A Palestinian boy, the son of Ammar Hudeidoun, sits near his family’s belongings after the demolition of their home in Jabal Mukaber neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem, April 22, 2009. Israel demolished the Palestinian house on Wednesday, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take measures to promote peacemaking. Hudeidoun, 35, said Israeli bulldozers flattened his home after Israel’s Jerusalem municipality said he did not have building permits. Palestinians say such authorization is almost impossible to obtain. REUTERS/Mahfouz Abu Turk

I have always held to the conviction that Palestinians and Arabs have the same inherent rights as the rest of mankind. I firmly believe that they have the same right to determine their own destinies and live freely as do all people of humanity. And I believe that they have the international right to defend themselves from those who have been dispossessing, occupying and dividing their people, and exploiting their God-given resources.
I have never viewed this as a privilege that only Western people of the Anglo Saxon or Jewish races possess; I see it is a natural right for all people of the world. If we are truly seeking a just world, than every country’s people has the right to liberate themselves from both inside and outside oppression in order to freely determine their own destinies and interests. No country should be given the right to interfere in any other country’s governments or exploit any other country’s resources to the disadvantage of the collective interests of the native people.

Sadly, when I look at the Arab world, I do not see it as a collection of free and sovereign nations. And I do not see the Gulf countries, with their vast oil and gas resources, as leading economic powers which benefit, strengthen, and stabilize the region.

Instead, I see the Arab world as a collection of paranoid and divided dictatorial regimes. I see a part of the world being led by so-called moderate leaders (meaning they serve Western interests), who are leading their people irrationally and immoderately. I see countries that are not sovereign, in which the people are not being encouraged or allowed to take part in the process of determining their own future interests. I see a gang of dictatorships which have sold their souls to the highest bidder, at the expense of the Arab people and their rights, hoping that by doing so they can hold onto their dishonest power. I see governments that would easily collapse from the inside pressures of the people, were they not being propped up by powerful outside supporters with their own selfish interests in mind. I see cowardly leaders who have basically decided that for them remaining in control is more important than their people’s inherent rights.

On top of having to deal with cowardly dictators for decades, the Arab people have had to deal with another kind of obstacle not of their own making: Al Qaeda and its terrorist attacks around the world. These were not only cowardly acts which killed innocent people, but acts which in effect led to Muslim and Arab people around the world being placed under a microscope and collectively judged. Al Qaeda’s acts have led to the widespread suspicion of Muslims and Arabs, which has led to the illegal imprisonment and torture of many innocents who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Al Qaeda’s acts have also led to unfair and unjust political trials of Western based Arab/ Muslim fundraisers and activists for the Palestinian cause.

Al Qaeda’s acts are what gave the Western powers aligned with Israel, the enemy they were looking for and needed to preemptively attack and invade the region in order to try and control the resources. And its actions helped the Western nations aligned with Israel to continue denying the Arab people their legitimate rights by placing the right of legitimate resistance into the same category as Al Qaeda terrorism. Groups who have been defending their people’s right to oppose and confront Israel’s ongoing occupations, aggressions, and human rights abuses were conveniently labeled to be in the same category as Al Qaeda..

I have often heard that calls for Arab/ Muslim unity are overrated, yet when I look at history I see that there has never been any thing more powerful then the unity of people behind a just cause. And since the collective right of a people is an honorable and just cause, the unity of Arabs /Muslims must be based on the shared rights of its people. The so-called moderate rulers of the Arab world, supported by the West, have only managed to divide and weaken the people of the region and deny them such rights.

The effects of the aggressive actions of Al Qaeda have been similar in that they have been more successful in dividing rather than uniting the Arab/Muslim people, and undermining the just and inherent right of the people to resist and defend themselves.

If the occupier Israel has a right to expect the Arab people to recognize its right to exist and defend itself from those it has been dispossessing and occupying, than surely the occupied Palestinians and Arabs have an even greater right to have their existence and rights to defend themselves recognized and respected. All people have the right to defend themselves and their lands, and to resist the agendas of those undermining their rights.

Yet regardless of the Arab people’s difficult hurdles, their spirit has never died. When I look at the streets in the Arab world, I see a majority of the people determined not to give up their rights, determined to one day establish their own destinies in spite of what obstacles their despotic and corrupted leaders have put in their way, or what these puppet dictators have decided on their behalf.

And I see this Arab spirit manifesting itself every time Israel expands its illegal settlements, tightens its siege on Gaza, or goes to war on its fellow Arabs, while their so-called Arab leaders lay the blame for Israel’s acts of aggression on the true defenders of the Arab people’s rights and its supporters. The Arab people for the most part are not being fooled by those so-called moderate Arab leaders who wish to blame Iran and Syria’s support of the legitimate resistance for the lack of peace in the region, rather than where it belongs, which is on Israel’s ongoing occupations, violations, and aggressions. The Arab street cannot be fooled by their leaders’ attempts at trying to further deflect from their ineptitudes, while they accuse Iran of dividing the people of the region, of spreading a Shi’a crescent, of having hegemonic aspirations in the region, while these same leader collaborate with Israeli hegemonic goals that have been infringing on the Arab people’s rights.

When I look at the Arab street, despite the obstacles they have been facing due to sold-out leaders and Al Qaeda terrorism, I see a people who are still able to recognize their rights and unify themselves behind them. It is these people, not their leaders, who give me hope that the Arabs will one day find a way to be free and sovereign, and determine their own destinies.