At Gaza’s dystopian gates: Loss of Arab purpose

The spectre of war reappears whenever the issue of getting aid into the Gaza Strip and efforts to rescue its people from the tightly enforced starvation policy imposed by Israel and the United States gains traction. It is the US, in particular, that has brought the dystopian world of science fiction, political literature and post-apocalyptic cinema into the realm of reality—attempting to apply it in Gaza through an entity called the “Humanitarian Gaza” Institution. This is an early prototype of what the criminal American Israeli mind has imagined as “humanitarian bubbles”—a concept that first surfaced in media reports last October.

Following Israel’s ban on UNRWA—in an unprecedented move whereby a UN member state prohibited one of the organisation’s own agencies—plans began to take shape for the construction of walled-off enclosures, sealed by massive gates, in select areas of the Gaza Strip. These zones would divide, and confine residents based on political affiliations and family connections, with access controlled by biometric tools such as fingerprint and retinal scans. The areas would be guarded by trained forces, equipped with lethal weapons, and overseen by private security firms. In this system, access to a meal would be contingent on political alignment. Beyond these bubbles would lie a bleak desert—an expanse of misery where starving “human animals” stumble through hunger, offering perfect conditions for hunting and sniping.

Some Arabs invoke the threat of war whenever they are asked to do something to support the Palestinians. In claiming feeding the hungry would trigger war against their countries, they are not highlighting the extent of American Israeli criminality in weaponising hunger as a tool of genocide. Rather, they are offering an excuse for their own incapacity—or their unwillingness—to provide relief.

The idea was not realised in its full criminal form, which at the time seemed to reflect a white genocidal imagination attempting to capitalise on the Gaza tragedy—using it as a testing ground for engineering societies through biometric control or electronic surveillance. Still, it was promoted by the United States in a way that reflected the same elitist logic—no less than a Nazi-like sense of superiority and dominion over human beings—through the so-called “Humanitarian Gaza” institution. The idea continues to exist in the Israeli imagination, in the debates of its proponents, and in their documents, under labels such as “humanitarian cities” and “humanitarian corridors”. These are concepts the United States ultimately welcomes—not only because it has a strange, pathological emotional urge to see Israel dominant and successful, to the extent that it attributes its own accomplishments to it—but also because the US is constantly drawn to new spaces where it can test everything: from weapons, to speculative scientific ideas, to the development of tools for disciplining and controlling human beings.

In any case, and setting aside the calculated starvation policies sponsored by the United States to ensure the continued genocide (and it must be said here that the floating pier, the airdropping of aid, and the minimal, sporadic delivery of assistance all fall within strategies designed to secure and cover up the genocide)—an idea of this kind is, at its core, fundamentally hostile to what it means to be human. That is, to what defines humanity: dignity, free will, and the principle that people should be treated as equals. It is no surprise, then, that Israel would label it “humanitarian”—just as it calls its army the “Defence Forces”, and just as the United States claims that its wars, which grind human dignity into the dust, are actually waged in the name of human liberation. (Is that American claim any different from Israel’s insistence that its army is the most moral in the world?) And just as the US tries to convince itself, when asked “Why do they hate us?”, with the answer: “Because of our democracy, our freedom, and our way of life!”

This evil becomes even clearer when some Arabs speak of the danger of war whenever they are asked to do something to aid the Palestinians. In claiming feeding the hungry would trigger war against their countries, they are not highlighting the extent of American Israeli criminality in weaponizing hunger as a tool of genocide. Rather, they are offering an excuse for their own incapacity—or their unwillingness—to provide relief to Palestinians who are being subjected to systematic starvation.

There was a time when talk centred on the inevitable Arab liberation of Palestine. Then, hope turned to the idea that they might support the Palestinian struggle. That later dwindled into the hope they would at least offer political backing and economic assistance. None of that remains today—despite feeble claims that the purpose of normalisation with Israel under what they call the “Abraham Accords” is to support the Palestinians. (That, of course, is a crude, insulting joke—nothing more than degraded theatrics.) Now, after twenty-two months of genocide, no one is asking them to stop the war—only to let food in. But food, we are told, comes at the price of war. And Arabs do not go to war.

No matter how tyrannical Israel may be, breaking the starvation is still possible through Arab action. At the very least, there is room to show resolve and take more serious and effective steps to challenge the blockade—and before that, to stop the genocide. Yet Arab governments do none of this. Not only because their interests are aligned with Israel’s in crushing the resistance in Gaza, but also because Arab thinking itself remains shackled by the Israeli leash.

And if a Palestinian cries out, “Help us!”—pleading for food—he must first be insulted and cursed, with recycled Arab clichés thrown at him, as has become common in recent years, such as accusing him of exaggeration. In any case, the mere fact that an Arab can imagine that feeding another Arab—his neighbour—who is being subjected to genocide and starvation, would require going to war, is proof of the utter loss of value of the Arab presence in this region. These are major states, obsessed with producing grand narratives about their own greatness, yet completely devoid of influence, role, or impact—despite decades of peace with Israel and service to American interests. And those who do not openly communicate with Israel are, as is well known, are doing so in secret.

What we are saying is that Israel is not only physically exterminating the Palestinians—it is also erasing the Arab presence in terms of purpose. And this is of no concern to the current Arab political order, because it is a system that does not think in terms of meaning or purpose to begin with, let alone assign it any weight. Still, the fact remains: no one is asking the Arabs to fight, not only because their armies are incapable of defeating Israel and were never built for that purpose (which raises once again the question of meaning and purpose: what have these states been doing throughout the decades since independence?), but also because their peoples have no desire for such a war, whose cost is well known. Since 1967, the idea of defeat has dominated the Arab consciousness. Arab societies are neither prepared nor equipped to accept war or adapt to it. And the so-called Arab Spring and its aftermath proved that the problem does not lie solely with regimes and governments.

And yet, in truth—no matter how tyrannical Israel may be—breaking the starvation is still possible through Arab action. At the very least, there is room to show resolve and take more serious and effective steps to challenge the blockade—and before that, to stop the genocide. Yet Arab governments do none of this. Not only because their interests are aligned with Israel’s in crushing the resistance in Gaza, but also because Arab thinking itself remains shackled by the Israeli leash. If Israel seeks to control the Palestinians of Gaza through biometric surveillance, it controls Arab governments through suggestion and political hypnosis.

Translated from Palinfo, 30 July 2025

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