An Alliance of Despotism

Until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-religious, right-wing party came into power, we Palestinians used to have a lot of difficulties convincing the rest of the world that Israel is not a modern, democratic country as Zionists continue to claim. It is, rather, a reactionary, religion-based, race-based, neo-colonialist entity which will not be a normal presence in the region until all its vicinity are built on the same principles. Thanks to Netanyahu, Culture Minister Miri Regev, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and the rest of this bunch of blood thirsty dinosaurs, our mission is much easier now – even many non-Palestinians have started believing us.

Images coming from many Gulf countries indicate that Netanyahu and his cronies have managed to lure many Arab rulers into their den. Although for a whole century, Zionists did their best to convince the world that we Arabs are merely desert-roaming tribes void of ethics, culture and civilization, they seem very keen on obtaining legitimacy from the heart of the Arabian desert. The fact that Miri Regev broke into tears while singing the Israeli national anthem – Hatikvah – in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last week is a case in point.

Yet Israel will ultimately bring the downfall of the autocratic Arab regimes. The earnest push that Netanyahu is undertaking will deprive the Arab leaders of the last fig leaf and may lead to the next Arab Spring – anticipated by many to be more comprehensive and brutal this time. Dependency on foreign powers, corruption, unemployment and a lack of development all deepen despair and the tendency towards violence in the souls of Arab youth.

Netanyahu’s urge to be seen as “man of accomplishments” is immense. He is a short-sighted and self-centred politician who wants to extract all possible benefits from the tenure of US President Donald Trump before internal American politics change the direction of the wind, whatever destructive results may come in the future.

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Why then do these Arab regimes, especially the Gulf monarchies, need Israel? After colonising our countries for centuries, Westerners indulged in two World Wars which depleted their resources and brought them to the verge of bankruptcy. Facing local resistance and engagement in “Western civil wars”, they could not maintain the presence of their huge and expensive armies on our land. So, they had to choose a cheaper way to do achieve these aims. They divided our land into small pieces which they called states and facilitated – or when necessary, appointed – corrupt locals groomed by the West to rule and harness us.

Therefore the legitimacy of these rulers, unlike most modern governments, does not come from their citizens but from foreign support, be it British or American. Arab rulers see Israel as the regional deputy of the United States. Yet, it is very important for them to leave the masses ignorant in this regard, so they established the habit of attacking Israel verbally, all the while acting otherwise.

Many of us in the Arab world are divided on whether the Zionist colonial entity set up on the land of Palestine is simply playing a role given to them by their colonial masters – to divide the Arabs and keep them at bay – or whether it is merely working on its own. Yet we all seem to agree on the result; the occupation of Palestine has divided Arabs and made them weak, which the Zionists earnestly reject, claiming that we Arabs and, for that matter, Muslims more broadly are corrupt by nature and that they have nothing to do with it.

Who are Israel’s allies among the Arabs? Among them are the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and some others whose time has not yet come. What do all these countries have in common, other than being monarchies? Well, all of them have no parliament, no democracy, no solid rule of law, activists and dissenters jailed for long periods and they are accused of modern slavery. Indeed, they not the perfect allies to a “democratic state”, unless this state is a self-proclaimed democratic state like Israel. Good luck with that!

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As the Arab Spring taught us, Israel fears Arab democracy because it knows that is unwanted in the region. This is not because it is “the only democratic oasis in the scorching sun of the Middle East”, as it likes to see itself, nor because it is a Jewish state. It is because no free people could accept foreign occupation, especially when it is associated with replacing the people of the land with strangers, denying their very existence, their right to self-determination, defiling their holy places and building a defective, supremacist, religion-based narrative that justifies wiping out history and civilisation.

Therefore, Israel will always be the perfect ally of Arab dictators, against the will of their people. The more diplomatic “breakthroughs” Netanyahu and his cronies make, the nearer the whole region becomes to the next wave of change. This change will not be strictly directed at Arab dictatorships but to their Israeli ally. No matter what Israel says or does, it will always be seen as an integral part of the despotic alliance. It is bound to fall with the collapse of the Arab dictatorships when it comes – and it soon will. Indeed, Israel is power drunk and very soon will be sobered by the realities of a region that never forgets and never forgives.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.