JStone
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- Jun 29, 2011
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Historian Victor Davis Hanson: Arab Envy Of Israel Contributes To Their Low Self Esteem And Dysfunction
The real problem is that Israeli success, and the resulting sense of failure in the surrounding Arab world, fuels much of the rabid hatred.
Israel stoked the fury arising from Arabs' sense of weakness and self-contempt. In the world of the Palestinian lobster bucket, Israel's great sin is not bellicosity or aggression, but succeeding beyond the wildest dreams of its neighbors. How humiliating it must be to be incapable of even muttering the word "Israel" (hence the need for "Zionist entity"), but nevertheless preferring an Israeli to a Palestinian ID card.
...examine, for instance, an excerpt from the recent statements of the Palestinian-born Al-Jazeera editor-in-chief, Ahmed Sheikh, who granted an interview this month with Pierre Heumann, the Middle East correspondent of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche. He is not a mere propagandist, but a keen and influential observer of the current Arab temperament.
Sheikh: In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can a teacher do his job in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East.
Heumann: Who is responsible for the situation?
Sheikh: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.
Heumann: Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?
Sheikh: I think so.
Heumann: Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?
Sheikh: The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.
Heumann: In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?
Sheikh: Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.
How strange that Mr. Sheikh, if for the wrong reasons, has inadvertently echoed the neoconservative thesis that only with fundamental reform will come Arab prosperity — a progress that in turn will bolster the "collective ego" enough for Arabs to forget an Israel that seems to "gnaw" at the Middle East.
Elsewhere in the interview Ahmed Sheikh, who enjoys a prominent role in forming recent public opinion throughout the Arab world, is largely prescient about the West's misunderstanding of the "genes of every Arab." As we see with the latest return of the surrealists to foreign policy influence, we surely do not understand the depths or causes of Arab and Muslim psychological exasperation with Israel.
Israel's Success Fuels Arab Hatred - CBS News
The real problem is that Israeli success, and the resulting sense of failure in the surrounding Arab world, fuels much of the rabid hatred.
Israel stoked the fury arising from Arabs' sense of weakness and self-contempt. In the world of the Palestinian lobster bucket, Israel's great sin is not bellicosity or aggression, but succeeding beyond the wildest dreams of its neighbors. How humiliating it must be to be incapable of even muttering the word "Israel" (hence the need for "Zionist entity"), but nevertheless preferring an Israeli to a Palestinian ID card.
...examine, for instance, an excerpt from the recent statements of the Palestinian-born Al-Jazeera editor-in-chief, Ahmed Sheikh, who granted an interview this month with Pierre Heumann, the Middle East correspondent of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche. He is not a mere propagandist, but a keen and influential observer of the current Arab temperament.
Sheikh: In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can a teacher do his job in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East.
Heumann: Who is responsible for the situation?
Sheikh: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.
Heumann: Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?
Sheikh: I think so.
Heumann: Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?
Sheikh: The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.
Heumann: In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?
Sheikh: Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.
How strange that Mr. Sheikh, if for the wrong reasons, has inadvertently echoed the neoconservative thesis that only with fundamental reform will come Arab prosperity — a progress that in turn will bolster the "collective ego" enough for Arabs to forget an Israel that seems to "gnaw" at the Middle East.
Elsewhere in the interview Ahmed Sheikh, who enjoys a prominent role in forming recent public opinion throughout the Arab world, is largely prescient about the West's misunderstanding of the "genes of every Arab." As we see with the latest return of the surrealists to foreign policy influence, we surely do not understand the depths or causes of Arab and Muslim psychological exasperation with Israel.
Israel's Success Fuels Arab Hatred - CBS News
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