Arab League Summit 2025, photo Government of Yemen, public domain
Tactical Withdrawals Can Become Strategic Victories
by Phil Hall
The world watches the mutilated bodies of Palestinian children on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, weaponising their suffering for clicks and protests, yet none of these outraged demonstrators demand the one thing that could save them: Arab nations opening their borders. The same Westerners who chant “Free Palestine” do not demand Arab nations rescue Gazans.
Since 7 October 2023, Israel has rained bombs down on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s attacks. By 2025, the highest estimates suggest 500,000 Palestinians have been killed, with 1 million on the brink of starvation (Gaza Health Ministry). Meanwhile, Donald Trump, a staunch ally of Benjamin Netanyahu, has reportedly discussed turning Gaza’s beachfront into prime real estate, a grotesque vision of erasure (Middle East Eye).
The Israeli government, accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has enjoyed almost unwavering support from Western leaders, including Keir Starmer’s UK Labour Party. The honourable exception has been Ireland. Only now, as global outrage grows over images of starving and mutilated children and corpses and cruel deaths, are some governments, like Spain, beginning to distance themselves (Al Jazeera).
Israel, with the help and complicity of the USA, is not just bombing Gaza; they are actively preventing escape. Israel has placed a military blockade on Gazans attempting to flee. They are bombing the Rafah crossing, the sole exit point, and targeting displacement routes. They do so in collaboration with the USA, the geopolitical power and sponsor of the genocidal Israeli regime. The USA threatens Egypt with aid cuts if it opens borders and pressures Arab states to reject refugees. Palestinian travel documents are not issued, and visa bans are imposed on fleeing families. To all appearances, and to anyone paying attention, the US-Zionist alliance wants Gaza’s people erased, not saved (UN Human Rights Office).
Future generations will study this moment with horror. They will see the videos of skeletal children and bombed-out hospitals alongside footage of Dubai’s skyscrapers and Saudi megaprojects. They will read about European protesters waving keffiyehs while their governments sold weapons to Israel. Most damningly, they will note the absence of any serious effort by wealthy Arab nations to shelter the doomed.
Either demand refuge for Gazans—or stop pretending you want them to live.
To contrast the refugee situation in Gaza with Ukraine is natural and correct. The UK accepted a quarter of a million Ukrainians. This came alongside unprecedented financial aid, housing support, and immediate work rights. The differences are astounding. The catastrophe unfolding in Ukraine since Russia’s incursion on 24 February 2022 has forced millions to flee. As of 2025, over 10 million Ukrainians have emigrated, with 1.2 million seeking refuge in Russia, another 1.2 million in Germany, 1 million in Poland, and 250,000 in the UK, alongside significant numbers in the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Romania, the US, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, and Moldova. Additionally, 3.7 million remain internally displaced within Ukraine (UNHCR).
These refugees are fleeing war, escaping cities like Mariupol, where relentless bombardment reduced much of the city to rubble, and Bakhmut, where civilians endured months of artillery fire before its fall in May 2023. History shows that civilians flee battlefields, so why should Gaza be any different?
The European response to Ukrainian displacement set a clear benchmark for humanitarian action. Within weeks of the conflict’s outbreak, the EU activated its Temporary Protection Directive, granting Ukrainians immediate residency rights, work permits, healthcare access, and housing assistance across member states. Private citizens volunteered spare rooms. Governments repurposed public buildings as reception centres. Even historically anti-immigration countries like Hungary and Poland waived visa requirements (European Council).
If Europe can accept millions of Ukrainians, why are Arab nations like Jordan, and Saudi Arabia reluctant to take in Palestinian refugees?
Though it must be noted that since October 2023, Qatar has reportedly offered to host 50,000 women and children for medical treatment, Algeria proposed taking 45,000 families (though logistics remain unclear), Turkey has quietly accepted several thousand Palestinians with foreign passports, and Sudan offered temporary asylum before conflict broke out there (Al Mayadeen).
If Europe can accept millions of Ukrainians, why are Arab nations like Jordan, and Saudi Arabia reluctant to take in Palestinian refugees? Gaza is a battlefield, just like Mariupol, Dresden, or Warsaw under Nazi bombardment. Survival must come first: the people of Gaza must live to fight another day. You cannot wage war with civilians in the crossfire.
Across the Middle East, particularly in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, Palestinian exiles have built lives as professionals, entrepreneurs, and refugees. They are the new diaspora, much like the Jewish people once were. Yet today, as Gaza burns, Arab leaders hesitate. Yet, Arab nations must open their doors to more Palestinians; shelter Gaza’s people, educate them, and, if necessary, train them to retake their land in the future. Bide your time. The BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) is rising, and US hegemony in the Middle East will not last forever. When America’s grip weakens, and its talons are removed from the body of the Levant, the Apartheid – Zionist state will be vulnerable.The US empire is in retreat. BRICS now controls 40% of global GDP, 75% of energy reserves, and includes the majority of the human race (BRICS Information Centre).
A child with a begging bowl cannot stop a tank.
BRICS must act. Russia and China could insist on airlifting refugees to safety, just as Moscow saved Syrians from NATO’s pet terrorists. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Algeria must fund new cities for Gaza’s survivors. Perhaps different Arab countries should arm and train a new generation of Palestinian fighters outside the siege.
But today, a child with a bullet in her skull cannot resist. Arab leaders must stop the hypocrisy. Open your borders. Gaza’s people must live to return, to fight, to win.
A Call to the Arab Nation: An Emergency Summit for Gaza
The world watched as Europe opened its doors to millions of Ukrainians, not out of pure charity, but because their suffering was deemed worthy of compassion. Now, 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza stand on the brink of annihilation, their homes reduced to rubble, their children starving under bombs. Where is the Arab response?
It is not enough to condemn Israel. The Arab League must convene an emergency summit, not to debate, but to act to open the borders. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Algeria, Qatar, Kuwait, and Morocco must immediately announce they will take in 1.5 million Gazans. They must fund their survival by using Arab oil wealth to build temporary cities, hospitals, and schools, just as Europe did for Ukraine. They must prepare their return. This is not resettlement; this is preservation. Gaza’s people must return, but first, they must live.
The world is watching.
History will judge this moment. Will the Arab world stand by as Gaza is wiped from the map? Or will it act, as Europe did for Ukraine, to save innocent lives?
To the leaders of the Arab nations: Call the summit. Open your doors. Do not let Gaza’s children die in vain. The Arab League must call an emergency summit within 48 hours and announce unconditional acceptance of 1.5 million Gazan refugees, distributed across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Qatar, and Kuwait. They must establish a $10 billion fund, paid for by Gulf oil wealth, to house, feed, and protect them. They must swear an oath that this is temporary and that Gaza’s people will return.
It is horrific to imagine Netanyahu and Trump celebrating as Gaza’s ruins become “beachfront property.” But their victory will be hollow. Theirs is a Pyrrhic victory: tactical withdrawals can become strategic victories.
Al Jazeera. “Spain’s Shift on Israel Policy.” 2024.
Al Mayadeen. Where Have Ukrainians Fled? 2023.
BRICS Information Centre. Economic Growth Projections. 2024.
European Council. Temporary Protection Directive. 2022.
Gaza Health Ministry. Mortality Reports. 2025.
Middle East Eye. Trump’s Gaza Development Plans. 2025.
UN Human Rights Office. Blockade on Gaza. 2024.
UNHCR. Ukraine Refugee Situation. 2024.
Phil Hall was born into an ANC family in South Africa. The family was forced into exile in 1963 after his mother was imprisoned and his father banned. They relocated to East Africa, where his parents continued their activism and journalism. In 1975, after a period living in India, they journeyed overland back to the UK, eventually settling in Brighton.
Phil pursued a broad education, studying Russian, Spanish, politics, economics, literature, linguistics, and English grammar and phonology. His path led him to live and study in Spain, the USSR (in Ukraine), and later in Mexico, where he married and started a family. Over the next decade, Phil and his partner balanced activism with work before relocating to the UK—a move initially intended to be permanent.
However, professional opportunities took him to Saudi Arabia and then the UAE, where he spent ten years before returning to the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in Britain, he founded Ars Notoria Magazine and, alongside fellow humane socialist Paul Halas, launched AN Editions, a small venture dedicated to publishing thoughtful, progressive and exciting new books.
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