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Without Zionist Arabs, Israel would not exist

April 26, 2022 at 1:30 pm

An Israeli police car blocks the road on the Israeli side of the Taba crossing leading into Egypt on 16 February 2014 [JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images]

In what was another slap in the face of the Palestinians and free people around the world, at a time when Israeli security forces are storming Al-Aqsa Mosque and attacking worshippers, the Egyptian authorities opened the Sinai Peninsula to thousands of Zionists so that they could celebrate Passover. The Jewish holiday coincided with the anniversary of Sinai’s complete liberation after Taba was returned in 1988 following a ruling by the International Criminal Court. That was when singer Shadia sang, “Sinai has returned complete to us and to Egypt today” and the Egyptians rejoiced and sang along with her. However, they could not enter Taba — the part of Egypt occupied by Israel — without permission from the security authorities, as if they were going to a foreign country. The Israelis, meanwhile, entered Taba without a visa.

It is worth remembering that when the Zionists were forced to leave Taba in 1988, they were screaming and crying. They burnt the land and demolished all the buildings before they left.

An estimated 50,000 Zionists flocked to Sinai for a concert organised by former Israeli army officers, and stayed in Egyptian hotels. It was announced that the Zionist celebrations would be held in a well-known hotel belonging to the Egyptian army, but when this was exposed by the popular campaign to boycott Israel, the parties involved in this normalisation shame were forced to withdraw and the events were moved to other hotels in the Nuweiba area.

History records that in Ramadan 1973 — October in that year — the Egyptian army achieved its greatest victory in the modern era and defeated the Israelis, who had claimed that their army was invincible. Since then, of course, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, the ultimate normalisation shame. In the current month of Ramadan this year, Israel has thus been handed a free victory without any risk as Egyptian hotels opened to host the concert in Sinai.

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I feel so sad that the Zionists are free to gloat about this event. According to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, the invitation was addressed to people from all over the world to dance on the land of Sinai. The Israeli organisers said that this reflects their victory, determination and patience as they “proved” to the world that they never really leave once they have taken something.

That’s the situation with Egyptian normalisation. At the same time, it is shameful that the Arabs who signed the Abraham Accords to declare their pro-Israel positions with the utmost clarity and frankness, also celebrate the denunciation and condemnation of the Palestinian popular resistance against the Zionist occupation forces. Media in the so-called “axis of moderation”, led by Abu Dhabi, adopt Israeli propaganda lies as holy writ that they repeat without the slightest hesitation. The Arab Zionists describe the Palestinians who defend their usurped land and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest in the world and the site of Prophet Muhammad’s miraculous night journey, as the aggressors and criminals. In the eyes of such Arabs, the criminal Zionists are the innocent victims defending the mosque against Palestinian attacks.

It is no surprise to learn that at the same time that the normalisation Zionist Arabs and their leaders in the UAE open their treasuries to support the Israeli economy so that the enemy can continue to colonise occupied Palestine, at least $10 billion has been allocated for this ignoble cause. What is surprising is that people are astonished that these “moderate” regimes can be even more Zionist than the Israelis in adopting the anti-Palestinian narrative with such enthusiasm.

To compound the shame that these regimes are obviously incapable of feeling, this is all happening even as major human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, accuse Israel of implementing apartheid in occupied Palestine. Apartheid is akin to a crime against humanity. So blinded are they by their love for the Zionist regime — UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed regrets missing out on 43 years of relations with Israel — that the signatories of the Abraham Accords stand on the wrong side of history. The world is waking up to the pernicious nature of Zionism and the occupation state it has spawned.

I say again that the Arab Zionists are more dangerous to the Ummah than their Israeli counterparts. The reason is simple: without them, Israel would not exist.

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