For decades, the Arab government, a fierce defender of the Palestinian cause, is facing criticism of their ti-sick reaction to the extreme suffering of Gaza caused by Israeli war, putting more and more calm citizens and dangerous rifts at stake.
As deaths from starvation and Israeli artillery emerged, Palestinians, their supporters, and some analysts turned their anger towards Arab rulers in the region who perceived them as being too passive and quiet. They refer to countries outside the Middle East that publicly criticised Israel and sought to stop the expansion of military operations in Gaza.
“Where are the Arabs? Arabs are taking naps. Arabs are nowhere to be seen. Arabs and I are talking about Arab rulers.
The situation in Gaza is even more tragic as Palestinians risk their lives to get food. The aid distribution system implemented by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) with the US and Israeli Assistance has often led to the death of hundreds more Palestinians by Israeli soldiers.
Wafaa Eeed, a Palestinian woman in Gaza, told NBC News last month that she walked several miles to the GHF aid streaming site on July 24th. She and two other witnesses said they were shot, sprayed pepper and shed tears.
“Arab countries, why are you not helping us? We don’t want Americans,” Eeed said.
Gaza health officials said two women were killed on their way to the site. At the time, GHF said there were “no incidents” on the site itself.
The Israeli Defense Forces did not respond to requests to comment on the incident, but told the BBC at the time earlier that day that they “identified suspects who approached them and posed a threat to the troops” and “warning shots fired.”
It did not know the victim and said the shot was fired “a few hundred metres away” from the GHF site before opening hours.
Israel has also denied that Palestinian enclaves, global aid groups, and even President Donald Trump have denial of hunger in Gaza, which contradicts Palestinian enclaves and even Medics.
Some Arab leaders who rely on American aid and security guarantees are wary of angering the US and Israel, and experts say there is little strategic advantage to helping Palestinians who may be seen as a threat.
While Arab countries have participated in aid to Gaza and air drops of food convoys, Palestinians and aid groups say it is not enough to drive away the looming hunger. Egypt and Qatar also mediate consultations between Israel, the US and Hamas, but they have not ended the conflict.
Several Latin American states, along with Spain, Ireland and Norway, have blown Israel away with actions in Gaza, threatening sanctions and downgrades of diplomatic relations.
And in recent weeks, longtime Israeli allies like France and Australia have pledged to officially recognize Palestine. It’s a move that was condemned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. In late 2023, South Africa filed a lawsuit in the top UN court, alleging that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Arab countries are under-voiced, and experts say Egypt and Jordan are afraid to oppose the country’s leaders, even pushing down Palestinian pro-protests and activism.
“Palestine resonates deeply with the Arab imagination,” Gergus said. “Palestine reminds the Arabs of their government subordination. Palestine reminds the Arabs of their hegemony and domination, as well as continuing Western colonialism and imperialism.”
He added, “I would say Gaza, the tragedy of Gaza, the destruction of Gaza, will truly serve as a time bomb that will destroy the Arab political order from within.”
Voting by October 7, 2023 indicated that most Arab citizens rejected normalised relations with Israel.
A survey released by Paul Star Arab Barometer in June found that support for such a move had collapsed, not exceeding 13% in the seven countries surveyed.
The US Egyptian and Jordanian embassies, together with the Gulf Cooperation Councils of six countries, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the story.
Hundreds of activists have also been arrested, despite limited protests in Egypt and Jordan, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Gulf countries rarely allow protests, but they have largely maintained diplomatic and trade ties with Israel through the Hamas-led catastrophic attacks in the Gaza Strip that began on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and holding 250 hostages.
Gaza health authorities say more than 61,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, were killed in the war that has continued.
Many scholars, including Israeli scholars, have joined rights groups in recent months that denounce Israeli business as genocide.
“In the middle of the genocide, this extraordinary de fall we saw in Gaza. Though it’s not an Arab state whose relations with Israel have reduced relations with Israel, other states in the world have said Usama Makdisi, professor of history and professor of history at the University of California.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were among the Arab countries that signed the Abraham Agreement, which brokered the US in 2020, paving the way for economic and diplomatic ties with Israel. Saudi Arabia was set to follow, but the Gaza conflict put those plans on hold.
For Arab Gulf countries, better connections with Israel have little to do with public attitudes and no relation to Realpolitik, experts say. The Gulf countries will host several US military bases that analysts say will help protect them from their regional rivals, Iran, and will also help maintain access to the West to the region’s vast energy supply.
Access to Israel’s vibrant high-tech sector is also a draw for Arab countries that used surveillance technology to curb opposition, experts and rights groups said.
“These regimes in the Arab world that rely on the United States for their safety do not depend on their own people on their legitimacy. They rely on the protection of the United States,” said Makdisi.
The Houthi rebels, which control most of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones in Israel and say what they say is an attempt to end Israeli attacks in Gaza, but Yemen is alone among Arab countries in putting up Israeli military pressure. Arab countries could apply economic pressure by setting oil embargoes and restricting access to the Suez Canal and Arab airspace, but experts say such a move is unlikely.
Arab countries once provided weapons, funds and bases to attack Israel, but such solidarity proved costly and dangerous.
In Jordan, tensions between Palestinian extremist groups and the ruling monarchy exploded in 1970, exploding into the “black people in September” civil war, leading to the ultimate expulsion of extremists and the relocation to Lebanon.
The presence of Palestinian liberation agencies in Lebanon in the 1970s exacerbated the country’s civil war, causing Israeli invasion in 1982, targeting “Palestinian terrorists.”
Most recently, Israel invaded Lebanon last year and bombed South Beirut with an attack on Hezbollah militant groups that had fired rockets in Israel in solidarity with Hamas.
Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by Iran, and some Arab countries have become distancing from both groups.
For Ryan Crocker, a former US ambassador to Iraq, Lebanon and Kuwait, lukewarm Arab support for the Palestinian cause is about pressure from us and Israel, and more about self-preservation.
“Both the Palestinians, PLOs and population in the Jordanian and Lebanese examples have been viewed as threats to the control of these Arab regimes,” Crocker told NBC News.
The US and Israel had plans for Arab countries to accept tens of thousands of Gaza refugees, but that idea was completely rejected. Experts say these Arab countries are afraid of both Palestinian extremists and accusations of helping to cleanse ethnic groups.
Crocker compared the Palestinians to another stateless group in the Middle East, the Kurds.
“There is a proverb among the Kurds, scattered between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, that they have no friends other than the mountains,” he said. “Well, the Palestinians don’t have mountains.”
