Where's the Arab outrage over Darfur?

Ethnic cleansing continues in the Darfur province of eastern Sudan. In one of the Bush administration's rare good moves, they are actually paying attention to this genocide, rather than playing the ostrich like the Clinton administration did during Rwanda. The New York Times noted that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Thursday demanded "dramatic improvements on the ground right now" in the Darfur region, where armed militias have routed more than a million Sudanese from their homes, adding that "Despite the promises that have been made, we have yet to see these dramatic improvements," Mr. Powell told a panel on African policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Only actions, not words, can win the race against death in Darfur. And we will not rest. We will continue to apply pressure."

Meanwhile, France signaled it would block UN sanctions on the Khartoum regime even if they do nothing to stop the ethnic cleansing. (More on this outrage later this week)

Over at Foreign Dispatches, Abiola raised an interesting question: why are Arab countries silent in the face of the Arab genocide against Darfur's black African population?

Abiola writes No amount of Arab or Muslim hypocrisy would ever justify shameful behavior on our side, and the point here isn't to say "Who are these people to point at us?", but to push the Arab and larger Muslim world to adhere to the same standards of conduct within its boundaries that it demands of outsiders. What would truly be shameful would be to turn our eyes away from the way in which "brother" Muslims mistreat each other for fear of offending their sensibilities, as we would in effect be saying "Well, one can't really expect any better of such people, can one?"

Although Lebanon's Daily Star did call for the Arab League to respond strongly to the Darfur crisis, they seem to be a lone voice in the wilderness. If Arab countries were to come out more strongly against the Sudanese regime's crimes against humanity, it would give them a little more credibility when they scream about Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories or American conduct in Iraq.

But I guess they wouldn't want to shift attention away from their designated scapegoats.