On 2 August, funeral prayers for Ismail Haniyeh drew thousands to Doha’s Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque to honour the assassinated Hamas leader.
Among them were dozens of emissaries from across the Arab and Muslim worlds who travelled to Qatar to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza that has inflamed much of the region.
Notably absent from the funeral were representatives from the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco.
Despite their critical policy differences, similar occasions in the past, such as the funeral of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, brought together Arab leaders in a symbolic display of unity and collective mourning.
For all their glaring contradictions, Arab states previously found it necessary to pay heed to the question of Palestinian liberation in the eyes of their populations, though more often with words than deeds……more