The Jackals are powerless to change the state in which they live. They endlessly wait for a messiah, who as the Arabs tell the European man, "These animals have an absurd hope". Instead of taking action and killing or getting away from the Arabs, they do nothing but wait for a messiah to do it for them.
Moreover, the Jackals say that "For everything we want to do-good and bad-the only thing available to us is our teeth." The teeth represent the whole mouth, which is capable of communicating. While communication of ideas is important, their inability to take action puts the Jackals in an existential state.
When the Arabs dump a camel carcass in front of the Jackals, the individual Jackals are powerless to take any action but devour it. Furthermore, the Jackals only means of attack (besides their teeth), are their ancient scissors, which they themselves cannot even use.