What has the Palestinian sheikh Mahmoud al-Hasanat has said is nothing but a sardonic comment on the criminal indifference of the entire Muslim Ummah to the plight of Palestinians. According to him, “If 30,000 martyrs, 70,000 injured and 2 million homeless Palestinians couldn’t wake up the Ummah, what impact will my words make? What more do I say and to whom? Straighten your rows, let’s pray.”

No doubt he’s spot on as the situation in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and even inside Israel is woefully traumatic for Palestinians, to say the least. The number of those killed by the Israeli armed forces since October 7 is nearing the 34,000 mark.

The frustration or lament of Mahmoud al-Hasanat is one hundred percent legitimate as it is based on the grim reality of massive deaths and destruction around him that Israel has been inflicting on the Palestinians for months together. How ironic it is that a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire has failed to deter or rein in the Zionist state; it has in fact emboldened Israel to step up its aggression on the Palestinians since the passage of that binding Resolution.

May be, a likely direct Iranian incursion into Israel can bring the Jewish state to its senses. Iran needs to strike back after an Israeli attack on its embassy in Damascus resulting in the deaths of two of its senior generals. Insofar as the Arab sheikhdoms are concerned, they appear to be covertly siding with Tel Aviv.

Their inaction says it all. Even Turkey, a staunch supporter of Palestinians and their cause, hasn’t exerted any meaningful pressure on Israel thus far. From many Palestinians’ perspective, the Arab nations are not part of solution; they’re in fact part of the problem as these monarchies seem to have decided to become long-term allies of the “world’s largest democracy” India (now a Hindu Rashtra) and “the only democracy” in the Middle East, Israel.

Sabiha Haroon (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024