These days, there is talk about a new American project in the Middle East which includes displacing the people of Gaza from their homeland and turning that land into the “Riviera of the Middle East” after seizing it according to the wishes of US President Donald Trump.
It seems that America does not differentiate between the people of Gaza and those special reserves which it created to house the Red Indians to seize their lands after they were crushed by European settlers and immigrants who usurped their land and established what is called the United States of America on it.
The cowboy is arrogant and at the same time confused about where he will establish his reserve for these Palestinians, in Egypt or in Jordan. There is a whisper among Iraqis that their country might be included in one of Trump’s plan of reserves in its western desert. This scenario was prepared years ago, according to Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the current speaker of the (Iraqi) parliament, and some sheikhs of the western region. They think that there was a plan to settle more than half a million Palestinians in exchange for the Sunni region, which is an idea for a “new Middle East” invented by the Israeli Shimon Peres during the launch of the Oslo negotiations in 1993 on the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in neighbouring countries. However, Netanyahu’s wild imagination and Trump’s arrogance went further when talk began to swirl about establishing a Palestinian state on the lands of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In a step in the right direction which paints a picture of Arab solidarity, Iraq expressed, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its strong condemnation of the provocative Israeli statements towards Saudi Arabia. It affirmed its full solidarity in preserving and securing the integrity of the Kingdom’s lands. The Iraqi “governmental” position was in harmony with the Iraqi streets, which rejects Israeli hegemony and arrogance over any Arab land or country.
How catastrophic is the situation we are going through from the ocean to the Gulf! Silence is no longer acceptable. How much the phrase “the Arab homeland” used to charm us when we were young! But today it has become part of our nightmares after the scenarios prepared abroad have decided our fate.
But the paradox is that in light of all these projects, we have not found an Arab project which opposes these (foreign) projects. Arabs are still fighting at the level of their sects over issues which are more than 1400 years old: Who deserves to be an Islamic Caliphate? Are angels male or female?
Former US President Bill Clinton says in his book My Life, “The general rule in politics is that if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.”
Based on this idea, Arabs should stop insulting each other and accusing others of treason. They should get rid of their own complexities.
Arabs must agree on a mechanism which brings them together and unifies their word. But it should not be like the Arab League, which has turned into an empty institution. Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was right when he suggested that its building in Cairo should be turned into a hotel, after the organisation had no job other than condemning in the strongest terms.
In future, we will find Trump or others talking about deporting citizens of one Arab country after another.
After Jordan and Egypt, Netanyahu dared to attack Saudi Arabia. He will not stop his arrogance unless he finds someone to slap him back in the way which will restore his sanity, whether from heaven or earth.
Why are illegal immigrants being expelled from the United States while at the same time its president calls for the settlement of the original Palestinians outside their lands? A question we hope Trump will answer.
[by Mohammad Abul Fadl in Al-Arab]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque