The writer is author of ‘Black Wave’, distinguished fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics and an FT contributing editor
News about the Middle East is dominated by all things Palestinian and Israeli these days. From Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial US Congress address to the International Court of Justice determining that Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories is a violation of international law, this is almost the sole topic discussed (with an occasional smattering of interest in a potential Saudi-US defence pact).
It is only right that the devastating nine-month war in Gaza, following the harrowing Hamas attack of October 7, should command so much attention. But it is also a useful smokescreen for authoritarian leaders across the Middle East who are using this time to further erode freedoms in the Arab world.
In May, Kuwait’s ruler dissolved the country’s rowdy, opposition-dominated parliament, a rare bird in the Middle East, for up to four years. It made few headlines. That same month, Tunisian police assaulted and arrested lawyers and raided the bar association offices, part of an ongoing crackdown on dissent. There was little international attention. In July, the UAE held a mass trial for around 80 political dissidents and activists, handing down 43 life sentences for alleged terror offences. Most of the details were kept secret.
Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Almuzaini, a popular animation film maker with a five-year contract with Netflix, revealed he had been sentenced to 13 years in jail, though he remains free at home. One of his animations appeared to have been misunderstood as supportive of the Islamic State and he was charged for supporting extremist ideology. Just this week, Egypt arrested cartoonist Ashraf Omar who had criticised endemic power cuts. He was blindfolded and taken from his home at dawn.
The list goes on. I haven’t even mentioned Syria and Sudan. You could argue this is just another day in the Middle East. Or that domestic politics and repression across the region have nothing to do with Gaza and the Palestinian cause. And yet, they have everything to do with it.
For decades, Arab regimes crushed dissent, froze reforms, indoctrinated children and bloated their defence budgets at the expense of social progress, all in the name of Palestine. The popular Arabic adage for closing ranks in times of war roughly translates to: no sound should rise above that of the battle — the battle being the one against Israel. First popularised by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, this slogan was used to silence criticism after his defeat in the 1967 six-day war.
Decades later, the Arab uprisings of 2011 went against this stranglehold. Millions took to the streets demanding freedom, justice and better living standards. This was not a repudiation of the importance of the Palestinian cause in the heart of Arabs. But people were starting to realise that focusing on it at the expense of everything else was holding the region back.
The counter-revolution quashed protesters’ hopes from Egypt to Syria. Now, the war in Gaza has transferred attention back to Palestine, a festering wound, and a deeply emotive issue, that speaks to people from Cairo to New York to Kuala Lumpur — and one that still puts Arab governments at odds with their citizens.
Public expressions of support for Gaza have been silenced in Gulf countries as rulers navigate between regime stability and their ties with Israel. Jordan has struggled to contain angry pro-Palestinian protests that threaten to become anti-government. Egypt’s president briefly allowed pro-Gaza protests only to find some crowds were chanting: “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice.” The crackdown on Palestinian solidarity has spread to Israel itself, where the government has targeted both Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The conflict is now also used in one of the worst cases of “whataboutism” I can think of. Some argue it is unacceptable to discuss Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s ongoing war against his people because of his traditional anti-Israel stance: “Have you seen what Israel is doing?” Others argue the reverse: “Israel is killing Palestinians? What about the hundreds of thousands that Bashar has killed?”
Systemic problems in the Middle East will not be magically resolved if and when a Palestinian state comes into being. But equally, there will be no sustained progress in the wider region without addressing the longest occupation in modern times. Injustice and impunity feed on each other in an endless loop from Damascus to Gaza, from Beirut to Ramallah.