For 15 months, the majority of the Arab and Muslim World’s leaders sat back as the first live-streamed genocide took place inside the land of Palestine. Praying for a return to the status quo that once supported their rules, they have now been faced with an ultimatum. Now, it’s time to pick a side.
While US President Donald Trump presented his idea of clearing out Gaza’s civilian population, taking control of the territory, and reconstructing it, he did so using the tone of someone believing such actions would be humanitarian in nature. In reality, what was being proposed was an invasion, mass murder, and ethnic cleansing.
To be clear, the likelihood of such an invasion occurring is slim, not least because it involves an enormous amount of planning to implement correctly and there is simply no evidence that any moves are being made in this direction. However, the threat of such a monstrosity alone has proven enough to instantly mobilise the Arab and Muslim nation’s leaderships in a way we have not witnessed in decades.
Suddenly, they woke up, after behaving as if the people of the Gaza Strip were not being mass murdered on an industrial scale, on the land of the Prophets, on the land of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Sepulchre. Not even the invasion of Lebanon, the murder of some 3,000 people, nor the occupation of more Syrian lands, nor the threats of annexation in the West Bank, had mobilised these leaders. The screams of Gaza’s youths, the tears of Gaza’s mothers, the honor stripped from the tortured and raped, nothing registered.
But now, for the first time, we feel a pulse. Why? Because everyone’s head is on the chopping block. A glimpse was caught of what Donald Trump’s proposed future could cause and the likes of Jordanian King Abdullah II realised they are just another Arab in the eyes of the Israeli-US alliance, nothing more and nothing less. The only reason they remain is because they capitulate. This was Trump’s true message; it was not so much as a threat but a reminder.
Without delving too deep into the issue of an American invasion of Gaza, it would prove disastrous in so many ways that it seems unrealistic on the face of things. This is not least due to the enormous costs involved in a US occupation that could travel north of hundreds of billions in US taxpayer dollars, while the US soldier casualties would be high and place enormous domestic pressure on Trump. This would likely be America’s new Vietnam, as the star-spangled coffins would trigger outrage across the States.
A US invasion would also fail to achieve the objectives set out by Trump, because Palestinians will not leave willingly and this could easily turn into a situation where the US army picks up from where the Israelis left off; inflicting Genocide. If the ethnic cleansing would work partially, the destabilizing effects would be horrific.
As mentioned above, the majority of the leaders of Arab and Muslim nations may have stood aside and allowed the Gaza Genocide to unfold, yet their populations are now more motivated to defeat the Zionist occupiers than ever before.
Opening the ‘gates of hell’
When Hamas announced that it would postpone the weekly prisoner exchange arrangement until the Israelis allowed sufficient humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, Donald Trump’s reaction was to threaten opening the “gates of hell”. Despite the threats that came from Trump and Netanyahu, the Israelis caved under pressure and were quickly set to allow the prisoner exchange to go ahead as planned.
Whether the US President is truly the mastermind behind his own rhetoric or not, which is quite frankly unlikely, reading between the lines has actually helped achieve four objectives:
- The outrageous and illegal proposals that Trump has put forth have helped save the image of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in front of his extremist coalition.
- The rhetoric has therefore given the Zionist regime more wiggle room to reach the second phase of the agreement, as the more extreme elements in the regime now feel as if they will get to complete their ethnic cleansing, settlement, and occupation endeavors.
- Upon the initial conclusion of the ceasefire agreement, the momentum in terms of popular understanding of power dynamics – manufactured as a result of the ongoing media war – had Hamas painted as the victor and the Zionist regime a loser. Trump managed to suddenly shift the conversation and manipulate popular understandings of who is in control and “winning” the war.
- It has brought together the Arab and Muslim leaders who were previously inactive or distant from the post-war Gaza plan.
Donald Trump is actively speaking as if he is a more extreme Zionist fanatic than Netanyahu, but is yet to follow through on any of his threats. If he continues to speak in such a way, it is possible that the US will have to start following through on some of the President’s rhetoric, however, in order for Washington to maintain credibility.
The reality in the region is that the leaderships of West Asia are still trying to revert back to the status quo that existed pre-October 7, 2023. Now they are having to come to terms with the fact that this is no longer an option.
Although this may seem hyperbolic, the “Israel” that everyone knew from before is no more, it no longer exists. To those who have studied the issue closely, this was somewhat inevitable. Right now, we are living through a scenario that occurred prior to 1948, where the Zionist regime had to try and define itself. For some time, they managed through their military superiority to pacify those around them or overcome armed confrontations with brute force, all while developing their economy and pretending as if they were operating a European State in the Eastern Mediterranean.