Iqbal Suleman
Donald Trump had boasted that he would net one trillion dollars prior to his first foreign trip to the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Arabs quadrupled it and America netted $4 trillion.
While Trump and the Arabian ruling classes were schmoozing and smiling for the cameras, Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of barbarians from the Israeli occupation forces were ratcheting up the slaughter.
Over the last three days, zionist Israel has bombed and burned Palestinians in their tents, blowing up hospitals and killing 100-150 Palestinians a day.
Babies are being starved to death.
Elderly grandparents are fainting from hunger.
Skeletal bodies with empty pots haunt viewers on the TV screens across the globe.
Trump did not mention Israel during his speeches in the Gulf.
The Arabian rulers did not condemn Israel and its ongoing genocide and the systemic starvation of the people of Gaza.
The US regime is the principal financier of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The Arabian regimes are financing the US economy and, therefore, the genocide in Gaza.
Yet some naïve individuals even among Palestinian solidarity supporters are expressing shock and dismay at the Arabian rulers’ funnelling of trillions of dollars to America.
In his book, War, American investigative journalist Bob Woodward provides insights into the real position of Arab rulers in relation to Gaza and Israel.
He gives details of the discussions after October 7, 2023 between US Secretary of state Anthony Blinken and the Arab rulers.
On October 13, King Abdullah of Jordan met with Blinken and said:
“We told Israel not to trust Hamas. Hamas is the Muslim brotherhood. Israel must defeat Hamas. We will not say this publicly but we support the defeat of Hamas.”
Abdullah was plunging the knife into the back of the Palestinian people while his wife Queen Rania was serenading the Arab public with expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians.
The cunning king, like all clyptocratic monarchs, knows how to cadence his tongue with public expressions of solidarity with Gaza but privately tied to the hip of Benjamin Milaikowsky.
Abdullah’s words are clear when he says that he will not publicly express his heartfelt desire to see the Palestinian Resistance defeated by Israel.
He knows that his subjects and all Arab people are in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance.
To keep his throne he, like all other Arabian rulers, must speak with a forked tongue: publicly proclaim support for Gaza but in action, thrust a knife into the backs of the Palestinian people.
It is a delicate dance and a monarch wiggling his behind to prevent a revolt at home and simultaneously please his masters in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Woodward records that on the October 14, 2023, the UAE ruler Muhamad Bin Zayed told Blinken: “Hamas must be eliminated. We have repeatedly told Israel that Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. We can give Israel time to eliminate Hamas but first it must help us calm our citizens from the images of violence and destruction in Gaza by bringing in aid and establishing safe zones. Let it help us with our citizens and we will give it space to eliminate Hamas.”
Woodward goes on to reveal that on October 14, 2023, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told Blinken, “Israel should not have trusted Hamas and Netanyahu warned us against that repeatedly because Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Woodward explains the words exchanged between Blinken and the Egyptian regime. Abdul Fatah Al Sisi told Blinken “I only want to maintain peace with Israel”.
Meanwhile the Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel provided intelligence to Blinken about the Palestinian Resistance, the extent and depths of the tunnels in Gaza and information to assist the Israeli army.
Kamel went on to tell Blinken, “Israel must not enter Gaza all at once but do so in stages. It must allow Hamas leaders to emerge from the tunnels before cutting off the heads all at once.”
Woodward’s revelations about the mind-set of the Arabian rulers are in sync with the reality when we look at the genocide in Gaza.
The Arab regimes have done absolutely nothing to stop the genocide.
If they wanted to, they could have but they chose not to.
They have leverage. They have the money, trillions of dollars.
They have armies. They have weapons. They have oil.
They have not even threatened to close the oil taps to bring an immediate end to the genocide and starvation in Gaza.
Trump’s Gulf trip has been spectacular theatre.
The mainstream media is spinning the narrative of a rift between Israel and America.
In reality, the differences between the two are only superficial, designed to deceive people.
There was hardly any mention in the mainstream media about Trump’s words on Lebanon and his animosity towards the Lebanese Resistance movement, Hizbullah.
Trump said: “Lebanon has an opportunity to free itself from Hizbullah’s influence. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun can build a state without Hizbullah.”
While signing contracts worth $4 trillion, Trump had the audacity to condemn the Palestinian Resistance movement but could not utter even even one critical word of Netanyahu and Israel.
Trump also met with Syria’s unelected president Ahmad al Sharaa, formerly Abu Muhamad al-Jolani, chief of ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Trump agreed to lift sanctions on Syria and reports indicate that Al Sharaa has agreed to normalise relations with Israel.
For his part, the head of head-choppers has been policing the borders on behalf of Israel to ensure no weapons from Iran reach the resistance movements fighting Israel.
Has Trump not cleverly been doing Bibi’s bidding during his Gulf trip?
He got $4 trillion in deals from the Arabian rulers and gave them nothing in return, not even a ceasefire, or a loaf of bread to Gaza.
Like the US, Israel is a settler colonial entity.
The American empire and Israeli interests converge.
Israel’s enemies are Hamas, Hizbullah, Ansarallah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
America has made Israel’s enemies its own.
The Arab street sees this.
Trump launched a brutal bombing campaign on behalf of Netanyahu against Ansarallah of Yemen because they disrupted Israeli shipping in order to stop the genocide.
Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Hassan Nasrallah lived frugally and slept on flimsy mattresses on hard floors.
They sacrificed their lives in resisting the Israeli genocide.
The Arabian rulers like Mohamad bin Salman, Mohamad bin Zayed, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Al Sharaa (al-Jolani), meanwhile, feast at the same table with Trump.
They retreat to the comfort of their palatial villas while children in Gaza starve and are burnt to death.
Like slaves, the Arabian rulers are enthralled to sit on the same table with the empire’s chief and they duly bow before him.
They are, in the revolutionary conceptualization of Malcolm X, the “house negroes”, forever trying to please the white master.
The Axis of Resistance comprises the “field negroes”.
They do not seek a place at the table with the white master but stand in defiance to resist imperialism and genocide.
The Arab street and streets across the Global South are in solidarity with the “field negroes”.
Iqbal Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria and Research Associate: Media Review Network
