Arab world’s questionable role in Israel-Gaza war

Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been a constant presence in the Middle East since Israel’s independence in 1948. But even earlier in the 20th century, Arabs and Jews were in conflict over competing claims to the same territory.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which provided a home for the Jewish people in parts of Palestine, along with the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 which divided up the territories formerly ruled by the Ottoman Empire, remain a continuing thorn in the side for Arab states in general, and for Palestinians in particular.

It is also true that the rise of Arab nationalism, coupled with the centuries-old Sunni-Shi’a divide, have shaped the perceptions and destinies of Arab leaders and populations.

The critical question is the extent to which these seemingly separate conflicts overlap such that developments in one impact the others.

In particular, under what circumstances does the status of the Israel-Palestine conflict today impact the larger conflict dynamics at play in the region? Is Israel- Palestine at the heart of all conflicts in the region, or is it merely a convenient whipping boy and perhaps even a singular unifying factor for populations and states riven by seemingly unrelated competitions for power?

To view the Israel-Palestine conflict as a central driver of all conflict in the Middle East is to ignore dynamic forces of change in the region, particularly increasingly positive relations between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors.

This latter trend has the effect of blunting the impact of Israel-Palestine tensions.

Even though the relations between these former inter-state adversaries could not move beyond a Cold Peace, their bilateral conflicts and the Arab/Israel Conflict as a whole had begun the process of accommodation and conciliation.

The extent of change became clear at the turn of the century (2000), when the Arab states adopted the Arab Peace Initiative, which offered Israel recognition and normal relations with all members of the Arab League, in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from its occupation of Arab territories in 1967 and acceptance of the Palestinians Right of Return, in accordance with the UN 1949 Resolution.

Israel did not accept those conditions and the conflict continued. Nonetheless, Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister publicly accepted the ‘two state’ solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict in 2009.

Moreover, the Arab League renewed its ‘Peace initiative’ in 2007 and 2014.
Random killings and detention is a regular occurrence in the West Bank, which has no presence of Hamas, proving that it is the Palestinian population as a whole, and not just Hamas-an organization-which is the real target of the State of Israel.

From the ashes of the second world war and from the Nazi’s butchery of European Jewish people emerged a set of international laws upholding universal values of life, liberty, and freedom of expression, giving birth to notions of “crime against humanity,” etc. The most fundamental of all rights were those of life and liberty.

Don’t these apply to the Palestinians? Gaza, which has been widely termed as an “open-air prison,” is among the most densely populated human habitations in the world.

Half of the people from the North-more than a million-have been forced to leave their homes and possessions, and “evacuate” to the South, further accentuating the population pressure there.

These refugees from the North of Gaza are now living on the streets, parks, and open spaces, mostly under the open sky. All the while, the passage of water, food, electricity, gas, and all medical necessities have been blocked since October 7, the day of the Hamas attack.

In recent days, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in rage and world leaders are calling for the protection of civilians and an immediate cease-fire in the face of the siege and escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, resulting in life-threatening shortages of water, electricity, fuel, food and life-saving medical supplies.

At an Egyptian-hosted peace summit over the weekend, with the participation of leaders and senior officials from over 25 countries and international organizations, disagreements over a cessation of hostilities, displacement of Palestinians, sustainable flow of humanitarian assistance and other thorny issues dominated the discussion and prevented any agreements from being made.

The unfolding situation is having strong reverberations around the region.

Beginning with those most proximate to the conflict, for Egypt and Jordan in particular, the humanitarian crisis and Israeli military response have raised concerns of mass displacement.

Accordingly, in response to an Israeli military spokesman suggesting that Palestinians in Gaza fleeing its air strikes should head to Egypt, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said he would not allow the issue to be settled at the expense of others.

King Abdullah of Jordan stressed that Israel’s displacement of one million Palestinians is a redline, fearing the precedent and potential for Israel to call for substantial numbers of West Bank Palestinians to go to Jordan so Israeli forces can confront extremist groups in the West Bank.

Now let us have our watch on the role play of Arab world. Qatar, which provides sanctuary for Hamas leaders and has taken an active role in trying to alleviate economic suffering in Gaza, has put all the blame on Israel’s occupation without condemning Hamas’s violence.

“Israel alone bears the responsibility for the current escalation due to its ongoing violations of the rights of the Palestinian people, the latest of which being the repeated raids on al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli police,” a foreign ministry statement read. Saudi Arabia, which has been negotiating with the U.S. and Israel over the terms of a normalization accord, has responded similarly.

The Saudi foreign ministry on Oct. 7 demanded an “immediate cessation of violence” and said that officials in Riyadh were “following the unprecedented developments between a number of Palestinian factions and Israel occupation forces which has led to a high level of violence on a number of fronts.”

Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman reinforced the call for a cease-fire in a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Oct. 15. The UAE, which has also patched up relations with Iran, has shown more sympathy toward Israel.

A key signatory of the 2020 Abraham Accords, Abu Dhabi issued a statement on Oct. 8 which emphasized that “attacks by Hamas against Israeli towns and villages near the Gaza Strip, including the firing of thousands of rockets at population centers, are a serious and grave escalation” and condemned Hamas for abducting Israeli civilians as hostages.

Egypt has played a crucial role in the past brokering Israel-Hamas cease-fires and the Biden administration will most likely need to work with Cairo to end this round of fighting as well.

It is already asking Egypt to open its Rafah border to allow some 500 Palestinians who are U.S. citizens to flee the intensifying conflict and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the besieged enclave.

Now and when the fighting ends, the U.S. will need to work not only with Egypt but all regional players with stakes in the outcome of this horrific conflict, as well as the wider international community.

Many parts of Arab public opinion are disappointed by Western countries insisting on the rule-based international order while seeming to delay taking steps to deliver humanitarian relief in accordance with international humanitarian law and hesitating to mediate de-escalation measures.

On all sides, there are expectations and demands for accountability for the alleged war crimes of all belligerents.

As developing events and protests outside U.S., European and Israeli embassies around the Middle East have underscored, the impact of this war, how it continues to be fought and how it ends will have profound ramifications.

Many believe that the status quo can no longer continue indefinitely, with conflicts managed and military confrontations dealt with through a fire-fighting approach. It is important to acknowledge that the calls for a more proactive pathway toward peace should be heeded.

Many political analysts still believe the only possibility of the “two-state solution” was reflected in the Oslo Accords of 1993 – the peace agreement brokered by former US President Bill Clinton, and signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat.

The accords promised to create an independent state for Palestinians in five years, which never happened. Checks and balances from Israel’s long-standing ally, the US, has faded since 1991, after the Gulf War, when the US emerged as the unchallenged external power in Middle East affairs.

The prospects of peaceful resolution are far unless Israel is left without fallback options. Normalization of Israel’s government with Arab states, which the US recently brokered, is a tried-tested method that has extensively failed before to improve the conditions for Palestinians.

For a realistic peace agreement, Israel’s current far-right government has to be forced to make a compromise by its long-standing allies, most importantly, the US.

(The writer is former Deputy Director General, Bangladesh Ansar & VDP.)