By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
For many decades, secular and quasi-atheistic regimes in the Arab world used the Palestinian cause to consolidate their tyrannical stranglehold on their countries and people. The net result was a gigantic fiasco for the entire Umma in every conceivable field. The indescribably corrupt regimes tormented and terrorized their own citizens, so much so, that the crème de le crème of their societies were forced to emigrate to the West or other countries, fleeing police state terror and repression.
A few years ago, a citizen of a key Arab capital in the Mashriq (the Asian part of the Arab world) intimated to this writer that his countrymen would even welcome the Israeli army as liberators in light of the reign of tyranny and terror they were facing at the hands of their regime.
"The terror, repression, corruption permeating through the country defies linguistic description," he told me.
I didn't publish his remarks then, fearing the Israeli hasbara machine would hasten to exploit the unusual temerity of the remarks for propaganda purposes.
Well, we can't conceal the truth forever. In the final analysis, these manifestly criminal regimes have decidedly more harm than Israel. Yes, Israel is a racist and criminal enemy, no doubt about this. However, the ignorant and evil regimes which in the name of Arabism and Palestine were effectively repressing, murdering and humiliating their own people were actually a greater and harsher enemy to the people in comparison to Israel.
An enemy is an enemy and one knows what to expect from one's enemy. However "national" regimes and governments are supposed to serve and protect the people, create prosperity and welfare as well as maintain citizens' dignity and human rights and civil liberties.
But far from doing their minimal duties in this regard, the regimes smashed human rights, decapitated civil liberties, and terrorized ordinary citizens in ways indescribable. Even the most nefarious enemy imagined wouldn't have caused that much dilapidation in society.
Therefore, the disintegration of the erstwhile Arab regimes is not and must not be viewed as a negative development for the Palestinian cause. The opposite is true. Yes, maybe the Palestinian cause is losing some media concentration these days as TV viewers are preoccupied with more dramatic events elsewhere. But this is a temporary phenomenon that will disappear soon.
The important thing is that Palestinians should never bid on police-state juntas, even if their rhetoric filled the ether, to liberate Palestine and defeat Israel. These are intrinsically terrorist and bankrupt regimes that nothing good may come from. In the Holy Quran, it is stated that (إن الله لا يصلح عمل المفسدين) meaning "Allah will not make the deeds of evil people prosper."
Interestingly, some of these evil people are now murdering Palestinians, while having the Chutzpah to claim that they are doing the killing for the sake of Palestine!!!
In the early sixties, Ibrahim Machos, one of the leaders of the Baath party in Syria wrote "that Allah, religion, and morality are mummies in the museum of history." We saw how his words manifested themselves on the 5th of June, 1967.
Today, we are witnessing the deepening of the Arab Spring. And, yes, the pangs of labor could be heard from many quarters. But that is quite natural as no one in his or her right mind had expected the stagnation and degeneration that hovered over the Arab world since before the downfall of the Ottoman state to disappear in a few months or even a few years.
But the train of freedom has already left the station and is traveling on the right track and will reach the correct destination sooner or later.
We will hear and actually we are hearing all kinds of rumors, disinformation, and lies intended to confuse us and derail the train of freedom. After all, the enemies from inside and outside will not just give up and raise the white flag so prematurely. We will be called names, we will be condemned and vilified. We will even be lumped with the Zionists, the Americans, and what have you, so that our image would be tarnished and besmirched.
But we shouldn't pay too much attention to these barking dogs and the caravan must keep going.
One of the most crippling handicaps that caused the Palestinian cause an irreparable damage was that the very people who were supposed to lend the Palestinians a helping hand against Israeli criminality needed help themselves to deliver them from the clutches of their terrorist regimes.
Hence, the Palestinian cause was betrayed twice, first, knowingly by the tyrannical regimes, and second unknowingly by the thoroughly tormented and repressed masses for which Palestine became the 100th item on their agenda, thanks to unrelenting repression and persecution meted out to them by the regimes.
Hence we shouldn't be dithering about the looming demise of some Arab regimes which excelled in making loud but mendacious voices about Palestine, Zionism and imperialism while in truth they were harboring dubious if not criminal agendas against the entire Umma.
In the final analysis, only free people can liberate Palestine from the claws of Zionism. Dictators, who are so repressive of their own people, will not help the Palestinians in any strategic manner. The opposite is true.
Charity, after all, begins at home and if a certain regime behaves criminally towards its own citizens, it shouldn't be expected to behave charitably towards others.
I have no doubt that the Palestinian cause is on the right historical track. The emancipation of Arabs and Muslims from the forces of dictatorship, tyranny and fascism is the first and indispensable step toward the creation of a genuine Arab Islamist force that would champion the ultimate task of liberating Palestine and defeating Zionism.
This is not going to be an easy task. But at the very least, for the first time in recent history, the Umma is putting its feet on the right track.
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