publish time

10/10/2015

publish time

10/10/2015

Ahmed Al-Jarallah – Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times Ahmed Al-Jarallah – Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

EVERY time the Arabs make a move towards peace, the extremist Israelis backtrack because they still believe they live in the world of 1948 and 1967 unaware that the time has changed.

Moreover, those who slept peacefully on Aug 21, 1969, when the ‘Arab nation was in deep slumber will not be able to do so’ because the Arabs have suffered a lot at the boastfulness of Israel.

Moreover, what is happening at the Al-Aqsa Mosque now will not only bring a new Palestinian uprising against Israel, but a huge Arab and Islamic response to this dastardly act.

The Arabs have sat patiently at the negotiations table for too long, in fact for years, as long as their sacred places in Palestine were not violated and there was a kind of ‘disturbed’ calm in the Palestinian territories.

However, when the Zionist official speech, the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is laced with extremism and instigations to violate the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the door for negotiations have automatically shut, and the policy of self-control lost its luster.

The Israeli leaders must realize this fact particularly when extremism overwhelms the Muslim and Arab worlds.

As the Arabs are fighting vulgar extremism which is hiding under the cloak of religion, they seek help from the international community and the Western world to control it because these same countries are fighting what they call Islamic terrorism.

Therefore, it becomes obligatory on these countries to put pressure — politically, economically and even militarily — on the government in Israel to stop its provocations against the Muslims and not give an opportunity for these terrorist groups to cause destruction in the name of religion.

This can be done by stopping all atrocious activities at the Al-Aqsa Mosque to prevent the terrorists and the mercenaries from portraying themselves as the ‘saviors’ and ‘liberators’ of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Palestine.

Today the Israeli military machine is confronting a nation (Palestine) in despair — the nation exhausted by hunger, siege, oppression and confiscation of land, destruction of homes and arbitrary arrests.

The Arab governments are unable to react because there is chaos all around, the region is engulfed by civil wars and the tsunami of refugees has hit the European shores since these countries are unable to barricade this flow in spite of being powerful and having every facility at their disposal.

So, what will happen if this flood moves in the direction of the Arab-Palestinian border? Will Israel kill millions of Arabs when they penetrate its borders?

It is said ‘multitude defeats courage’. After the June 1967 war, the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz said, ‘It is true we do not possess developed weapons, but we can defeat Israel with sticks if we move as one nation to rescue the Al-Aqsa Mosque from occupation.’

The Arabs may transform these famous words into a reality — Arabs about whom the former Israeli prime minister late Golda Meir had said in 1969 that ‘After burning the Al-Aqsa Mosque, I did not sleep the whole night. I was afraid the Arabs may enter Israel in groups from all directions. But, when the sun rose the following day, I realized we can do whatever we want because the Arabs are a sleeping nation.’

Today, the Israeli violence and terrorism has woken up the sleeping Arabs and Golda Meir may realize from her grave that this nation is now able to ‘wipe out’ Israel from the face of the earth because of the extremism of its leaders.

The uprising set afire by the Israeli provocations will be completely different from earlier resistance moves, use of weapons or even demands. The Palestinians will not be satisfied even if the demands are made to hold a new round of ‘Oslo’ talks or to provide a safe passage.

Will Netanyahu realize where his extremism drives him to?

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times