Like so many who have deep insight, real and valid critiques, into and of ?the other?, the author, I think, fails to notice how his truth applies to him and ?his side?
<<I raise this point not to make some idiot press critique or engage in cheap Arab-bashing. This is a serious issue. In recent weeks, whenever Arab Muslims told me of their pain at seeing Palestinians brutalized by Israelis on their TV screens every night, I asked back: Why are you so pained about Israelis brutalizing Palestinians, but don't say a word about the brutality with which Saddam Hussein has snuffed out two generations of Iraqis using murder, fear and poison gas? I got no good answers.?>>
Does he not wonder that so few words come from Israelis for their brutalizing Palestinians.
<<Because the real answer is rooted in something very deep. It has to do with the contrast between Islam's self-perception as the most ideal and complete expression of the three great monotheistic religions ? Judaism, Christianity and Islam ? and the conditions of poverty, repression and underdevelopment in which most Muslims live today.
As a U.S. diplomat in the Middle East said to me, Israel ? not Iraq, not India ? is "a constant reminder to Muslims of their own powerlessness." How could a tiny Jewish state amass so much military and economic power if the Islamic way of life ? not Christianity or Judaism ? is God's most ideal religious path?>>
Regardless of self perceptions, the Israelis actually do keep the Palestinians powerless. We cannot tell, therefore, to what extent some supposed superiority plays into this
<<When Hindus kill Muslims it's not a story, because there are a billion Hindus and they aren't part of the Muslim narrative. When Saddam murders his own people it's not a story, because it's in the Arab-Muslim family. But when a small band of Israeli Jews kills Muslims it sparks rage ? a rage that must come from Muslims having to confront the gap between their self-perception as Muslims and the reality of the Muslim world.>>
I think it rather delusional to think that Muslims are not going to take note of murders by Hindus so I wouldn?t credit this explanation as all of the explanation.
<<I have long believed that it is this poverty of dignity, not a poverty of money, that is behind a lot of Muslim rage today and the reason this rage is sharpest among educated, but frustrated, Muslim youth. It is they who perpetrated 9/11 and who slit the throat of the Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl ? after reportedly forcing him to declare on film, "I am a Jew and my mother is a Jew.">>
This is a very wise insight: The poverty of dignity is behind a lot of rage. What the author doesn?t realize is the profound depth to which we all suffer from a poverty of dignity. This applies to almost all of us and certainly every nation. Only Tibet could be a possible exception. They gave it over to the Chinese because they had vastly more dignity. Israelis, many Israelis, maybe even many fewer, percentage wise, than in other countries do not have sufficient dignity to see Palestinians as fellow human beings, identical in how they respond if the tables were turned.
<<This is not to say that U.S. policy is blameless. We do bad things sometimes. But why is it that only Muslims react to our bad policies with suicidal terrorism, not Mexicans or Chinese? Is it because Arab-Muslim conspiracy theories state that Jews could not be so strong on their own ? therefore the only reason Israel could be strong, and Muslims weak, is because the U.S. created and supports Israel?>>
Well this is kind of a mish mash of theories. As to why the Muslims have reacted with suicide bombings has a lot to do with the fact that they can. They have the money, the skill, and the intent. There was a time when the dispute was over land and the Mexicans did kill Americans, or at least Texans as did the Chinese directly or indirectly in Vietnam and Korea.
<<The Muslim world needs to take an honest look at this rage.>>
So do the Israelis.
<<Look what it has done to Palestinian society ? where the flower of Palestinian youth now celebrate suicide against Jews as a source of dignity. That is so bad. Yes, there is an Israeli occupation, and that occupation has been hugely distorting of Palestinian life. But the fact is this: If Palestinians had said, "We are going to oppose the Israeli occupation, with nonviolent resistance, as if we had no other options, and we are going to build a Palestinian society, schools and economy, as if we had no occupation" ? they would have had a quality state a long time ago. Instead they have let the occupation define their whole movement and become Yasir Arafat's excuse for not building jobs and democracy.>>
Similarly, if the Israelis had said to themselves, after all these centuries the homeland promised to us by God can no longer be thought of as ours because there are another people living there now who call it home, and if we try to remove them from it, that will only start a bloody conflict, so we choose not to try to get it back, there wouldn?t be a problem either. In other words if the Palestinians had been supermen and not acted as anybody would under the identical conditions and tried to get their land back, but just said, oh well you got a bunch of our land and our water etc, but we?re just gonna go over here and pretend it never happened, well then yea, there wouldn?t be a conflict.
<<Only Muslims can heal their own rage. But the West, and particularly the Jewish world, should help. Because this rage poses an existential threat to Israel. Three broad trends are now converging: (1) The worst killing ever between Israelis and Palestinians; (2) a baby boom in the Arab-Muslim world, where about half the population is under 20; (3) an explosion of Arab satellite TV and Internet, which are taking the horrific images from the intifada and beaming them directly to the new Arab- Muslim generation. If 100 million Arab-Muslims are brought up with these images, Israel won't survive.>>
Good thinking.
<<Some of this hatred will remain no matter what Israel does. But to think that Israel's exiting the occupied territories ? and abandoning its insane settlement land grab there ? wouldn't reduce this problem is absurd.>>
No kidding. Right on.
<<Israel cannot do it alone. But it has to do all it can to get this show off the air. It would take away an important card from the worst Muslim anti- Semites and it would help strengthen those Muslims, and there are many of them, who know that the suicidal rage of their fanatics is dragging down their whole civilization.>>
Again, the suicidal rage that many Muslims are experiencing is in all of us. We all suffer from feelings of inferiority. To feel inferiority is to truly believe that you are inferior. That?s the problem. Who wants to know this. It?s like finding out that you really are the worst in the world. You are what you hate. Who wants to find that out. It can only be attempted when you thoroughly understand that feeling something is true is not the same as it being true. It?s just that we can?t believe that. So we pretend it isn?t true. War is one way we pretend.
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