In response to Dr. Jamal Abdel-Gawad: The Arab world does not stop

Wrote another flute, d. Jamal Abdel-Gawad, in the newspaper “Al-Ahram”, an article entitled “The end of the Arab world” (09/24/2020) Regardless of the circumstantial considerations which led him to this hasty conclusion, which is the treaty of peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain. And I have another conclusion, the opposite of what Dr. Gamal Abdel-Gawad completely, and that Israel is on the road to Arabization, and could apply to join the Arab League within the next ten years. In other words, the Arab world will increase one more country, and here are the reasons for this prediction:

First: The Palestinian Arab population in Israel itself is around 35%, and the natural growth rates among them, which are 3% per year, are double that of Israeli Jews. Especially since the sources of Jewish immigration have dried up, the most recent of which were the Ethiopian Falasha Jews, who were brought to Israel over thirty years ago, and the Soviet Jews who were deported to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As for the Jews of Europe and the Americas, they are distinguished citizens, culturally and professionally, integrated into their societies, and they feel neither the need nor the pressure to immigrate from their more advanced countries to less developed Israel!

Second: the signing of peace agreements between Israel and the countries of the Emirates and Bahrain will not end the Arab world in the 21st century, nor has it ended the signing of such agreements with Egypt there. is forty years old and with Jordan thirty years ago. Indeed, the number of countries in the Arab world has officially increased, as represented by the Arab League, with the accession of Mauritania, Djibouti, Somalia and Comoros. And may apply for membership soon from the State of South Sudan.

Third: Arabism is primarily a culture and sentimental feelings. This includes broad and deep sympathy with Lebanon after the explosion at the Port of Beirut, and with Sudan after the torrential rains and torrents and the collapse of parts of the dams on the Blue Nile. These feelings are among the threads of the Arab nation, and we cannot touch the same with the same force in the pandemics that may arise in China, India, or European and American countries. This writer does not believe that this Arab culture and feelings will go away just with the signing of mutual recognition agreements and commercial cultures. In the case of Egypt and Jordan, we have two striking examples. What the Arab nationalists feared did not materialize in Israeli normalization or hegemony!

Fourth: The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have been countries open to the world for decades and citizens from all over the world come there. From there, expatriate workers in the Emirates, who represent 80% of the workforce, have the nationality of 150 countries, out of the total of 200 United Nations member states. By the way, these are global trends in the movement of trade, capital and labor. And dr. Jamal Abdel-Gawad, due to his academic specialization in international relations and his media work, he must be well aware of this. We Arabs are already part of this globalization, just like Israel.

Fifth: Arab culture in general, and Egyptian culture in particular, is strongest in the Middle East and West Asia. And anyone who has visited Israel among Arabs and Egyptians, he feels that from the first few minutes at Tel Aviv airport, where the Arabic language and Arabic restaurants are no less than their Israeli counterparts, if not a little more.

Sixth: Dear friend Jamal Abdul-Jawad neglected to talk about the return the UAE and Bahrain received in return for recognition, which is to stop annexing the territories of the West Bank and occupied Jordanian islands to Israel, this which means they remain occupied territories with Gaza as the core of the promised Palestinian state.

Seventh: The expansionist Zionist appetite for extremists in Israel, represented by their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has led to the rapprochement of the PLO and the Fatah Organization in the West Bank and the Islamic movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a reconciliation that has been difficult to achieve over the past ten years. And it’s a validation of one of the laws sociologist Max Weber taught us about the unintended consequences of reckless human behavior.

Eighth: Along with the recognition and reconciliation initiatives between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Arab Gulf region, and without intentional coordination, there has been an accelerated reconciliation between groups in South Sudan and Libya, this which indicates the resumption of the global trend towards a peaceful settlement of protracted conflicts, a trend which Supported by the concern of the great powers of the international system with competition and peaceful competition in other technological and medical fields, the Corona pandemic, which has spread around the world during the year 2020, doubled its pace from China in the east, to the United States and Brazil in the west.

Ninth: that Dr. Jamal Abdel-Gawad is not and will not be the first to predict the end of the Arab world, as a concept and as a reality. He was predeceased by a well-known Lebanese-American professor, Dr. Fouad Al-Ajami, in an article published in the Journal of International Affairs, which he developed into a book entitled: “The end of panarabe”. This was forty years ago and coincided with the signing of peace accords by Egypt and Israel at Camp David, between the late Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, and under the auspices and testimony of US President Jimmy Carter, but Arabism has not disappeared, and the Arab world has not ended.

May the dear Jamal Abdul-Jawad be reassured, for the Arabs and their world will continue, for they are one nation with an eternal message.

On the path that God wanted

[email protected]