Jerusalem — the echoing silence

As the dust settles on the declaration by President Trump that his government was to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel — remarkably little has happened. Disaffected youth in Arab states continue to hurl rocks and inhale tear gas to no discernible effect whatsoever, the call for a new Intifada has been at best received with lukewarm apathy, few if any Arab states have called in American ambassadors for a dressing down (why would they, America earns a lot of money fulfilling their arms contracts) and the OIC summit in Istanbul on 13^th December is going to do nothing beyond displaying its 57 toothless gums.

The rage that was felt and expressed by some young people is fuelled by the inability of Arab governments to do anything to reverse the Israeli occupation of territory, including Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Almost equal to this is the frustration at their governments to deliver on promises of a better life for all after the 2011 Arab Spring which has failed, with the exception of Tunisia, to turn into a summer filled with peace, goods, services and opportunity.

Instead those same governments maintain a wary status quo, ever mindful of their dependence on the Pax Americana and fearful of being marginalised or even overtaken by their expanding youth bulge. Those same governments looking to their longevity but not their legacy are willing to cooperate with Israel because business is business. Those same governments have failed to raise any sort of diplomatic moves — the OIC moot notwithstanding — and a re-iteration of their shared victimhood. Nor are they about to suddenly grow a spine, simply because it is not in the interest of regimes whose policies long ago failed and in today’s world are bereft of the vision that would take them forward. The Palestinians never developed an effective diplomatic arm, Israel chips away at their lands by building more illegal settlements, and on the sidelines wringing their hands in anodyne sympathy, the Arab states that in reality were never going to come to their rescue.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2017.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.