The Arab World remains conspicuously silent as Israeli soldiers and armed settler terrorists rampage through the Holy Land murdering Palestinian civilians including women and children, and provoking violent anger from the victims that is portrayed as “terrorism.” It’s conspicuous, but it’s not surprising
By Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania
covering Chicago
City Hall
(1976-1992)
As the Palestinian death toll continues to escalate, the leadership of the “Arab World” remains silents, turning it’s eyes and ears elsewhere in order to protect their real interests, financial investments with the West and with the Israeli government.
Israel’s government has provoked Palestinian civilians to violent resistance by expanding the confiscation of civilian land, the arrest and detention without trial of numerous Palestinian activists, the violence against Palestinian civilians by armed settlers and through its continued policy of “extra-judicial killing,” a euphemism for murder.
In the few instances when the brutality and crimes of the Israeli government are reported on by the mainstream American news media, the Israeli perpetrators are described as being “nationalistic.”
In contrast, the biased mainstream American news media has embraced the propaganda of the Israeli media in describing all Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers and armed settler fanatics as “terrorists.”
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip near Shujaiya throw stones back at Israeli soldiers who fire live weapons from the border. Copyright (C) Tarek Masood 2015. All Rights Reserved
It’s a hypocritical double-standard that miscasts the true causes of the recent escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israelis. According to the mainstream American news media, the only violence is the violence from Palestinians. All of the Israel’s government responses have been described and defended as “defensive,” which is an outright lie.
Instead of calling Israel’s government to account for its war crimes and its continued oppression of civilians non-Jews, the Arab World governments have turned a deaf ear. They are hiding behind the increasing extremism in the Middle East as an excuse.
The rise of ISIS (Daesh) in Iraq and Syria has given them an opportunity to obtain more money and weaponry from the West, and to ingratiate themselves with the American government. Their greatest fear is that if the Americans turn on them, they won’ the able to take their huge oil fortunes and waste them away on gambling in casinos in Montecarlo and Las Vegas, or on prostitutes — usually little boys. Although may Arab leaders pretend to be religious devotees, the reality is that they violate many of the morals that they wrap themselves in for public consumption.
The Arab World is truly a desert, but not just of sand. It is a land deserted of courageous and intelligent leadership, filled with obesity, obscenities and unprecedented greed. They buy islands all over the world and secure whole beaches for their selfish pleasures, building outrageous modern-day pyramids to their egos while turning their backs on their own masses.
The lack of respect for human life is disturbing.
The American and the Israeli governments and leaders are happy to accommodate this greed. They are willing to accept tyranny by those Arab leaders as long as it is restricted to be against their own Arab people and does not go beyond the borders of their Arab nations. As long as these Arab tyrants and dictators accept the policies of the American and Israeli governments, the American and Israeli governments are willing to tolerate their moral corruption and their civil rights violations. After all, America’s governments have turned its back on the war crimes of Israel’s governments. Why shouldn’t they turn their backs not he war crimes of the corrupt Arab leadership?
The absence of leadership has created a void among the Arab people who are left to their anger, frustrations and emotions. These feelings of anger explode in many ways and usually they turn on themselves, rather than blame their dysfunctional governments or the hypocrisy of the American or Israeli governments.
George Orwell’s 1984 has arrived, but not in the stern face of a tyrant dressed in black. It has arrived int he form of a brutal dictator who lavishly spends on himself, smiles for the camera and secretly embraces death and destruction on an international scale.
Big Brother is not the face of a frightening tyrant but one of smiles, happiness and hypocrisy. The West has helped the Arab World turn violence into a form of population control and management. The dictators have the wealth to protect themselves and enjoy their lives even as the countries around them erupt in flames.
And the Arab people are an expendable asset, not worth protecting, saving or investing in.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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