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Radio Al-Shams · 2024-07-02
Economist Dr. Omar Shaban said that the war on Gaza is no longer a global priority and that there is no effective Arab, Islamic, or international support to stop it, despite public anger and protests worldwide. He called for Palestinian reconciliation, for the Palestinian leadership to assume its responsibilities, and for influential Arab states such as Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to be entrusted with the detainees, hostages, and ceasefire files, while also warning of a “under-the-radar” war in the West Bank.
Economist Dr. Omar Shaban said that the war on Gaza is no longer a global priority and that there is no effective Arab, Islamic, or international support to stop it, despite public anger and protests worldwide. He called for Palestinian reconciliation, for the Palestinian leadership to assume its r…
Economist Dr. Omar Shaban said that the war on Gaza is no longer a global priority, and that the world has become preoccupied with many issues and challenges.
Shaban added, in an intervention on the program *Awwal Khabar* on Radio Al-Shams, that there are currently 45 conflicts in the world, yet we no longer hear about what is happening in most of them even though they are still ongoing. He predicted that if a new war were to break out in the world, Gaza would become the seventh or eighth news item globally.
He pointed out that none of the recent developments on the political scene have stopped the war on Gaza, “not the International Court of Justice, nor the tensions between Biden and Netanyahu, nor the tensions inside Israel,” citing as evidence that “there have been demonstrations against Netanyahu for 56 weeks, blocking the road leading to his home, and nothing has been affected.”
## The world will not fight on our behalf
Shaban stressed that there is undoubtedly intense global anger and demonstrations around the world, but that Western governments are smarter and have the ability to absorb this and live with it, saying: “This is not to diminish the role of the world, but we must realize that the world will not fight on our behalf.”
The economist believes that “we do not have any Arab, Islamic, or international support,” arguing that there are no demonstrations, resignations, or meetings of the League of Arab States, for example, in any Arab country. Likewise, there is no unified position in Europe, not even from the European Union, according to him.
## Shaban: We should have climbed down from the tree at the right time
Shaban considered that what happened on October 7 should have led us to expect that it would bring disasters upon the Gaza Strip, and that Israel would not remain silent over what had happened to it, while affirming our right as a people to resist. However, resistance, he said, must be well-considered and based on points of strength and weakness.
He stressed the need to focus on the internal front and not to wager on the outbreak of conflicts on external fronts, adding: “We in Palestine have been paying for 20 years the price of the regional conflicts that take place in our home.”
## What are the alternatives for ending the war in Gaza?
Regarding the available alternatives for ending the war in Gaza, Shaban said that the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and the Palestinian factions must move toward reconciliation, calling on the leadership and President Mahmoud Abbas to shoulder his responsibility for the massacres taking place in the Gaza Strip, in his words, as well as what is happening in the West Bank.
He also saw the need for Hamas to accept authorizing certain Arab states, and to hand over the detainees and hostages file and the ceasefire issue to Arab states with the ability to influence, such as Egypt, which has greater leverage, as well as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Shaban added: “We should have realized the scale of the Israeli anger and the Western anger supporting it, and that our capabilities in the Gaza Strip are not that strong,” adding, “There is international anger toward Israel that should have been utilized, and there is still ample room for action that we Palestinians have not yet used, and there is a global legal basis that requires institutional and political action.”
## A war under the radar in the West Bank
On the other hand, Shaban said that the Western leadership is exploiting the war in Gaza to push through plans in the West Bank, considering that there is a war taking place under the radar in the West Bank, where Western powers are creating a side battle in order to monopolize the strategic battle, in his words.
The economist affirmed that Western support for Israel has become double what it was before the war, and that the volume of ammunition, equipment, and Western support from all countries has become many times greater, because Israel has marketed itself well as a victim.
Text © Radio Al-Shams — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source