Gaza Attacks: The US, Its Arab Allies, and Turkey

Israel continues its offensives in Gaza that it began on December 27. The death toll reached 770 at the end of thirteenth day, with civilians accounting for one quarter of the deaths. Although many Arab columnists had interpreted the election of Obama as a new era for the region and had high expectations for him, the last events caused pessimism, particularly on the basis of his long silence.

In spite of Hamas’ preference for the ground operation against Israel, the number of dead and injured people continues to increase. Apart from the violence in the offensive, another striking situation is the reactions of the other Arab countries and Turkey on the matter.

We are aware of the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance against that of Egypt-Saudi Arabia-Jordan in the region. Needless to say, the encouraging factor for the offensives is the US and the allies of the US and Israel.

Arab countries, not representing their people because of unfair elections, perceive Hamas and other religious-based organizations as a threat to their regimes. The reason for such a perception is the rising popularity of Islamic groups in these countries after the 1980s because of improvements in the international arena, weak secular opposition in these countries, and – whether they are legal or not – the Islamic opposition’s grassroots networks which provide a good ground for their popularity. After the operations thousands took the streets to protest Israel and unreactive governments. Although the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, said that they are not making ‘public relations’ they are fighting against terrorism, it is not wrong to say that these latest attacks contributed to rising of Hamas’ popularity – like other Islamic groups – in Cairo, San’a, Beirut, Damascus, Ankara, Istanbul, and many of other cities in the world.

Referring to the statements of Arab leaders, famous Egyptian columnist Fahmi Huwaidi argues that today Arab regimes are “playing the game openly”. [1] For example Hosni Mubarak and Mahmud Abbas explicitly condemned and called attention to Hamas’ responsibility for the attacks, saying they had already warned Hamas about what would happen in the future. Although there are many casualties, the moderate (mu’tedil) countries’ discourse is very soft and, after the ground operation, the leaders are criticizing Israel very carefully........http://www.turkishweekly.net/op-ed/2461/gaza-attacks-the-us-its-arab-allies-and-turkey.html