"Palestinian Nakba" Arabic, Islamic positions towards the issue -3

GAZA / MUSTAFA AL-DAHDOH

In this Dossier, the Arabic positions on the Palestinian issue launching from Egyptian relations before and after Gamal Abdel Nasser arriving to Hafez Assad's exploitation of the Palestinian cause, and finally the expulsion of the Palestinian factions from Jordan and the massacres committed against the Palestinians in Lebanon.

Abdel Nasser, the lack of interest in the independence of Palestine

Egypt’s position of the Palestinian cause differed with different leaders, some of whom betrayed the Palestinians, some of whom dreamed of annexing their land to Egypt and others preferred peace with Israel. In the 1948 war that broke out in Palestine between the Arabic forces represented by the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon Saudi Arabia, and Israeli forces represented by the Palmach, Irgun, Haganah, the Stern Gang, and Jewish volunteers abroad during the British Mandate over Palestine, the Palestinians were betrayed by King Farouk, who ruled Egypt between 1936 and 1952

One of the Palestinian soldiers involved with the Egyptian army in the war said that the Iraqi and Egyptian forces dominated in the battel field at the beginning of the war but were betrayed by King Farouk, who sent them weapons that detonated at their hands, which turned the table upside down and left the Arabic armies lose in the war.

As for the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was characterized by racism and took over the leadership of Egypt in 1956, he saw Palestine as a part of him and wanted to dominate it and include it to his rule, so he began to establish the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) and wanted to submit to his rule, but the organization remained independent and not subject to anyone, and during this period, the Palestinians' position was stronger than before due to the support they received from Nasser. After the 1967 war, Gamal Abdul Nasser agreed to UN Security Council Resolution 242, and the majority interpreted the decision to withdraw his interest in Palestinian independence.

In 1970-1981 Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat came to the power, Egyptian policies toward Palestine changed. In 1973 war, the Egyptian army entered the Palestinian territories. The Palestinian colonizers said that Sadat could have returned the Palestinian territories that were dominated by Israel, preferring to negotiate with Israel and end the war in exchange for Sinai's return to Egyptian sovereignty in the Camp David accords.

Hosni Mubarak's policy did not differ from Sadat's. Mubarak, who took power between 1981 and 2011, continued to implement the provisions of the Camp David Accords and to establish relations and understandings between Egypt and Israel, but at the same time, he was a supporter of the Palestinian cause, albeit only through speeches.

During the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood (Mohamed Morsi 2012-2013), the Egyptian politicians did not change, but maintained their relations with Israel with a pro-Palestinian media discourse and supporting to Palestinian issue.

Now, during rule of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who took power in 2014, al-Sisi adopted Mubarak's policy and recently intervened to achieve reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas in order to maintain stability on the Egyptian-Palestinian border.

Syria and Assad's desire to control the Palestinian resistance

During the reign of Nour al-Din al-Atassi of Syria, 1966-1970, which coincided with the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser to Egypt, al-Atassi was supportive of the Palestinian cause because the peoples of the Levant were very close to each other and consider themselves one people, but with the Baathist coup on the government, began a new phase of dealing with the Palestinians. In the 1967 war, when Hafez al-Assad was Syria's defense minister, Syria negotiated Israel to regain the Golan Heights and never negotiated for the Palestinians. Hafez al-Assad told (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat that he was an obstacle to be inevitably removed.

After Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria through a military coup against his colleagues in the Arabic Baathist Socialist Party from 1971 until his death in 2000, he showed himself the protector of the Palestinian cause, he; however, exploited the Palestinian resistance to achieve his goals in the area.

In the beginning, Assad received refugees from Palestine and granted them second-class facilities and citizenship. He opened the doors of jobs in the Syrian state institutions and facilitated their study in Syrian universities. The aim of these facilities was to win the Palestinians by his side. However, he soon tried to cause a rift in the Fatah movement

In late 1972, the Syrian regime orchestrated an assassination attempt on Yasser Arafat by instigating Hussein al-Hibbi, who had close ties to the Syrian intelligence services, but the attempt failed and Arafat survived and killed his companion.

Many members of the Palestinian resistance who were existing in camps in the Lebanese territories asserted that Hafez al-Assad was in control of the arms supplied to the resistance. Most of the weapons allowed to reach the resistance were light, so when Israel attacked the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon in 1982, it could not defend itself so Yasser Arafat with about 11 thousand elements were besieged west of Beirut.

Although Hafez al-Asad said he was the defender of the Palestinian issue, he did not interfere in preventing the attacks. The Syrian army, which existed in Lebanon, did not intervene in stopping the Israeli attacks. The Israeli army bombed several air- Sam was installed by the Syrian army in Lebanon, and when Hafez al-Assad entered the war, he did not enter it with all his arms and power, contrarily; he wanted to destroy the (PLO).

In 1983, the Syrian regime wanted to eliminate Fatah, so it incited many Fatah leaders to break away from the movement. The dissidents, led by Colonel Said al-Maraghi Abu Mousa, called the organization Fatah al-Intifada, this was met with the expulsion of the Syrian regime to Yasser Arafat from Syria, and the Syrian regime's plan failed.

Hafez al-Assad used the word of resistance to show himself as a protector of the Arabs and the Arabic cause, as well as to impose his authority on the Syrian people on the one hand and his deception of confronting Israel and the need to unite with the external enemy.

After Bashar al-Asad assumed power in Syria in 2000, the Syrian regime's policy remained steadfast in the face of the Palestinian cause, which consisted of deceitful speeches and brilliant slogans aimed at deceiving the Palestinian people in order to win it alongside the regime.

Jordan; seeking to annex the Palestinian territories and expel the resistance

According to many observers, Jordan has always viewed Palestine as its territory and has the right to control it. This is what has emerged since the British Mandate period for the region, when the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan contracted with Britain and sold Palestine to the Israelis in return for the Kingdom to gain control of the West Bank. On the West Bank with the 1948 war and remained in control until 1967.

participants in the 1948 war confirmed that King Abdullah I knew that the Arab armies did not have the weapons to supply the Jordanian army in al- Lad and al-Ramle, but he asked them to stay, so that they could withdraw without fighting.

After the 1967 war, the Jordanian capital Amman became the headquarters of the Palestinian resistance under the rule of King Hussein bin Talal bin Abdullah, but the latter resorted to America, Sudan and Pakistan to get rid of the Palestinians, where the armies of these countries went to Jordan in 1970 and in September 1971 and began on directing the first strikes to the Palestinian resistance, where the locations of the Palestinian factions were besieged in Amman and had been hit.

In the end, Palestinian factions were forced to leave Amman and head to Lebanon in 1971 after the so-called Harash battle, king Abdullah II's policy did not differ from his father's and his grandfather's of dealing with the Palestinians, that Jordan has close ties with Israel.

Lebanon and massacres against Palestinian refugees

After the Palestinian factions had gone from Jordan to Lebanon in 1971, the factions benefited greatly from the Lebanese geography to build the camps, strengthen their ranks and train their members, consequently, the number of faction members is estimated at thousands and even more organized than the Lebanese army, this is the reason of fear of Israelis and some Lebanese who planned to commit a massacre In Sabra and Shatila camps.

In September 1982, Lebanese groups represented by the Lebanese al-Kata’ib Party, the South Lebanese Army led by Ilie Hobeika and the Israeli forces launched an attack on Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, they had committed a massacre that claimed the lives of some 3,500 unarmed people, the Lebanese army remained silent about the massacre.

After that, one of the founders of the Progressive Socialist Party, Kamal Junblatt, met with the Palestinian leadership headed by Yasser Arafat and George Habash in southern Lebanon and demanded them to leave Lebanon, then the Philip Habib agreement came in 1982 as a result of Junblatt's meeting with Arafat and Habash, which provided for the withdrawal of the Palestinian factions from Beirut provided that the preservation of non-collapse.

Arabic Gulf and the Palestinian cause

Before the 1948 war, there was no Gulf position on the Palestinian issue, but at that time, there was the beginning of oil discovery in the Gulf during the reign of King Saud bin Abdul Aziz, so Saudi Arabia used the Palestinian people as a source of labor to rotate the wheel of the Saudi economy.

For the first time, the role of the Gulf was in 1973 war, when Saudi Arabia used oil as a weapon in resolving the battle in the era of King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, and from that time the Saudi role in the area emerged in general, since then, Saudi support has been confined for financial support for the Palestinians.

Saudi Arabia tried to play a role in Palestinian affairs through Arabic initiative, approved in 2002 by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, the initiative was adopted at Beirut summit, but over time, the Arabic initiative is no longer being raised due to the normalization of relations with Israel.

Qatar was one of the first Gulf countries to start relations with Israel after the Madrid Conference in 1991, followed by the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to Qatar in 1996, and the opening of the Israeli Trade Office in Doha and the conclusion of several economic agreements aimed at selling Qatari gas Israel, that step was followed by the establishment of the Qatari gas exchange in Tel Aviv.

Qatar also published the map of Palestine State with its new borders, which were drawn up by the international agreements imposed on the Palestinian people during the Arab Games in 2011. Qatar also supported Hamas with money, which is why the Palestinian cause is weakened due to the continued fragmentation and division of the Palestinian movement.

At present, various Arab and Islamic countries are trying to exploit the Palestinian cause to achieve the personal ends and interests of their country, while the Palestinians remain alone in the field.

(T/S, H/S)

ANHA