since the 6th century BC Achaemenid Empire, the largest of the time covering roughly 5.5 million km2. That history has left an indelible imprint on the collective psyche of Iranians who cherish their sovereignty. Iran follows the Shia brand of Islam as different from the majority Sunni sect. In the 20th century, Iran was ruled by a form of constitutional monarchy under the Pahlavi Dynasty from 1925 to 1953 when it was overthrown by a democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohamed Mossadigh who was an ardent nationalist. 

US, under Eisenhower administration felt that democratic Iran posed a threat to the strategic interests of America, and with the help of CIA and British intelligence services Eisenhower orchestrated the overthrow of the new government in a matter of just four days. US reinstated the Pahlavi regime, which ruled Iran with an iron fist and hand in glove with imperial US until 1979. It was during that period US sought to balance its oil imports from Iran by exporting billions dollar worth of fighter jets and other military equipment. The 1979 revolution, which co-opted the Shiite Karbala spirit of resistance against evil with the political demand for regime change, was in fact an anti-imperialist uprising, which unfortunately came to be dubbed as Islamic Revolution. Perhaps, that popular slogan “every day is Ashura, and every land is Karbala” added a flavour of divinity to the political demand. 

As millions marched daily through the streets, Shah’s entire war machine lost its fire power. The ruler had no choice but to run away. The new regime that replaced kicked out the Americans at once and became US’s arch enemy in the Middle East. To President George W. Bush, Iran was one element in his “axis of evil” beside Baathist Iraq and North Korea. On 3 July 1988, when USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian aircraft with 290 passengers, Bush arrogantly boasted, “I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don’t care what the facts are”. From then on toppling the new regime in Iran became America’s top priority. 

Donald Trump, an unpredictable sociopath, now seems to be contemplating on reinstating the Pahlavi monarchy with one of its living descendants, and Netanyahu’s unprovoked bombing of Iran was not without the prior endorsement of Trump. “Relations between the US and Iran could have been more enduring and mutually beneficial” as Milani writes, “had Washington policy makers been more sensitive to Iranian sovereignty” (Mohsin M. Milani, Iran’s Rise and Rivalry with the US in the Middle East, Oneworld, 2025).

Litmus test

It was Momodou Taal, the self-deported former PhD student from Cornell University who in an interview to The Floodgate podcast described Gaza as humanity’s litmus test and added that “Palestine holds a mirror to the world and asks: what kind of world you want to live in?”. What more could one add to his question after watching the horror unfolding in Palestine daily. According to an independent survey, so far 84,000 Palestinians have been killed of whom more than one half were women 18-64, children and elderly individuals over 65. These numbers are certainly an undercount, because the bodies lying beneath the rubble are yet to be dug out. Meanwhile, humanity is shockingly and helplessly watching how vacuous have become all those expertly drafted laws and enthusiastically passed motions in those glorified international institutions set up specifically to prevent what is happening in Palestine now and elsewhere before. 

At least in the case of Palestine the underlying rationale for the genocide is not so recondite to seek. The superpower US and its European allies want to reshape and control the entire Middle East, and they want their gatekeeper Israel to remain the strongest to protect their interests. An independent Palestine is therefore an anathema. Netanyahu has already displayed his Middle East map without Palestine. And it is not for nothing that Daddy Trump made his victory lap after persuading NATO countries to increase their defence spending by 5% of their GDP. Even Australia despite China’s warning seems to be willing to oblige.

The negative impact of this increase on the world economy and life of ordinary citizens is no concern for these leaders. However, the ultimate objective of this grand strategy is to confront the rising might of China. Iran is a strategic station in China’s One Belt Road and Iran’s close relations with China is deemed to be a mortal threat to the declining US imperial might. Hence, the recent bombings and counter bombings.

Coming back to Gaza, it is more than a litmus test to the Arabs in the region. A few months ago, when a Palestinian mother after losing her infant child to Netanyahu’s guns shouted in anger and frustration, “Wake up Arabs! Shame on you” she was targeting the Arab masses more than their rulers, because she knew that when the masses rise in revolt as in 1979 Iran rulers would have no alternative but to run away. At present, silence of the Arab masses has been bought by their rulers with oily money and promises of earthly paradises. 

Mohamed bin Salman’s modernisation plan in Saudi Arabia for example, is primarily aimed at buying the loyalty of the young generation. Critics and opponents are either incarcerated without trial like that scholar cleric Salman al-Ouda or killed like journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While in their millions are labouring in the hot sun for meagre wages to make Arab life comfortable Arab citizens are paid unearned income by their governments to live in luxury. Palestinians are sacrificed to enforce this social contract.  

If Palestine is to be saved and Gazans allowed to live in peace side by side with Israel, the onus of making it possible falls heavily upon the shoulders of Arab masses. While men and women including Jews in many parts of the world are organising and protesting in support of Gaza the Arab youth in their own countries are shockingly remaining silent. Unless they wake up, organise and demand regime change in their respective countries Palestine would be a lost cause.  

It was the self-immolation of a street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi of Tunisia that triggered the 2011 “Arab Spring” with lots of expectations. But it was put down brutally as happened in Egypt with advice and assistance of US. Will Gaza provoke another? Let the Arabs be reminded of that celebrated Quranic verse, “verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves” (13:11).

However, in concluding his meticulously documented and cogently argued treatise, GAZA: An Inquest into its Martyrdom (University of California Press, 2018) Norman G. Finkelstein, by far the most competent authority to write on the subject, raises a faint of hope to the miserable people of Gaza: “If the people of Gaza , on the one hand, and global public opinion, on the other, are mobilised, and organised; and if a cause guided by truth, fortified by law, animated by righteousness, and bending towards justice can unleash, as history is testament, an irresistible moral power able to defeat, disarm, and diffuse brute force; then a small miracle might yet come to pass; the people of Gaza will be able, at least, to breathe again and ultimately, if they – if we all – persevere, to end the occupation” (p. 364). Will the Arab masses wake up and join in this mission?  

(The writer is a retired economist, W. Australia.)