Dies Irae

Failure of the Arab League to do anything more than refer the Gaza attack to the UN highlighted the acquiescence--to say the least--of the Arab regimes in the continuing Israeli attacks on Gaza, and this is helping to focus Arab popular outrage on what you could call the near enemy, namely the corrupt regimes in Cairo, Riyadh and elsewhere. Here's how the Palestinian AbdelBari Atwan, editor in chief of the London-based AlQuds alArabi, puts it this morning.

The gift of burning rage embodied in the popular demonstrations in all the capitals of the Arab and Islamic world embodies an unprecedented solidarity with the people of the Gaza Strip in the face of the Israeli attack, just as the participation of tens of thousands in the funeral of the martyr Nazar Riyan on Monday, unintimidated by the Israeli bombing, was an open plebiscite on the steadfastness of the Palestinian people generally, and of the people of the Gaza Strip in particular, in their decision to resist.

Atwan singles out the Egyptian foreign minister for his recent statement of AlArabiya TV to the effect that the Arab League should be careful in its representations at the UN not to blame Israel more than it blames Hamas, as if the executioner and the victim were equally to blame. The point being that the Arab regimes consider the Islamic resistance in Gaza as a threat to their own stability, and just as in the case of Saddam, they look to the United States (and in this case its ally Israel) to take care of these threats on their behalf, and naturally they support the United States and its ally Israel in this fully. And that is what the demos in front of Egyptian embassies and so on indicates.

[The Arab regimes] have put up their party tents and pavillions at the Arab League and at their palaces, hoping to celebrate the defeat of the resistance, thanks to the hundreds of tons of explosives dumped by the Israeli plans on the first day of the bombing. However, the resistance has not conceded, but has remained steadfast in its determination, nor have they given way on any of their conditions, and they are not intimidated by the Israeli rockets.

We recommend that [the Arab regimes] take down these pavillions immediately, because the celebration they have been planning over the corpses of the martyred children is not going to take place. In fact this could well soon become an occasion of genuine celebration and joy, with the actual collapse of their system, which has already collapsed in the moral and nationalistic sense. Because the Arab people will not pardon them for this collusion, done in this blatant way.

It is sometimes said that Washington is Zionist but then again the American academy is Arab, but don't forget that means Arab in the Arab-regime sense, not in the popular sense. Why else to you think it is that with a couple of honorable individual exceptions, the whole of American academia is keeping its mouth shut about this?