Photo credit : BDviews /Anadolu
Organisation of the Islamic Conference consisting of 57 member-states was established as “the collective voice of the Muslim world” to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslims around the world. It was formally founded in 1972 as a consequence of burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque by Denis Michael Rohan, an Australian Zionist according to the public announcement of the Israeli government. The then Mufti of Jerusalem blamed the Israeli occupying force for the heinous crime. The fire destroyed part of the old wooden roof and 800 year old pulpit in the Mosque. Nearly six decades later, today, same brutal Israeli occupation army denies the right of the Muslims to pray in the third holiest, shrine in Islam. Israeli army violently resist, manhandle, arbitrarily arrest, torture and kill the Palestinian Muslims who go there for prayer. Furthermore, in the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, the invading Zionist army has bombed and destroyed hundreds of Mosques in the tiny, besieged enclave.
Arab League was formed in Cairo much before OIC was formed. Initially it was formed with six members: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon in 1945. Now, Arab League has 22 members. Palestine is also a member of the organisation. One of the main goals of the League is “to safeguard independence and sovereignty of the member-states”. Since the beginning of the current Israeli genocide against the people of Palestine, both OIC and Arab League have convened multiple emergency meetings in Jeddah and Cairo. Outcome of those meetings were no different than the other OIC and League meetings meaning full of empty rhetoric and no action. They could not agree to take any punitive economic and political step against the perpetrator countries in the massacre of Palestinian people. Not a single member-state decided to sever economic and political ties with Israel although Turkey downgraded the relations. Both UAE and Saudi Arabia strongly resisted proposal to boycott Israel. Outcome of the joint summit in the Saudi capital once again exposed the weakness of the Islamic world by highlighting internal divisions.
Hungry people of Palestine began to observe Ramadan in ruined Mosques under nonstop Israeli bombardment. Occupying military of the Zionist state of Israel has killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza in 150 days of ongoing genocide. Seventy percent of those killed are babies, children and women. 85 percent of the population of Gaza are now displaced. Israel is using hunger as weapon of war by obstructing flow of aid in the besieged enclave which is clearly a war crime. Yazan Kafarneh, a shriveled, emaciated, ten-year-old boy has become the international face of starvation in Gaza. There is no limit to the depravity of Netanyahu and his Zionist gang. The Zionist army has even demolished graveyards in Gaza and extracted bodies. South Africa has moved to the International Court of Justice against the war crime of Israel with very limited success. United States has already vetoed three times in the UNSC against ceasefire in Gaza signaling its complicity in the genocide. The biggest superpower is also supplying billions of dollars, unlimited tanks, missiles, and bombs to Israeli war machine. As the world silently watches the slaughter of innocent civilians in Gaza, the failure of the Islamic world to come up with any united and effective stand to stop the massacre is inexcusable. In fact, it is the actions of some of the Arab members of OIC since signing of the so-called Abraham Accord that have encouraged Israel to commit the most brutal war crime in recent history.
What is happening in Palestine is not new to the world. It started in 1948 with the establishment of settler-colonial project in the Middle-East, and since then Palestinian men, women, and children are being regularly and systematically massacred by the Zionist entity. There are international laws of war in respect to protecting civilians. But Israel has cynically ignored and flouted every international humanitarian law, emboldened by the immoral, blind and hypocritical support from Islamophobic West and because of, shameless cowardice and greed of the leaders among the Muslim nations. In the wake of 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt was the first Arab country to break rank within the Islamic world to unilaterally recognize Israel in 1980 thereby giving tacit approval to the occupation of Palestine. Jordan followed Egypt in 1994. Most recently, four Arab League countries, UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan established full diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 with the tacit support of Saudi Arabia under the controversial “Abraham Accord”.
MBZ of UAE and MBS, the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia have largely abandoned the concept of Islamic Ummah under the façade of modernization. They have given priority to economic interest and their own survival as rulers over the greater interest of the Islamic world. President Trump succeeded to convince the leaders of the two very important Arab countries to support, “Abraham Accord”, the brainchild of his Zionist son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, to forget and bypass Palestinian issue with lure of money, military assistance and the carrot of a strategic path to counter Iranian influence in the region. This act of betrayal to the Ummah not only put an end to Israel’s total ostracism in the Arab world, further it also made the Zionist state a regional heavyweight.
Soon after, Israel arranged a summit bringing together the foreign ministers of UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco in its capital. The presence of the US Secretary of State added importance and glamour to the meeting. Israel got the license to intensify its massacre of Palestinian people. Even much before the start of the current conflict, Israelis were killing more Palestinians each year than prior to signing the controversial treaty. Extremist Netanyahu thought he can do whatever suits him to achieve ethnic cleansing in all the occupied land of Palestine. UAE on the other hand, took the mantle of catalyst to create an axis with Israel and India to counter the revival of any Islamist politics. When the Hindu extremist government was brutally persecuting the minority Muslims in India, MBZ presented the highest civilian award to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known as “butcher of Gujarat” for his role in murdering Muslim men, women in children in communal riots, while he was the chief minister of Indian state of Gujarat. The ruler of Dubai presented land for construction of a huge Hindu temple in the Arab land at the time when Modi government was busy destroying historical Mosques in India. History will not be kind to these Muslim leaders for their shameless betrayal to Muslim cause.
Frustrated at the inaction of the OIC, Prime Minister Mahathir, President Erdogan and Prime Minister Imran Khan took the initiative to create a new forum to discuss issues related to Islamic world. The idea was first discussed among the three leaders at a side meeting in 2019 United Nations General Assembly session. Qatar, Indonesia and Iran also consented to be part of the “mini Islamic summit” scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur in December 2019. Saudi Arab felt threatened at the new initiative and forced Imran Khan to skip the summit by economically blackmailing Pakistan. Indonesian President also decided not to attend. Ultimately, Turkish President Erdogan, Iran’s President Rouhani and Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Thani participated. President Erdogan justifiably called for revisit of the terms of reference of the OIC in his summit speech. In all probability, OIC will remain toothless and irrelevant unless, it is freed from the hegemony of a single US-depended, oil-rich country.
The current approach of both OIC and Arab League is nothing more than a false diplomatic veneer to show a mirage of Muslim and Arab unity. The leaders of the 57 member-states of the OIC and 22 member-states of the Arab League should hang their heads in shame for dismally failing the people of Palestine. Gaza has permanently exposed the hollowness of both the organizations. OIC and Arab League are finally dusted and buried in Gaza.
South Africa has shown how a truly independent and responsible nation that believes in human rights and international law should act in the international forums. Salute to the leadership of South Africa. I would conclude with a quote of Nelson Mandela, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestine.”