"Despite the intentional media exaggeration of the continuing popular protests, the Arab and Islamic street has disappointed once again," wrote Sateh Noureddine, a regular columnist for Lebanon's independent leftist newspaper As Safir. "The Arab and Islamic protests are touching but they are still too weak to compare to the ongoing event, which is the war of annihilation being waged against the Gaza Strip."
The justifications for what he called the "weakness" of these protests are unconvincing, he said, whether they concern official oppression, or whether they use the argument that such gestures are futile. "Some of the protests were large, such as the ones organized in Turkey, Indonesia, Morocco, and the Palestinian lands of 1948," Noureddine wrote. In other capitals, protests were organised by the security forces themselves. "The protests will continue throughout the world without cease until the Israeli war machine relents in Gaza," he concluded. "But these protests will not help hasten the end of this massacre unless the Israelis themselves go out into the streets in protest."
The Palestinian-owned newspaper Al Quds al Arabi ran an article by the chief editor Abd al Bari Atwan saying the Gaza war was an important moral test for the "civilised West", which it failed.
"The United Nations was used in a disgraceful way to ignite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the killing of millions but it failed, or was prevented from issuing any binding resolutions to stop this aggression. We have not seen any official Arab move to rectify this contemptible imbalance, even by threatening to boycott its sessions, to say nothing about threatening to withdraw from it to protest against its siding with the killings and aggression," he wrote in the UK-based paper.
This is the first war in modern history that is being waged against a people imprisoned and deprived of any humanitarian supplies, Atwan wrote. With the ground offensive, Israel has run out of options, bar the use of nuclear weapons. "Israel has become embroiled with the fiercest peoples of the world and it will most definitely pay a heavy price for falling into these people's trap. Gaza will change history, expose all the lies of western human rights and justice, and create a new world."
"Gaza is not Hamas and the Strip should not be regarded as a property of Hamas, nor should its people be regarded as part of its soldiers and receive the same punishment as the movement," Abd al Rahman al Rashid wrote in a commentary for the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al Awsat. "What happened over the past months was a big mistake in confusing the movement with the people and boycotting Hamas and Gaza together. What is the meaning of blocking food and medicine shipments, and even accessories and recreational items that have no military value? What is the meaning in closing a crossing because of administrative and political differences?"
The major Arab parties must reject the collective boycott, which is forbidden under international law because it hurts civilians more than those involved in the war, he wrote in the UK-based paper. "It is imperative for the Arab sides to understand the nature of the problem and seek to spare the people harm. The solution is first in the necessity of opening the crossings unconditionally, and in a permanent way, for the passage of foodstuffs and medications.
Fawziyah Salem al Sabah, a regular columnist for Kuwait's independent newspaper Al Rai al Aam, wrote that she was saddened by the sight of the protests in Arab countries which have relations with Israel. Protesters pulled down the gate of a university rather than heading to the Israeli embassy, fearing being shot. "Other countries have secret relations with that entity. So what do we have left to be proud off? Can we take pride in our silence, inaction, or complicity?"
It is "mind-blowing", she said, how seven million Zionists can rampage and spread death and destruction in the midst of hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims. without fear of either the Arabs or the international community. "Where did our chivalry, honour, dignity, pride, and Arab identity all go? My attention was caught by a Qatari citizen who uttered a painful confession to the Al Jazeera network: 'Our fathers told us that they didn't know of the occupation of Palestine in 1948 until it was too late, but what can we tell our children?' Yes, we are millions, but this is the time of defeat."
* Compiled by Mideastdigest.com