Articles and Reports

The Crisis of the Arab Role In the War on Gaza, since October 7, 2023 Report 25- December 2023
Arab Crises Team - ACT

The Arab Crises Team-ACT is an Arab team established at the Middle East Studies Center-Jordan in 2013. It specializes in monitoring and following up on Arab crises through research, study, and strategic analysis, and providing appropriate visions and recommendations to relevant parties to get out of these crises.


http://mesc.com.jo/CrisesTeamReports/CrisesReports.htm

This report prepared by the Arab Crisis Team at MESC deals with the crisis of the Arab role in the war on Gaza since October 7, 2023. The team believes that this crisis has exposed the back of the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian resistance in favor of the American and European-backed Israeli aggression in an unprecedented manner, given the dangers of this crisis. This weakness of the Arab role has many repercussions on the future of the Arab world and the Arab regimes, mainly regarding political, economic, and security stability.
The team decided to address this crisis in a focused report while presenting initial perceptions that, if applied, could enhance and strengthen the Arab role to move from a state of crisis to a state of effectiveness in dealing with the war on Gaza. The perceived role would contribute to achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people for freedom, independence, unity, and ending the Israeli occupation.
The report discusses this crisis in the shadow of the hesitation and confusion in the positions of the Arab governments and the weakness in balancing their interests and relations with the Palestinian cause, as well as the inability to influence the international decision regarding dealing with this aggression based on committing war crimes openly, on a large scale and continuously. Moreover, this weakness is represented by the Arab inability to invest in the results of the military success of Hama's major operation against the Israeli army and its intelligence capabilities around the Gaza Strip. The operation was carried out on October 7, 2023, against the Israeli military and its security services, aimed to frustrate their continuous aggressions against civilian Palestinians in Gaza.
This report revealed a practical and theoretical absence in perceptions of transforming Arab regimes from powerlessness to strength among the ruling elites in the Arab world. They also lack a vision to be independent in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict and with the dangers and threats that Israel poses to security and stability in the Arab world and the region in general.
In its discussion of the reasons, motives, and challenges, the report addresses the main reasons, including the weak effectiveness of the Arab role at the international level, the preoccupation of some Arab countries in internal conflicts and wars, and the association of some Arab countries with peace treaties and agreements and the normalization of relations with Israel, and the weakness of the Palestinian Authority's position and policies towards the war on Gaza.
Regarding the motives behind the weakness of the Arab position and the crisis in its role in the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the report finds many motives, including the desire among the Arab states involved in the normalization process to maintain their relations with the Israeli side, as well as the fear of undesirable repercussions of the confrontation between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli army to energize the Arab street movement against their governments' stances.
Moreover, the motives include the influence of the ideological factor and the unfavorable position of some Arab governments towards political Islam movements, including Hamas, in addition to the problem of classifying Hamas as a terrorist movement by some Western countries, especially the United States. Also, the strategic choice adopted by the official Arab regimes in dealing with the Israeli occupation that is based on peace and settlement instead of confronting Israeli aggression stands as one of the motives behind this crisis in the Arab role in the Gaza war.
The report enumerated the challenges that faced the Arab role in the war on the Gaza Strip. It assigned the most important of these to the weak ability of the Arab leaders to exploit the positive repercussions of the victorious October 7, 2023, military operation and the long steadfastness and distinguished performance of the Palestinian resistance that followed. It also includes the inability of the Arab governing elites who establish relations with the Israeli side to use these agreements and treaties to stop the aggression against the Gaza Strip. In addition, the inability of many Arab governments to separate their negative position and tense relations with Iran from the position on the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip according to their approach and assessment.
The report illustrates the dimensions of the crisis, which include the political dimension, as the political positions of the Arab countries, in general, differ towards the Palestinian issue in general, and in the war on Gaza in particular, and towards the Palestinian political components, adding the decline of the Palestinian cause on the list of priorities of some Arab countries earlier. Other governments are not willing to bear the political or economic cost of supporting Palestinians in this war.
At the public level, the Arab people showed vast support positions, while the official Arab positions were far from the aspirations and demands of the Arab people to support the resistance as a strategic option to restore Arab rights in Palestine and end the Israeli occupation.
The report expects that the absence of a unified Arab role in investing in military success and the lack of political will to use Arab military forces for any role will be reflected in the results and ends of this war. It also would affect the gains that can be achieved or the consequences endured. Many of these outcomes of this war would depend significantly on the strength and continued performance of the Palestinian resistance and the expansion of its operations to inflict more significant losses on the Israeli army. It also includes the pressure using the political, media, and diplomatic campaigns that revealed Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The report indicates that despite the wealth and economic resources that the Arabs possess, there are fundamental obstacles that prevent the development of the Arab role in this dimension, the most important of which is the conflict of political visions, which is directly reflected in the reality of employing economic tools to pressure Israel and its allies and supporters.
The report mentioned a group of variables that can influence the Arab position relatively and may take it out of the circle of impotence and crisis to the circle of fairly advanced action. It includes the ability of the Palestinian people to stand firm on their land despite Israeli aggression and crimes and to sustain the state of Arab and Islamic interaction and movement, supporting Palestinians in their struggle and coordinating with the international solidarity movements.
At the level of perceptions of getting out of this crisis, the report presented a preliminary vision that can be developed towards an effective and influential Arab role to end the Israeli aggression and war on Gaza and to support the Palestinian struggle and freedom from the Israeli occupation. Its most essential components are:
1. The Arab countries leave the mediator role and adopt a position that fully and directly supports the Palestinian national struggle against the Israeli occupation and aggression.
2. Develop a comprehensive initiative away from the fragmentation policies pursued by Israel and the US to maintain the occupation for as long as possible. It is based on the trends of the emerging international balance of power and the successes of the resistance of the Palestinian people in confronting Israeli aggression. The report suggests that this vision be adopted by key countries such as Iran, Turkey, Russia, and China, in addition to the Arab countries.
3. Investing in Arab and international popular pressure movements in favor of Palestine and against the Israeli aggression against the stances of EU, US, and Israel, and forming an Arab institution that supports these trends on a global level.
4. Unifying the official and popular Arab media discourse against the Israeli occupation and its aggression and war crimes against the Palestinian people.

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