Daily Times

The Muslim world is at a crossroad not knowing how to get out of the quagmire President Donald Trump had pushed it into at the behest of his blue eyed boy, Prime Minister Netanyahu.Quite unfortunately, some Arab monarchs who, in their narrowness of vision, undermined the only broader platform of the Organization of Islamic Conference at the altar of the expedient-ridden, timid and pliable Arab League aggravating their vulnerability to manipulation by the global powers.

Today, the Muslim world stands voiceless; its protests are taken in stride and its rulers ridden roughshod in the world politics. Remorse, Jean Jacque Rousseau says, goes to sleep when our fortunes are prosperous, and makes itself felt more keenly in adversity. What more enormous adversity, the Muslims need to have to trigger introspection among their leaders.

The Palestinian issue engaged the rapt attention of the Muslim world and the comity of nations for long decades. Though the Muslim leaders could not bring enough pressure on the USA and the Western world to compensate the Palestinians for the injustice slapped on them by establishing the Israeli state in their land in 1948, they were successful to keep this issue simmering in the UN and the capitals of the major powers.

The Muslim world dominated by tall leaders who, though autocrats but hardcore Arab nationalists, wielded influence in the world politics. Besides the precious resource of oil which the world needed most, the Muslim leaders maintained their influence and relevance in the world politics by the sheer force of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy and continuous process of consultations among themselves.

President Donald Trump’s hostility and anger against Iran owes much to the perceived security threat from Iran to Israel and some Arab allies

Gradually, the Muslim world lost its sheen because of its own pettiness of vision. The events triggered by the so called Arab Spring proved the last straw on the camel’s back. The leaders got frightened running helter and skelter prostrating at the door of major powers to save their thrones from the avalanche of the spontaneous public protests and bring down the citadels of those whom they perceived a threat to their kingdoms and Emirates.

No longer than the overthrow of Bin Ali in Tunisia, the Muslim world presented the scene of a chaotic war zone in which everybody was anxious to save his life forgetting all the feelings of kinship and fraternity. In their pursuit of security, the Arab leaders lost the sense of direction trotting as pawns in the mayhem wrought on the most important Muslim countries starting from Iraq and expanding to Libya, Syria and Yemen. The frontiers collapsed and the armies disintegrated into armed groups; the leaders were hunted down by mercenary troops or executed; sectarian groups and private rebellious armies trained and financed by Arab monarchs went on killing spree.

All this devastation of the Arab world was not enough to pacify the audacious designs of Israel to become the mini superpower of the region with almost all the Arab monarchs and emirates looking forward to some sort of security arrangement with it. President Donald Trump had, up his sleeves, some more sinister plans to denigrate the Muslim world. Goaded by the pro-Israel trio of his advisors – Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman – he started to unfold his plans moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018 and, in September 2018, he closed the representative office of PLO in Washington, followed by his proclamation of recognizing the illegal annexation of Golan Heights by Israeli.

The Arab countries met in a summit of the 22-nation Arab League in Tunisia held on 31 March 2018 to register their protest particularly over Donald Trump’s act of recognizing the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights. The Final Communiqué issued,filled with the usual clichés, repeatedtheir well beaten stand on Palestine and the occupied Arab lands.

President Donald Trump’s hostility and anger against Iran owes much to the perceived security threat from Iran to Israel and some Arab allies. In the troubled Middle East, Iran has undoubtedly strengthened its sphere of political and strategic influence from Yemen to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Hamas-ruled Gaza. Some western analysts claim that Iran already controls five capitals – Sana, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Gaza. The Iranian entrenchment in the Middle East indisputably posed a security challenge to some Arab monarchies and emirates impelling them to embrace Israel in a joint endeavour to isolate this common adversary.

This perceived security threat was used as a ploy by Donald Trump to cajole some influential Monarchs and Emirates to establish normal diplomatic relations with their arch rival. There may be a few more Gulf States in line to embrace Israel. There are unconfirmed media reports that one influential Arab monarchy is exerting pressure on Pakistan to recognize Israel to clear the deck for its diplomatic embrace of the Jewish State. The moot question is why this Muslim state needs Pakistan to recognize Israel before it could do so! Is it apprehensive that Pakistan would join a group of Muslim states to exploit the easy fall of the Arab countries to the US pressure for the recognition of Israel or is it conscious of the credential of Pakistan as a bulwark against the Jewish state in the great Middle Eastern region? Whatever the reason, the mounting pressure on Pakistan by this brotherly country is unfortunate.

The defeat of Donald Trump, though yet to be conceded by him, has revived some hope in the Muslim world. The blackmailing of the weak Gulf States to recognize Israel to which Mr. Trump had unabashedly resorted to would, in all probability, decrease reviving the Palestinian issue in major capitals. The Biden administration would also be expected to review his predecessor’s callous and rancorous policy in the Gulf region restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the Iran Nuclear Deal and striking a balance in the US relations with Gulf countries. This may open a window for the Muslim world to come out of its present dilemma.