By Haider Abbas
After 230 days of Israel-Hamas war, Israel is on rampage killing around 40,000 Palestinians as yet, despite International Criminal Court (ICC) ‘arrest-warrant’ and International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering to immediately halt the Rafah offensive, Israel has ‘cared a fig’ and has bombed the refugee camps in Rafah, on Egypt’s border, with relentless impunity. In the same combat Israel has killed one Egyptian soldier, in an exchange of fire, which Egypt military is investigating as to what had happened (sic)?
The Israeli focus, after flattening Gaza, is now on Philadelphi corridor, on the edge of Gaza-Egypt border, which is guarded by Egyptian soldiers, as Israel considers that Hamas is getting military supplies from Egypt, hence, the impounding. Will it go down that easily on Egypt? Perhaps Yes! Egypt might enjoy being the largest Arab state, its geo-strategic position between the river Nile and the Suez Canal, but the entire Egyptian establishment is under the thumb of US. Its President Sisi is a US stooge who has ‘looked-the-other-way’ while death and destruction has rained on Palestine.
Egypt has also irked Israel, by refusing to take Palestinians which Israel wanted to banish. The US controlled International Monitory Fund (IMF) has in March given around 8 billion USD to shore up Egypt foreign currency and soaring inflation. Will there be any breakthrough after Sisi’s visit to China on May 28? Will China be able to lift Egypt fortunes; make Sisi take a stand against Israel/US? None of this will happen that fast. US age-long iron grip on the entire Middle-East will never allow this to happen.
Pakistan by the same stretch of logic is leering for any IMF bailout package. Will Pakistan also abandon China, its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project? Irrespective of proverbial ” friendship higher than Himalayas, deeper than ocean, sweeter than honey, and stronger than steel,” is all yet to unfold?
A day before world was talking about the failure of Israel’s Iron Dome after Hamas (2.0) missiles attack , after four-months, inside Tel Aviv, the next day Israel changed the headlines and rolled its tanks onto Rafah’s displaced people’s tents, killing into hundreds! Israel can afford ruthless murder of innocent hundreds but cannot fathom a debate on any of its failure! Israel is now heading to take the war into Egypt. Israel will soon accuse Egypt that Hamas has dug tunnels unto Egypt, therefore Israel will enter Egypt! Egypt which has feigned totally indifference to Palestinians ‘burnt alive’ is now to feel-the-heat. To expect Sisi-the puppet of Israel/US do-anything would be just another wishful thinking.
The Muslim nations, like Egypt, Jordon, Turkey, UAE and Saudi Arabia have since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, stood as mute spectators, while Palestinians have been slaughtered, are now likely to fall one-by-one. This is not a claim in isolation, as Turkey’s President Erdogan has called that Israel next target would Turkey. This is regardless of the fact that Turkey’s military supplies to US, in all these last seven months have considerably got increased, and all those weapons had landed in Israel! No wonder Erdogan’s party has started to wane, which has forced him to grant himself the authority to declare ‘a state of war’.
Turkey’s economy is already in shambles. US/Israel strategy would be to never let Turkey become a part of European Union, while EU is by itself into its existential crisis. Who will rescue Turkey? The Arab states? Never. Moreover, Erdogan himself has accused his army to be ‘plotting’ a coup, the same way it was once done (2016), his popularity is now an all-time-low, as people are going to a sense of resignation for Turkish forces did not help in Palestine, which otherwise had been a part of Turkey, a century back. Will it be better to remember the Palestinians ‘rejoice’ when Erdogan had cruised to victory for the sake that Turkey will wrest Al-Aqsa mosque from the ‘strangle’ of Israel, occupied since 1967, Al Aqsa is the third Islamic holiest site, after Mecca and Medina.
The Rafah backlash can be found all over Europe and US. Every university worth has been flooded with protests against Israel. Hundreds have been apprehended in US to stop the Rafah massacre through the use of US made GBU-39 bombs, but there is a dead stone silence in whole of the Arab world. There hasn’t been any protest? The only exceptional nation has been Iran, which too, has of now, relegated to a back foot, after its President Ibrahim Raisi helicopter crash, with all the US/Israel/Azerbaijan finger prints on it.
The Arab states have already fallen like a house-of-cards, due to an unstinted US financial/military/diplomatic support to Israel, so what would be the next Israel target? If not it’s most grandiose plan to finally bulldoze the Al-Aqsa mosque! To also let mention that Al Aqsa mosque is different from the ‘Dome of the Rock’ and there is every likelihood that Israel is to bomb it, before President Joseph Biden, the self professed Zionist, goes to polls in November 2024. Israel will bomb it, then camouflage it as an attack from Hamas/Hezbollah, and its media propaganda mills, will smother the world to suffocation that it is Hamas/Hezbollah ‘doing’ and the same will resonate through the Arab world like a gospel.
At the most, the Saudi controlled Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) will pass a strong worded denouncement of the act, US whether under Joseph Biden or Donald Trump or anyone else, will support it hands-down, and Israel will achieve the proverbial dream of the last two-thousand years. The Muslim populations will rise against it. The next most probable scenario will find thousands bludgeoned inside jails. Which nations can make Israel a bit uncomfortable? Russia? US is most likely to make NATO clash with it in Ukraine. China has also been entangled around Taiwan by US. US, from all the latest experience now know it well that no Muslim nation is to come forward to rescue Al Aqsa.
What however, leaves one wondering is that Norway, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia have recognized Palestine but why this sobriquet when there would be no Palestinians left?
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The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and writes on international politics.