Will Muslim East + BRICS Liberate Palestine?

Kevin Barrett

Rabi' al-Thani 17, 1445 2023-11-01

News & Analysis

by Kevin Barrett (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 53, No. 9, Rabi' al-Thani, 1445)

In the wake of Hamas’s stunningly successful Al-Aqsa Storm operation and the genocidal zionist reaction, the whole Muslim East-North Africa (MENA) region is ready to side with the Palestinians—and sideline the United States. Despite heavy US pressure to condemn Hamas and pave the way for a new Nakba, nobody in the region, nor the larger non-western world, appears eager to follow Occupied Washington’s orders.

Even US vassal countries in Palestine’s neighborhood are rising up against their erstwhile master. Jordan, whose real power center is said to be the US Embassy in Amman, rejected the US-Israeli plan for a Nakba 2.0: “I think I can speak here on behalf of Jordan… but also our friends in Egypt: This is a red line… no refugees to Jordan and also no refugees to Egypt,” King Abdullah said at an October 17 press conference, where German Chancellor Olaf Schulz was pushing the Zio-American plan to expel the Palestinians.

Schulz, playing the role of Uncle Schlemiel’s hapless errand boy, had even less luck in Egypt, whose dictator Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, though no friend of Hamas, sharply rebuked the Zio-American plan for a Nakba 2: “What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take refuge and migrate to Egypt, which should not be accepted... Egypt rejects any attempt to resolve the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region.”

Sisi also reacted angrily to Antony Blinken’s obligatory “my stepfather survived the Holocaust” schtick: “(Jews in Egypt) have never been subjected to any form of oppression... it has never happened in our region.”

Egypt pointedly refused to let the 600 Americans trapped in Gaza leave until humanitarian aid was allowed across the border without Israeli strafing. As of October 21, the first pathetically inadequate load, including one day’s worth of drinking water for 22,000 people (out of a population of 2.3 million) had begun to trickle in.

The slow death of 2.3 million concentration camp inmates (alongside the quicker death of thousands murdered by Israeli bombs) is covertly longed for and celebrated by the west. But the zionist genocide of Gaza has triggered massive demonstrations across the MENA region, leaving leaders little choice but to side with their people.

Another former US vassal, Saudi Arabia, was even less obedient than Jordan and Egypt. Its foreign ministry reacted to Al-Aqsa Storm by blaming zionist oppression, occupation, and defilement of sanctities, meaning escalating desecrations of al-Aqsa Mosque. When Blinken flew in to hector the Saudis about the Nazi Holocaust and demand that they condemn Hamas, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman kept him waiting for hours, then ultimately didn’t show.

MbS finally did deign to meet Blinken the next day—and had nothing bad to say about Hamas. Instead, he pointedly insisted that Israel stop slaughtering people in Gaza. Meanwhile, MbS took a friendly call from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who praised the Saudi leader’s pro-Palestinian stance, as the Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers met and agreed that Israel is the problem.

So much for abnormalization!*

On October 21, Egypt hosted an Arab Peace Summit at which Arab countries united to call for a ceasefire and end to occupation. Russia, China, South Africa (representing BRICS) and the US, France, and Germany (representing the Anglo-Zionist Empire) attended. Unsurprisingly, the BRICS countries supported the Arab position, while the Anglo-zionists dragged their heels.

If Al-Aqsa Storm torpedoed the zionists’ much-balleyhooed abnormalization with Saudi Arabia, it also stopped the subtler creep toward patched-up Zio-Turkish relations. The zionists, once bosom buddies of the pre-Erdogan Turkish atheist/Donmeh elite, have been trying to sneak back into Turkey—with mixed success—since they were shown the proverbial door in the wake of the 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre. But following the October 17 Al-Ahli Hospital bombing, huge protests in Turkey caused the zionists to evacuate diplomatic personnel and issue an emergency travel advisory ordering Israelis to flee the country.

The zionists were not pleased by Turkish President Erdogan’s first reaction to Al-Aqsa Storm: “It’s our responsibility to stand with the oppressed.” Nor are they pleased by Erdogan’s cordial relations with Hamas, which maintains offices in Turkey and receives Turkish support. Forced to choose between Anglo-Zionist pressure for abnormalization and his pro-Palestine base, Erdogan cannot help but lean toward Palestine.

Despite his reputation as a wily and sometimes untrustworthy political operator, Erdogan is not entirely indifferent to the Muslim and Palestinian cause. He is reported to have said: “If we lose Jerusalem, we will not be able to protect Madinah; if Madinah is lost, then we will not be able to save Makkah; and if we lose Makkah, then we will also lose the Ka‘aba.”

But for all of Erdogan’s posturing, Turkey is not at the forefront of the Muslim struggle to defend the holy places. Among regional countries, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Axis of Resistance it spearheads have done the most to back the Palestinians in their struggle against genocide. Along with providing economic and military aid to all the leading Palestinian Resistance groups including Hamas, Iran has been a world leader in condemning the crimes of the zionists and demanding the complete liberation of Palestine. Crucially, alongside its allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, the Islamic Republic has (as of this writing) successfully deterred a threatened Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.

On October 14, Iran issued a warning to Israel that seems to have caused the zionists to postpone their scheduled October 15 invasion at the last minute, citing bad weather as an excuse. Apparently, the weather forecast was “partly cloudy with a chance of showers of Hizbullah rockets.” As this article is being written on October 22, a ground invasion, and accompanying escalation toward regional and global war, is still on the table.

Lebanon’s Hizbullah, a close ally of Tehran, leads the deterrence effort—but will be the first to join the fight if and when the zionists escalate. At least 14 Hizbullah fighters were martyred in the two weeks following October 7, while Israeli equipment and personnel have likewise taken serious hits, as the Resistance group has repeatedly exchanged fire with Occupation forces.

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, spokesman for Hamas’s Lebanese bureau, says that Hamas and Hizbullah are coordinating their actions, and that Hizbullah is ready to fully enter the war if and when the zionists finally do invade Gaza. With its 150,000 rockets and 100,000 fighters, Hizbullah’s military capacity dwarfs that of Hamas, and could make Al-Aqsa Storm look like a proverbial picnic.

Behind Hizbullah stands Iran with its thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as the world’s leading military drone program. And behind Iran (and the newly-united pro-Palestine Ummah) stand Russia and China.

The strategic equation looks bleak for Israel, that wounded mad dog emitting ear-splitting yelps and howls about how it is going to “finish off Hamas.” How could that ever happen? Even if Israel were to begin to prevail in the tunnels of Gaza—an unlikely eventuality given the inexperience and cowardice of its conscripts and the historical precedent of 2006—Hizbullah cannot let Hamas lose; Iran cannot let Hizbullah lose; and Russia and China cannot let Iran (and the Muslim world) lose. And the more Hamas suffers in Gaza, the more popular it becomes, regionally and worldwide. Even if the whole current leadership were martyred, the organization would grow out of its ashes to become a hundred times more powerful than before.

Since even under the zionists’ best-case-scenario there is no evident path to an Israeli victory, why would Netanyahu choose escalation? The answer: It’s all political. “Bloody Bibi” knows that the minute the war is over, he will be ignominiously booted out of the prime minister’s office and, most likely, into prison. So, his only hope is endless war... even if it means the end of “Israel.”

The takeaway: With regional countries uniting in support of Palestine, and the BRICS countries on board, we are witnessing the terminal decline of the zionist entity. So-called “Israel” only exists because it is propped up by the MENA-dominating United States. As the US and the west lose relative power, zionist desperation morphs into extremist ideology and genocidal language and behavior that are correctly perceived as repulsive by the rising non-western world. If Muslim countries continue to unite in support of Palestine, they can forge alliances with Russia and China to ensure peace and prosperity—and the expulsion of the zionists and their American backers from the region.

*The existence of a genocidal zionist entity occupying Palestine is abnormal. Acquiescence to it by regional states is even more abnormal. So, the process should be called abnormalization.