The Moral Rot of the Arab and Islamic World
These Countries Have Been Complicit in the Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza
Outside the mainstream media, there has been much commentary on the inaction of western governments regarding Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, many of whom are complicit, and in the case of the USA, not only complicit but a participant joined in the hip with Israel. So, when it comes to Israel, they are morally bankrupt and rank hypocrites by their complete disregard for international laws and conventions that they implore other countries, such as Russia, to follow. But there has been little comment on the role of the Arab and Islamic world—this is important because Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni Arabs. This article provides a small contribution to filling this lacuna.
On 11 November 2023, just over a month after the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel, Arab and Islamic countries held an extraordinary summit in Jeddah with the objective of discussing “the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people” (OIC, 2023). By then, it was clear that Israel was not just going after Hamas but systematically destroying Gaza and its citizens: the commencement of genocide. The lengthy resolution (which does not have paragraph numbers; Saudi Press Agency, 2023) that was adopted on 12 November stipulates:
We decide to: Condemn the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and the war crimes as well as the barbaric, inhumane and brutal massacres being committed by the colonial occupation government against the strip and the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, including East Al-Quds. We demand ceasing this aggression immediately.
It further states:
Inaction is considered a complicity that allows Israel to continue its brutal aggression that kills innocent people, children, the elderly, and women, and turns Gaza into ruin.
Call upon member states of the OIC and the Arab League to exert diplomatic, political, and legal pressures, and take any deterrent actions to halt the crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against humanity (emphasis added).
So, these two paragraphs point for the need for concrete actions to halt Israel’s “brutal aggression” and “crimes”. It further makes this commitment:
Activate the Arab and Islamic Financial Safety Net … to provide financial contributions and support — economic, financial, and humanitarian — to the government of the State of Palestine and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
It sets out this precondition: “The precondition for peace with Israel and the establishment of normal relations rests on ending its occupation of all Palestinian and Arab territories.”
So, what happened in the weeks and months after this summit? Pretty much nothing as no concrete actions were ever taken. Hence, no deterrence was provided and the slaughter and destruction continued. The countries which had normalised relations—Egypt, Jordan, and the signatories to the Abraham Accords (UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco)—did not rescind these. UNRWA was banned by Israel in early 2025 without a peep from the Arab and Islamic world.
The resolution makes this reference to Egypt: “Support all steps taken by the Arab Republic of Egypt to confront the consequences of the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza. We support its efforts to bring aid into the strip in an immediate, sustainable and adequate manner.”
This was a grotesque distortion of the truth as Egypt, the largest Arab country with a population of over 100 million, has been complicit in the blockade of the Gaza strip: it has allowed Israel to control its border with Gaza, so that little aid has been allowed through, contributing to starvation and disease. Moreover, like Jordan, it ruthlessly represses public anger at the genocide. Egypt’s priority has been to ensure that it continues to receive the almost $2 billion aid from the USA each year, so adheres to the Camp David Accords and, accordingly, refrains from challenging Israel.
Leaving aside the actions of the non-state actors Hezbollah and the Houthis, since the 2023 summit, true to form, the governments of Arab and Muslim countries continued to do nothing despite the mounting toll amounting to over 200,000 deaths and injuries, the vast majority civilians, and Gaza being reduced to an uninhabitable rubble. A glaring example of their moral rot came in September 2024 when, during a meeting with the then US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman confessed: “Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do …” (The Atlantic, 2024).
A further example is that of the UAE which had kept a deafening silence throughout Israel’s assault and never hinted at leaving the Abraham Accords, when suddenly, following Israel’s announcement of more Jewish settlements in the West Bank in August 2025, its foreign minister Lana Nusseibeh piped up by proclaiming “Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE” (BBC News, 2025). It beggars belief that the genocidal assault on Gaza and the killings and destruction in the West Bank did not cross a red line.
Wind the clock forward by 22 months, on 15 September 2025, the Arab and Islamic countries again held an extraordinary summit—this time in Doha, Qatar. The trigger for this summit was the bombing by Israel on 9 September of premises in Doha where Hamas representatives were deliberating upon a ceasefire deal. The Qataris naturally reacted with fury; housing the USA’s largest military base in the Middle East, they felt betrayed by the Americans, a supposed ally, for not preventing the attack. They now know that future Israeli attacks are possible and will, again, be greenlighted by the Americans.
There was some hope, even expectation, that this time, the summit would agree on concrete measures against Israel. The Final Communique makes many forceful points including:
1. Reaffirm that the brutal Israeli blatant aggression against the sisterly State of Qatar, and Israel's continued aggressive practices, including crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation and siege, as well as settlement activities and expansionist policies, undermine prospects for peace and peaceful coexistence in the region.
Paragraph 6 stipulates:
6. Support the efforts of States engaged in mediation, in particular the State of Qatar, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the United States of America, to end the aggression on the Gaza Strip, and, in this context, to reaffirm the constructive role played by Qatar and its valued mediation efforts with their positive impacts in support of endeavors to establish security, stability, and peace …
The truth is that the USA is militarily and diplomatically assisting Israel in its aggression on the Gaza Strip and Egypt has been complicit in the blockade—hence, notwithstanding Qatar’s mediation efforts, there is no “security, stability, and peace” in the Strip. Quite the opposite.
There is as usual much condemnation and appeals to international law. Paragraph 14, however, makes a general reference to “urgent action”:
14. Reaffirm the necessity of urgent action by the international community to halt Israel's repeated aggressions in the region and to stop its ongoing violations of the sovereignty, security, and stability of States …
This is naïve and self-delusional as the “international community” (a meaningless epithet) has never taken any action “to halt Israel's repeated aggressions in the region” especially in the past two years when Israel’s actions reached genocidal levels.
Finally, paragraph 15 does advocate concrete action:
15. Call upon all States to take all possible legal and effective measures to prevent Israel from continuing its actions against the Palestinian people, including by supporting efforts to end its impunity, holding it accountable for its violations and crimes, imposing sanctions on it, suspending the supply, transfer, or transit of weapons, ammunition, and military materials — including dual-use items — reviewing diplomatic and economic relations with it, and initiating legal proceedings against it (emphasis added).
But there is no sign of any sanctions being imposed. The “supply, transfer, or transit of weapons, ammunition, and military materials” is done by western countries, above all the USA, which has shown no interest in halting this nor of ending economic relations. There has been no indication that the Arab countries who normalised relations with Israel, are reviewing, let alone terminating, these.
Paragraph 20 makes this false statement:
20. Commend the pivotal role played by the representatives of Arab and Islamic States that are members of the Security Council, foremost among them Algeria, Somalia, and Pakistan, in defending the Palestinian cause, in putting an end to the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, securing a ceasefire …
These countries certainly argued for it, but they decidedly did not put an end to the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and secure a ceasefire. As usual, the USA blithely ignored such overtures.
Paragraph 24 is, to put it euphemistically, economical with the truth:
… calls upon OIC Member States to exert diplomatic, political, and legal efforts to ensure Israel’s compliance, as the occupying power, with its binding obligations under the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice on 26 January 2024 in the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
There is no mention that the ICJ’s ruling stemmed from the initiative of South Africa—not of any Arab or Islamic country—to charge Israel for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
So, just as in the 2023 summit of Arab and Islamic states, no concrete actions were set out in the communique of the 2025 summit for OIC members to take. With 57 member countries, comprising of an estimated 1.8 billion people or nearly a quarter of the world’s population, the Organisation of Islamic Countries boasts that after the UN, it is the largest bloc of nations. But when it comes to these countries’ co-religionists being mercilessly starved and slaughtered in Gaza, they have proved resolute in not taking any actions that could put real pressure on Israel and its backers to stop the genocide.
In May 2025, US President Donald Trump visited the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. While some $2 trillion of investment deals were reached, there was no mention by the Gulf leaders of Gaza, let alone their leveraging this enormous commitment, to pressure Trump to stop Israel’s assault. Qatar could also have used its personal “unconditional” gift to Trump of a Boeing aircraft valued at $400m to apply pressure but refrained from doing so. It acted as a US vassal and was rewarded by being bombed by Israel four months later with Trump’s knowledge
By wilfully ignoring a key point of the 2023 summit, Arab and Islamic countries thereby acknowledged their complicity in the genocide: Inaction is considered a complicity that allows Israel to continue its brutal aggression that kills innocent people, children, the elderly, and women, and turns Gaza into ruin.
Concrete actions that could have been taken
The most effective measure, with an immediate impact, would have been the Gulf states halting exports of oil and gas, and they could have asked other OPEC member states to join the embargo: spot prices would have shot up with governments becoming worried about the deleterious impact on their sluggish economies. There would have been inevitable anger from consumers, already suffering from high energy prices caused by the Ukraine war, and pressure on their governments to take firm measures. In turn, real pressure would likely have been applied to Israel to stop its offensive and withdraw from the Strip. This has a precedent: the 1973 OPEC oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel during the 1973 October (Yom Kippur) war.
Furthermore, they could have threatened to not follow through with investments promised to Trump with a further threat of disinvesting. This would certainly have concentrated western leaders’ minds, and the penny would have dropped that support for Israel was having a profound cost.
Another important measure would have been the annulling of all treaties with Israel: Egypt rescinding the Camp David agreement and Jordan annulling its peace treaty. True, the USA would have threatened to withdraw aid, but they could have retorted that stopping genocide is more important. The UAE, Bahrain and Morocco could have annulled the Abraham accords and so ended normalisation. The Palestine Authority could have terminated the Oslo Accords, thereby stopped being a quisling entity—and started to vigorously lobby Arab governments to take these actions, as well as lobbying western governments, especially the USA, to stop supporting Israel’s genocide and other myriad crimes.
The Arab League and OIC could have submitted a motion to the UN General Assembly similar to that of resolution 3379 of 1975 which deemed that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”—this would have doubtless again been adopted. They could also have called for an annual public holiday on May 15th to commemorate the Nakba demonstrating that the Palestinians are not isolated.
Not only were these actions of solidarity not taken but there is little sign of their even being seriously considered. The ineluctable truth is that over the genocide in Gaza, the Arab and Islamic world has demonstrated a deeply set moral rot.
References
BBC News (2025) September 4, UAE warns Israel that annexing West Bank would cross 'red line' - BBC News
Final Communique Issued by Arab-Islamic Emergency Summit in Doha (2025) September 15, Qatar news agency
OIC (2023) Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit, November 11,
https://www.oic-oci.org/
Saudi Press Agency (2023) November 12, Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit Adopts Resolution on Israeli Aggression against the Palestinian People
The Atlantic (2024) Franklin Foer, September 25, The War That Would Not End - The Atlantic
Previous articles by Rumy Hasan on Savage Minds:
The Gaza War - by Rumy Hasan - Savage Minds
Free Speech and Hypocrisy - by Rumy Hasan - Savage Minds
An Assault on Free Speech - by Rumy Hasan - Savage Minds
(3) The BBC’s Coverage of Israel - by Rumy Hasan - Savage Minds
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