As I watch the latest carnage taking place in Palestine, I look toward the Arabs to react to this blatant contempt for us and for our rights as human beings. Yet all that I see is criminal acquiescence from all sides. If Israel is a criminal state and if the United States is its associate in crime, if the West is indifferent and the rest of the world has its own problems to worry about, what is our excuse for inaction? Why have we been so shocked at this latest carnage? Haven’t we been watching the intifada for the last two years? Didn’t we know who Ariel Sharon was and didn’t we expect him to act exactly as he has? Where have the Arab demonstrations been for the last 18 months? What action did the Arab League take to stop the Palestinians’ constant bleeding? Why haven’t the Arab people launched any kind of popular movement to support their brothers and sisters in Palestine?
Why? Aren’t we as a people able to use whatever we have as pressure? Aren’t we able to use economic or cultural or political or even media clout to pre-empt and prevent the carnage we are witnessing today?
Since the beginning of their occupation of Arab lands, the Israelis have never denied their intentions of colonizing and holding on to those same lands — and much more if they possibly can.
The West and the US in particular have never denied the Israeli state support and aid of any sort by any possible means whatsoever. In general, the Western media have always been on the side of Israel and have never been honest observers. Many international organizations have consistently treated Israel as an erring but indulged child, allowing it every excuse for its blatant abuse of all human rights agreements.
So I ask again: Why are we surprised by this latest horror in Palestine? If the West has been an accessory to massacre and barbarism in the Middle East for more than half a century, than what can we say about the Arabs?
Indifference to human suffering and acquiescence in Israeli crimes make us as much criminals as all the rest and if ever there is a trial of the Israelis for crimes against humanity and all who supported them, the Arab people should as well be tried. Surely the worst crime of all is awareness and acceptance of genocide through cowardice and indifference.
We knew — and no Arab could deny it from the very beginning — the Israeli intention in Palestine. We know they were, and are, always killing and oppressing our brothers and sisters. We know the West supported, and continues to support, them and we know they will never stop until they have enslaved the entire Arab people.
My friends tell me the Arabs are dead but I say not. The dead are innocent of whatever happens on this earth after their death; events are beyond their powers to control but the Arabs are anything but innocent. They could — and still can — change their destiny. Every time a great crime has been committed on earth, the worst culprits have been cowardice and indifference.
I do not absolve the Israelis of the crimes they have committed. Neither do I absolve the West or the world at large for standing by all these years while the Palestinians and the Arabs have been crushed by Israel’s American-supplied military might. At the same time, I will never absolve the Arabs for accepting the sort of abuse that no self-respecting nation should ever accept. We are the creators of our fate and we will pay the price in tears of blood for every time we are given a chance to retrieve our lands and honor and we fail to do so.
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(Reem Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer. She is based in Jeddah).
