Do Arabs Care About Palestine?

Egyptians protesting against Israeli embassy in Cairo.

2011 has been no ordinary year for the Mideast region. Since Tunisia's revolution, a nation outside of the Middle East and Arab world's centers of power, the region has been witnessing unceasing revolts, revolutions and counter-revolutions. Who would have imagined that the fortuitous act of a simple Tunisian street vendor would ignite the whole region in both hopeful and despairing manners?

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Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria and Morocco - and Palestine. Zionists in Israel and in America never tire of oft-repeating the lie that the Arabs do not care about Palestinians and their suffering and that instead Palestine is propped up as a distraction by authoritarian Arab leaders. And they wasted no time since the revolutions started to claim once again that the revolutions "prove" their theory that Arabs are really concerned about domestic issues and that Palestine is irrelevant. If this was such a self-evident truth, one questions why Zionists feel the need to promulgate it endlessly. It is because it isn't that Zionists want to convince Americans that they do not, in fact, pay a heavy price for their one-sided support of Israel and its occupation and therefore seek to undermine any debate about the merits of balancing American support for Israel with concern for the Palestinians. An insidious lie.

And greatly impertinent to claim to speak on behalf of the Arab people about what that people cares or does not about. The simple matter is that Arabs loath both their leaders and want domestic change and also care deeply about the Palestinians. It is no either-or. Just like American Zionists lobby on behalf of Israel, but are also concerned about American domestic politics.

And Arab leaders have not been using Palestine as a distraction, on the contrary Arab regimes have covertly been reaching out to Israel on a whole host of issues (see Wikileaks in that regard) and Arab leaders [sic] have always sought to avoid the matter of Palestine for it only did harm to their reputations by underlining their cowardly stance vis-a-vis Israel and its American patron.

The Arab revolutions are not a vindication of the alleged Arab indifference and crocodile tears toward the Palestinians, but will only further make Palestine salient in Arab politic life as democratic regimes will have to exhibit popular opinion on Palestine. Just witness the way pro-Palestinian sentiment in Turkey moved Turkey away from its previously close relationship with Israel. Egypt's democratization will be an even more strong rebuke of Zionism.

So Palestine does matter, it does count. Egyptians are in majority-support for annulling the so-called "peace treaty" with Israel and are protesting against the presence of the Israeli embassy. It is not that the Arab revolution will make Palestine an irrelevance it will instead elevate it commensurate with the wishes of the Arab people.

So Zionists be afraid, your lies make work in America but will not aid you in the Mideast.