At that point the Arab world should have come together as one in condemnation of such a move but the Arab world, despite once being an entity in its own right, was already fragmenting at the hands of European colonialism which capitalised on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by trading on fear, greed and power. Now the Arab world is largely a group of nation states run by self-serving royals and dictators whose only motivation in life is to maintain their iron grip on the wealth and reins of power.