Kicking the can down the street

It's a new year and sadly not much has changed with developments on ground in Gaza. Israel continues to bomb at will with impunity - and with the worlds deafening silence if not bold complicity in certain parts. I'm of course referring to Egypt,Jordan,Saudi Arabia and the EU. All seem to know their marching orders and no one has disappointed yet. On the political front in America it seems Bush has parroted his routine line of "we support Israel" and basically kicked the can down for Obama to deal with. Rice is not going anywhere to try to bring about a ceasefire. There is no real effort to pressure Israel to do anything and every one is content to watch Palestinians continue to get slaughtered. Obama for his part has remained shockingly silent through all of this - in essence kicking the can back to Bush saying "there is only one President" at a time. This would be comical if not for the fact people are getting killed and slaughtered by an unmerciful blitzkrieg style attack. The Arab world once again has been shamed to levels that should make every Arab with an ounce of dignity cringe at the leadership that exists today. I can't think of anything good to say about Egypt,Jordan or Saudi Arabia - and Syria for that matter. The anger from what I have been able to discern at the street level in these countries appears to be boiling over but not sure how it will manifest itself in the coming days, weeks or months ahead. These regimes are tenacious when it comes to clamping down on descent. Already there are reports Mubarak has been arresting Islamists and other activists who want to demonstrate publicly against Israeli action. In Saudi Arabia, there are similar reports - authorities have been arresting Imams who issued Fatwas against Egypt for not opening the Rafah crossing. In Jordan, head of security has been replaced and government there is clamping down on public protests against Israel by arresting dozens. In Palestine, in Ramallah, Abbas thugs were using batons against marchers who came out to show support for Hamas. The clamp down there and elsewhere in the Arab world is intensifying. I don't know if these efforts by these puppet regimes will succeed but history has not been kind to those who bet on their imminent downfall. As I said, these regimes are ruthless and will tenaciously hold on to power no matter what - and with the help of CIA and Mossad - not sure we can write them off just yet. Having said that, I do believe this time around something different is percolating beneath the surface on the Arab street. It's one thing in the past to be viewed as impotent against Israeli crimes - remain silent as Zionists massacre fellow Arabs and Muslims - but this time around the Arab regimes are viewed as aiding the Zionist enemy, complicit and working hand in hand with the likes of OBL and company (Olmert,Barack and Livni) and this factor does present a new dimension that before wasn't quite crystallized as it is now. Arabs know their leaders are corrupt stooges for imperial powers - doing their bidding - but never before has it been exposed so blatantly as the case with Egypt unwilling to open the Rafah border to aid or to allow Palestiniians out of harms way. This could be the straw that broke the camels back - and I'm hoping that is the case - but only time will tell.