Gamal Nkrumah deals with Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails This week was always going to be a gloomy one for Arab pundits ahead of 14 May when on that day in 1948 David Ben-Gurion, executive head of the World Zionist Organisation, declared the establishment of the Jewish state. The new state was founded on what the Zionists regarded as "Eretz Israel". It was a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. But the mood got a lot gloomier recently with the tragic circumstances in which Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails went on hunger strike in protest against unjust Israeli laws and the ill-treatment if prison administration. The Arab papers are replete with allegations of human rights abuse in Israeli prisons, of physical torture and systematic and repeated humiliation at the hands of Israeli authorities. The "historic convulsions" in the Arab world as the Saudi daily Okaz put it has indirectly dangerously compromised Palestinian rights. In an article entitled 'Palestine Spring' Khaled Seif was highly critical of both the Palestinian leadership and the leaders of the Arab Spring countries. "Behind the appalling enclosures, the besieging walls, and blockading barricades the Palestinians live in utter misery and abject poverty. The toiling Palestinian masses suffer from hunger and can't even find a loaf of bread to feed their families," Seif lamented. "The Arab Spring has stolen the show from the Palestinians. The Palestinian tragedy is sidelined. Every Arab country is now engrossed in its own internal affairs and the Palestinian cause has been forgotten or at least put on the back-burner," Seif concluded in Okaz. In much the same vein, in the Sharjah-based United Arab Emirates paper Al-Khaleej, Fayez Rashid lamented the state of the Palestinians. He noted with trepidation the rise of right-wing Israeli parties and the growing popularity of the Israeli "Fascists" as he called right-wing Israelis. "Israel insists on the law of no return for the refugees. Israel also contends that the Palestinians must acknowledge the Jewish character of Israel. What then is the logic of sending reconciliatory messages to the Israeli leadership? The Palestinian Authority is once again gravely miscalculating," Rashid warned in Al-Khaleej. This week, six Gulf Arab states flexed their muscles in military and naval manouevres in the shallow waters of the contentious Gulf. It ought to have been quite a party, since the military coordination and solidarity among the six states marked a rare moment of strategic wisdom. Alas, the manouevres were overshadowed by a loud lament of the occupation of Iran of three islands -- Abu Moussa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb that Arab states assert belong to the United Arab Emirates. Iran, in sharp contrast claims the three islands as part of the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan. The Gulf media was agog with insinuations purporting that Iran constituted a real threat to Gulf Arab peace and security. The brouhaha was prompted by a surprise visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Abu Moussa. Moreover, Iran's alleged military intervention in Syria on the side of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad was roundly condemned in the Arab press. And, so was Tehran's supposed interference in Iraqi domestic affairs, the inference of course, is that Iran was championing the cause of the Shia Muslim majority population of Iraq and fomenting sectarian strife. The Gulf-based papers, not surprisingly, featured detailed coverage of the joint military manoeuvres of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states code-named Islands of Loyalty. Not to be outmanoeuvred, the Iranians also carried out their own mock military exercises. Iranian coast guards carrying out exercises in the Gulf certainly did not look like a mere detail from the Arab Peninsula shores of the Gulf. Ominously, Arab pundits concurred, it mattered a great deal. The escalation of tension in the Gulf is in truth a symptom of a deeper malaise gripping the region. Regional rivalry and a rejection of Iranian hegemony over the Gulf has led to a consolidation of the Arab Gulf states especially those such as Bahrain that are regarded as being directly threatened by Iran. The Arab Gulf leaders are lobbying for Arab interests in the context of the Gulf Cooperation Council. They are "considering their security a part of the council's security as a whole," as Saudi Arabia's Prince Nayef was quoted as saying in several Arab papers as well as by the Fars News Agency which quoted Ahmadinejad as making reconciliatory overtures. "Any harm that befalls any member state of the GCC is a harm that touches us all," Crown Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia was quoted as saying in several Saudi Arabian newspapers. "We stress that Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Council member states are standing in a unified line with Bahrain and the UAE to protect their sovereignty and stability," Crown Prince Nayef was quoted as saying in the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat. "There should be no tampering with the rights of Bahraini citizens in expressing their opinions nor any ceilings put on their freedoms or creativity apart from professional consciousness and national and ethical responsibilities," Bahrain's King Hamad was also quoted as declaring in Asharq Al-Awsat. Another subject that received wide publicity in the Gulf Arab press was the decision by Saudi Arabia to accept the return of the family of the former Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. "Saudi Arabia acted out of humanitarian considerations at the request of the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia," Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Saudi officials as saying. "It is inappropriate to discuss the details of the private life of the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia". The paper added that Saudi officials stressed that Bin Laden's family were welcome home "in so far as there are no reports or evidence of any implication in criminal or illegal activity". Gulf papers also widely reported the crash in the Gulf of a United States F-15E Strike Eagle last Thursday during a training mission in the UAE. The incident highlighted the tensions over Iran in the region and especially Tehran's supposed breaching of its international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, in an article the Lebanese writer Mohamed Mashmoushi entitled 'Al-Maliki: Dancing on Hot Coals' Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's first visit to Iran since October 2010 was the focus, as was it a major topic of discussion by commentators in many papers in the Arab Gulf and Iraq. Most pundits concurred that the visit of Al-Maliki to Iran had recondite repercussions. The commentators, and in particular Al-Maliki's detractors, accused him of dictatorship and of monopolising power in Iraq. The current Iraqi political crisis deepened after Iraq's vice-president, Sunni Muslim Tarek Al-Hashemi was accused of treason and an arrest warrant was issued against him. He has since fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous self-governed territory where he was made welcome. Meanwhile, Al-Hashemi visited a number of Arab Gulf states -- predominantly Sunni -- to rally support for his Sunni cause. President of Iraqi Kurdistan Massoud Al-Barazani was quoted in Al-Hayat as complaining that Al-Maliki had assumed numerous important ministerial portfolios including "defense minister, interior minister, intelligence chief and commander-in-chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces". Al-Maliki's visit to Iran comes ahead of the 23 May Baghdad meeting between Iran and the P5 PLUS 1 Group on Tehran's nuclear programme. It was as if Al-Maliki's visit was designed to coincide with Al-Hashemi's visit to Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states. Al-Hashemi heads for his Sunni benefactors and co-religionists while Al-Maliki goes to Shia Iran to solicit support. Al-Maliki met with Iranian parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Said Jalili. Al-Maliki also met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In Al-Hayat, Lebanese commentator Selim Nassar wrote a profound piece entitled 'Somali oil threatens the future of Al-Qaeda in Yemen'. The writer pointed out that the recent interest by Britain in the Somali peace and reconciliation process stems from British neocolonial covetousness with regards to the proven oil and natural gas reserves as well as vast uranium deposits in Somalia. In yet another think piece in Al-Hayat, Syrian pundit Iyad Shorbagi wondered why the Syrian authorities are now embarking on arresting and detaining scores of Syrian liberals and secularists? "It is a vital component of the Syrian regime's dirty schemes to cleanse the Syrian uprising of secularist and liberal elements so that it can claim to the world that the revolutionaries in Syria are militant Islamists".
