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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/from-palestine-to-iran-what-arab-and-muslim-silence-really-reveals/">palestinechronicle.com</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">From Palestine to Iran: What Arab and Muslim Silence Really Reveals</h1>March 24, 2026</div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/normalization_art_gaza_whitehouse.png" alt="" title="normalization_art_gaza_whitehouse" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="495" height="332" style="margin-right: 25px;">
Artistic interpretation of Arab normalization with Israel amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud" title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud">Ramzy Baroud</a></strong> </p>
<blockquote>
<h3><span>Why Arab regimes failed Palestine\u2014and why asking the question
obscures deeper structures of power, complicity, and regional political
alignment.</span></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><span>I have always found it interesting, and at times revealing,
when seasoned activists and intellectuals in the West, including those
who see themselves as deeply committed to Palestine, raise the same
familiar point: Arab governments must stand up to Israel and the United
States in solidarity with their brethren in Palestine.</span></p>
<p><span>The argument often comes wrapped in a perplexed question: why are Arabs and Muslims not doing anything for Palestine?</span></p>
<p><span>What makes this particularly puzzling is that the question is
often posed by respected analysts and historians\u2014people who should
recognize that the issue is far less sentimental than structural.</span></p>
<p><span>At first glance, the question may not seem bizarre.
Palestinians are tied to their neighbors through history, geography,
demography, religion, language, collective memory, and a shared
experience of Western domination and Israeli colonial violence. </span></p>
<p><span>Additionally, Israeli leaders speak openly in expansionist
terms, and they act accordingly, whether in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria,
or elsewhere. The people on the receiving end of this violence are often
the same native communities of the region: Arabs, Muslims, and
Christians alike.</span></p>
<p><span>Indeed, Arab and Muslim institutions themselves constantly
invoke Palestine as a central cause. Arab summits still describe
Palestine as a core issue, and public opinion across the region remains
overwhelmingly aligned on that point. </span></p>
<p><span>For example, the 2024-25 Arab Opinion Index </span><a href="https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/Lists/ACRPS-PDFDocumentLibrary/arab-index-2025-in-brief-en.pdf"><span>found</span></a><span>
that 80% of respondents across 15 Arab countries agreed that \u201cthe
Palestinian cause is a collective Arab cause\u201d, not solely Palestinian.
The same survey found that 44% viewed Israel as the greatest threat to
Arab security and 21% named the United States, far ahead of Iran at 6%.</span></p>
<p><span>So yes, the question of Arab and Muslim solidarity does not
emerge from nowhere. On the level of popular feeling, it is entirely
rational. It reflects a moral and political intuition that Palestine
should be a point of unity.</span></p>
<p><span>But here is what that argument misses. Sentimental expectations
aside, many Arab governments are not neutral actors waiting to be
persuaded into solidarity. They are already positioned, structurally and
strategically, within the US-led regional order. Some are client
regimes in the classical sense. Others are so dependent on American
protection, validation, or military partnership that calling them
\u201cpartners\u201d barely conceals the hierarchy embedded in the relationship. </span></p>
<p><span>The problem, then, is not hesitation. It is alignment.</span></p>
<p><span>The Gaza </span><a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds"><span>genocide</span></a><span>
offered a devastating example of this reality. While Palestinians were
being starved and bombed, official Arab responses remained fragmented,
cautious, and largely subordinate to Washington\u2019s strategic priorities.</span></p>
<p><span>Some governments hardened their rhetoric later, but the early
reactions were deeply revealing. Bahrain, for example, publicly
condemned Palestinian </span><a href="https://www.cage.ngo/articles/october-7th---a-century-of-resistance-to-genocide"><span>resistance</span></a><span>
for October 7, rather than, at least, taking a position even remotely
proportionate to the scale of Israeli violence and genocide. Egypt,
meanwhile, allowed the narrative to circulate that it had warned Israel
beforehand of \u201csomething big,\u201d a framing that shifted attention toward
Palestinian action rather than Israeli impunity.</span></p>
<p><span>Even more revealing was the economic dimension. As Ansarallah\u2019s Red Sea operations </span><a href="https://www.cfr.org/articles/siege-red-sea"><span>disrupted</span></a><span>
maritime access to Israel in declared solidarity with Gaza, a land
corridor developed to move cargo by truck from ports in the Gulf all the
way to Jordan and finally to Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>Whatever diplomatic language Arab governments employed in
public, trade and logistics were being quietly adapted in ways that
helped Israel absorb the pressure and maintain continuity.</span></p>
<p><span>This was not an anomaly. It was continuity.</span></p>
<p><span>For decades, major Arab regimes have been deeply implicated in sustaining American military power in the region. US </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-facilities-middle-east-2026-02-28/"><span>installations</span></a><span>
in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and elsewhere have long served as
the infrastructure through which Washington projects force across the
Middle East. These bases are now the lifelines for the US-Israeli war on
Iran. </span></p>
<p><span>This is why the constant demand that Arab regimes \u201cdevelop\u201d a
stronger position on Palestine is ultimately misleading. Their position
has already been developed. In many cases, it has taken the form of
normalization, security coordination, military hosting, logistical
facilitation, and political adaptation to US priorities. The action has
already been taken. It is simply not taken in favor of Palestine.</span></p>
<p><span>And yet, despite this reality, the question continues to resurface. Why does it persist?</span></p>
<p><span>Part of the answer lies in the enduring belief that Arab and
Muslim solidarity with Palestine is both historically logical and
politically defensible. </span></p>
<p><span>Another lies in the fact that Israel\u2019s ambitions do not stop at
Palestine. Israeli leaders and institutions repeatedly articulate
visions that implicate the entire region, whether through permanent
military superiority, fragmentation of neighboring states, or the
normalization of endless war. </span></p>
<p><span>These realities make the question emotionally and strategically
compelling\u2014even if it is ultimately misplaced when directed at regimes
rather than peoples.</span></p>
<p><span>There is also a deeper reason: the historic failure of the
West. Western governments are structurally biased toward Israel, and
many intellectuals, activists, and ordinary people have
concluded\u2014reasonably enough\u2014that if justice will not come from
Washington, London, Berlin, or Paris, then surely it must come from the
Arab and Muslim worlds. The instinct is understandable. But it confuses
publics with regimes.</span></p>
<p><span>That misplaced expectation makes the current war on Iran all the more consequential.</span></p>
<p><span>The war on Iran may indeed become a wake-up call. As the joint US-Israeli </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-iran-attack-02-28-26-hnk-intl"><span>assault</span></a><span>
on Tehran is faltering, new realizations may be emerging in Arab
capitals that neither Washington nor Israel can ultimately guarantee
regime survival or regional stability. </span></p>
<p><span>At the level of ordinary people, the war has also generated a
familiar sense of pride in resistance, not unlike what many felt during
the steadfastness of Gaza and Lebanon. That may yet produce new
conversations, perhaps even a new collective political imagination.</span></p>
<p><span>Until then, we would do better to understand Arab regimes
according to their actual priorities, not our expectations. They are not
\u201cbetraying\u201d Palestine in the emotional sense, because Palestinian
freedom, the defeat of Zionism, and the dismantling of imperial
domination were never central to their governing agenda in the first
place.</span></p>
<p><span>To the contrary, their overriding priority is the preservation
of the regional status quo, whatever the human cost. And if maintaining
that order requires the slow destruction of Palestine, many of them have
already demonstrated that they are willing to pay that price.</span></p>
<div>
<p><br></p>
<p><span><i><span>\u2013 Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the
Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of eight books. His
latest book, \u2018</span></i><a href="https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4779-before-the-flood?srsltid=AfmBOorgPOepR8fLBeCXLViw_awRDNTNNerbwDJ4V2X5Jza-ajlZ6_bm"><i><span>Before the Flood</span></i></a><i><span>,\u2019
was published by Seven Stories Press. His other books include \u2018Our
Vision for Liberation\u2019, \u2018My Father was a Freedom Fighter\u2019 and \u2018The Last
Earth\u2019. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center
for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is </span></i><a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/"><i><span>www.ramzybaroud.net</span></i></a></span></p></div>
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