NYN | Articles | Abdel Bari Atwan:

The boycott of Arab leaders from attending the summit that was held today (Thursday) in Bahrain, the “normalizing” Arab state, has become the news, not their attendance, and whatever the reasons, especially at this time when Arab-Islamic “resistances” are achieving miraculous victories on multiple battlefronts, especially in the Gaza Strip.

The presence of this type of summit, its convening at this time, and the signing of its defeatist and humiliating final communique, which is irrelevant to the feelings of the Arab masses and constitutes a disgrace for them, an offense to their feelings at these historic moments, and a belittlement of the blood of the martyrs, it is difficult for us to forget that the capital in which this summit was held is a state that has exaggerated in its normalization steps and hosted the summit of the Deal of the Century that paved the way for this Zionist arrogance.

What does “Arabism” have to do with a summit from which more than 12 Arab “leaders” are absent, and in which the leadership of the Palestinian resistance, which has raised the head of the nation high with the victories it has achieved on the battlefields, whether in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, and in an epic steadfastness that has lasted for more than seven months, during which the enemy has suffered massive losses and failed to achieve any of its goals, from deportation abroad, through severing the relationship between the resistance and its incubator, to the release of hostage prisoners.

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The institution of the Arab Summit was originally established to host the Palestinian resistance, and to support the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative in the liberation war of all the occupied Arab lands. It is ironic that most of the attendees of the current Manama Summit are boycotting the movements of “Hamas” and “Islamic Jihad” and their allies in Gaza and the West Bank, and considering them “terrorist movements” because they are resisting the occupation and American hegemony over the region, protecting the nation, its holy sites, Al-Aqsa, and its churches.

When the movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are silenced, by American instructions and Israeli dictations, and a president who leads an authority that supports the occupation and provides security for its forces and settlers sits on the Palestinian seat at this summit, and when the Yemeni people who have closed all seas and oceans in the face of Israeli ships in practical solidarity with the steadfast fighters for more than seven months in the war of genocide and ethnic cleansing are represented by a leadership appointed by America in the name of the “legitimacy” rejected by millions of the people of the country, and when an invitation (at least as an observer) is not extended to a sisterly Muslim country that has been and still is financing the resistance and its Arab supporters (southern Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria) with weapons, ballistic missiles, and projectiles that shatter and burn Israeli tanks and their occupants, then this summit represents another “Arabism” that has no relation, near or far, to this ancient nation that we know, and its honorable history full of heroism and creativity in all fields. Most of the participants in it do not have the representation of their peoples, and their days in power have become numbered.

We had hoped that this summit would not have been held in the first place, because it, its decisions, and its attendance constitute an insult to the nation, its name, values, and heritage, especially since it is being held after seven months of the “Al-Aqsa Cyclone” operation, which will enter history by breaking the myth of the undefeated army, and launching the starting point for the collapse of the racist Zionist project and exposing the war crimes of genocide that it has practiced and continues to practice in the occupied Arab lands.

The one who represents the Arabs is the one who stands in the trench of resistance in the face of American-Zionist hegemony and its massacres, and not in the trench of those who provide support, build bridges of relief and food aid, and supply ammunition to the aggressor state, its army, and its settlers.

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A summit where the fighter Yahya al-Sinwar, along with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, Ismail Haniyeh, Muhammad al-Deif, and Abu Ubeida, do not sit on the seat of Palestine, does not represent the “new Arab nation” emerging from the ashes of the era of defeats and normalization, and embodies a time whose most prominent title is the “Al-Aqsa deluge”.

It is very painful for the Palestinian people to be represented by a “president” who ascends the podium of the Manama summit to launch a vicious attack on the heroes of the resistance in the Gaza Strip, and stands in the trench of the occupation and its massacres, blaming them and their leadership for carrying out the most honorable war of liberation in the history of the nation, on the pretext of their monopoly on the decision of war, while he himself monopolized the greatest betrayal in the history of the Palestinian people, the Oslo agreements, and the normalization and concessions that emanated from it, ceding 80 percent of historic Palestine without establishing the “grotesque” state on what remains of it.

In conclusion, we say that the Bahrain summit may be the last summit of ignominy, betrayal, shame, and disgrace, and the dividing line for the coming summits of the new Arab nation, whose cornerstone will be the great victory in the West Bank, Gaza, and the entire region, under the leadership of the men of Al-Qassam, Al-Quds Brigades, the mujahideen, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah… and the days are between us.

• Palestinian journalist and political analyst
  Quoted from: Raialyoum newspaper