Mahathir Mohammad, the ex prime minister of Malaysia, has recently slammed the Arab and Muslim world for being "culpable over the genocide" of the Palestinians, and I have to agree with him - it sounds like the truth to me too.
The Arab and the Muslim world only managed to organize a meeting on November 11, more than month after the October 7 incursion had occurred and only after Gaza had been flattened and thousands of Palestinians have died.
Not only were they exceedingly late in organizing a meeting, their meeting also resulted in nothing.
A couple of days ago, to make it worse, the Ayatollah of Iran also came out to declare that Iran is not going to join Hamas to fend Gaza from the Israelis, despite indicating otherwise to the Palestinians until then. The reason the Ayatollah gave is that since Hamas never gave them notice of their intention to launch the October 7 incursion, it cannot now expect the Iranians to back the Palestinians in fending off the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
How convenient for the Iranians. For decades they spoke brave words and motivated the Palestinians to confront the Israelis, but when it is time to own up to their words, all they could come up with is clever words, to provide an alibi for their failure to keep their promise.
There are nearly 2 billion Muslims in the world. If each just donated 100 dollars, they could collect 200 billion in no time, which is more than sufficient to raise a standing army.
If they raised 200 billion, they wouldn’t even have to raise a standing army. The Israelis themselves would have realised the commitment of the Muslim world to defend Gaza, agreed to a truce and returned to the negotiation table.
The Muslim world, it seems, doesn't wish to do anything more than give lip service to the Palestinian cause.
Sure, the Muslims will organize demonstrations, boycott McDonalds and make emotional YouTube videos to support the Palestinians, but when it comes to money, blood, sweat and tears, suddenly everybody is looking at everybody else to do something.
The Muslim world is literally treating the Palestinians like cannon fodder.
You shame them if they sue for peace with the Israelis, but if they fight, you leave them high and dry.
I think it is time that the Muslim world wakes up and smells the coffee.
If you want to do something, do something. If not, just tell the Palestinians the truth. Tell them that you are not going to come for them. Tell them that they are on their own, and that you understand why they have to do what they have to do to do right by them.
If you can’t help them, at least stop cheering them to the slaughterhouse.
You owe them that, because it is not they who failed you, but you who failed them.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, MalaysiaNow, Malaysia-Today and Focus Malaysia.
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