The inferno in Gaza is linked to a fragmented Arab nation, reads Doaa El-Bey Writers bitterly criticised the holocaust in Gaza and could not separate it from the deteriorating situation within the Arab region. The political Syrian daily Tishreen denounced the Arab states for failing to even condemn the Israeli attack in Gaza and described them as living in a state of laxity, indifference and often compliance to the West. "If that is not the case, how can one explain the horrible Arab silence towards what is happening to the Gazans whom Israel is using as fuel for a holocaust, as one of its officials openly declared?" the editorial questioned. "Israel clearly stated that it would grill the one million and half Gazans and it did under the eyes of the Arab states that saw the children and the elderly killed, houses dilapidated and mosques levelled to the ground. Nevertheless, the Arabs did not move, and probably some of them preferred not to disturb themselves watching such scenes." The editorial underlined that the Arab states are capable of doing many things to stop this holocaust and save the Gazans, but they have not, as if they are giving the Israelis the green light to do whatever they want with Gaza. If that is the Arab stand towards the Palestinians, the editorial asked why should we expect the international community to stop the Israeli aggression or the Europeans to put pressure on Israel? Khaled Al-Harroub found the Arab reaction to different issues perplexing. They tend to react in a strange and slow manner to important issues and quick and rampant to marginal subjects. He questioned why the Arab peoples from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arab Gulf rose up against a caricaturist in Denmark but were dead silent about a fact like the holocaust in Gaza. "Why should the Arabs accept that armies and arsenals occupy an Arab state and cause the death of some three quarters of a million people and the displacement of millions of others and rise in anger to a decision to ban a teacher from wearing the hijab in a remote village in Germany or to an obscure writer who cunningly wrote something that instigates the feelings of Muslims or touches upon one of their revered values. "Why are millions of Arabs and Muslims in a state of shameful paralysis? Is it a problem in their awareness or their minds or in their culture? Is the 'fear' from their despotic regimes behind this pathetic state? And why do people challenge that fear in marginal issues?" Al-Harroub wrote in the United Arab Emirates independent daily Al-Ittihad. He said it was true that popular demonstrations and protests will not stop the flow of blood in Gaza but they will gradually stop the crime against the people in Gaza. The Arabs' anticipated silence on any Israeli crime is becoming one of the encouraging factors which allows Israel to carry on with its savage policies against the Palestinians. But an overwhelming show of popular anger would definitely affect Washington's racist and blind support of Brussels' collusion with Israel. The Jordanian political independent daily Al-Dostour criticised the Arab and passive international stand on the Israeli practices in Gaza. Its editorial hailed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's decision to cut all political contact with the Israeli government. Although it regarded this as one of the important cards in the hands of the Palestinians, the edit called on the Arab regimes to take more positive steps to support the Palestinians. "Recent Israeli declarations, especially those from the Ministry of Defence, indicate that Tel Aviv is ready to completely take over Gaza, representing a catastrophe, and that the Arab states should immediately stop using the political tools they possess. These tools have become less efficient with the noticeable deterioration in the credibility of the international community which left Arabs and Palestinians with options ruled out years ago as insufficient to regaining the rights of the Palestinians," the editorial read. Regarding the international community, the editorial said that although it knows the truth about Israeli practices, its reaction was far less severe than the crime. The UN for instance described the Israeli crimes as "mutual aggression". As for the White House, it called for an end to all forms of aggression and the return to negotiations, but did not make any tangible attempt to stop the Israeli aggression or restrain Israeli military power. The EU, which was brave enough to criticise the Israeli aggression because it is against innocent civilians, used the phrase "excessive use of force" -- as if Israel has the right to show off its power but without an excessive use of it in a way that embarrasses its friends and supporters. The London-based political daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi criticised the US for preventing the UN Security Council from issuing a resolution that condemns the Israeli assault in Gaza, a fact that shows that Washington supports Tel Aviv. That is why Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert declared that the Israeli operation in Gaza would last. "These operations will last only because all the world's states, including the Arab countries and the legitimate Palestinian government in Ramallah, support Israel," the newspaper editorial read. It added that these operations would not stop Hamas and would harm the Palestinian as well as the Israeli governments. "The operations mobilised all the Palestinians behind the resistance, especially Hamas, and created a state of national unity that was entirely unexpected after the recent inter-Palestinian division. In addition, it made the Ramallah government appear as if it is allying with Israel and providing it with the legitimate cover to uproot Hamas. That is why many Palestinians have the impression that there is an agreement between Tel Aviv and Ramallah that the former would finish off Hamas so that the latter could regain its control over Gaza. On the other hand, the Gaza attack will reveal the horrible terrorist face of the Israeli government, its undemocratic policies and challenge in the face of the will of the international community that wants a peaceful settlement to the crisis." In Tishreen Omar Giftilli shed light on the scale of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza. He described it as a real holocaust that resembles to a great extent ethnic cleansing. The last century and this one have not witnessed a siege of this kind in which children, women and elderly are burnt in their own homes. And what is more frightening is that the Israelis declare that this will last. Giftilli's question is what the crime the Palestinians committed was when the international community planted Israel on their land and forced half of the people out of it in 1948. And now the transfer of the other half starts. "The holocaust is just a beginning for more humiliation and coercion for anyone who refuses to give away his rights and his land. But where is the UN, the international community, and more important where is the Arab nation?" Giftilli concluded.
