Israel Matzav

Stuck in the 8th century

There was a big meeting of Arab leaders in Kuwait this week, but instead of focusing on economic development like it was supposed to, it turned into rancorous arguments over - you guessed it - the Israel-Arab conflict.

At nearly every turn, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains an obstacle to development in the Middle East. It inflames public emotions, serves as a convenient distraction for leaders unable or unwilling to reform their nations and is a tool in the hands of those seeking to promote their own regional standing, often at the expense of the Palestinians.

“The Arab-Israeli conflict reinforces the puritanical, radical, traditional and also the authoritarian because everyone holds onto what they have and there is no third way,” said Shafeeq Ghabra, a political science professor at Kuwait University. “Basically, this is a region stuck in time, stuck in space and in history and in conflict.”

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm sick and tired of hearing the Arabs whine. The 'region' is not stuck in time, in space, in history and in conflict. There's one country in the region that has become a world leader in so many areas they're beyond counting. That country is Israel. Israel has overcome every obstacle the Arab world and nature have placed before it. Israel has made the deserts bloom. Israeli technology is an integral part of such basic tools of 21st century life as the cellphone and the laptop computer. Israel has the world's largest water purification facility and has developed the technology used at those facilities worldwide. Israel developed the drip irrigation system. And all the while the Arabs developed... hatred for Israel.

Why is that? Because when the Arabs threw hundreds of thousands of Jews out of Arab countries in the post-1948 period, Israel absorbed them, housed them, clothed them and made them into productive citizens. And when the Arabs who lived in the western part of mandatory Palestine fled - largely on their own accord so that they wouldn't be in the way when the Arab armies came to throw the Jews into the Sea - the Arabs held them as hostages who would one day return to a fictional country called 'Palestine.' Sixty years later the Arabs - with the connivance of the United Nations - have turned a tiny pimple into an all-consuming rage that doesn't let them concentrate on the things that concern a normal society. Instead, they are completely consumed with hating Jews.

Imagine, if you will, that you lost favorite pen on the way to work. You come to the office and tell your boss that you can't work today because you lost your favorite pen and you have to go look for it. For how long would your boss accept that excuse? A day? Maybe. A week? Possible but unlikely. Sixty years? Not on your life.

“The Arab ship is sinking,” Mr. [Amr] Moussa [the Egyptian chairman of the Arab League. CiJ] said on the first day of the conference.

The Arab ship is sinking because it's stuck in the 8th century. The Arab ship is stuck in the 8th century because its 'leaders' have fanned the flames of ancient hatreds to maintain power. And the Arab ship is likely to be stuck in the 8th century for tens - if not hundreds - of years to come because any Arab who sees what's happening and wants to make a better life for themselves emigrates to the West. Of course, at the rate Europe is going, the 8th century may be following these people rather than letting them escape.... But that's a separate problem.

The need for regional cooperation rests on data. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon said that the Arab states would need to create 50 million jobs in the next 20 years simply to keep unemployment at current levels [Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. CiJ]. He said Arab universities were collapsing and scientific research was almost nonexistent. [Of course it's nonexistent. Their best minds are being used to make rockets to fire at Israel. Why try to get to the moon when all the people around you want is to figure out how to stick more shrapnell in a crude rocket without grounding it? CiJ]

By many measures, the Arab world is slipping further and further behind in its ability to compete globally. Perhaps the single greatest drag on the region, one that afflicts wealthy Persian Gulf states as well as poorer countries like Egypt, is the quality of schools. International trends in math and science among fourth- and eighth-grade students show that in math, for example, among fourth-graders, the bottom four nations out of 36 were Tunisia, Kuwait, Qatar and Yemen. In science, eighth-grade students in Qatar placed second to last.

Since the 1940s, Arab leaders have been promising the creation of an economic union along the lines of what the Europeans have achieved. They have repeatedly said that Arabs should invest in and trade with Arabs first.

They were still talking about that this week.

In Kuwait, there were complaints that the region had failed to coordinate its electric grids, transportation systems and customs regulations. But the Palestinian issue so consumed the meeting they barely had the chance to discuss such matters.

“We have to be aware as Arabs that the absence of an Arab solution to the Palestinian issue also means the absence of continuous progress, major development, sustainable growth and agreement within our Arab world,” Mr. Siniora said at a conference in Kuwait before the summit meeting.

But there's no reason that the 'Palestinian problem' should hold up anything else. They behave like a bunch of children. They could resolve the problem by allowing the 'Palestinians' to stay right where they are and have been for the last sixty years. But then regimes like Mubarak's Egypt, Abdullah's Jordan (the 'moderate' Arab states) and Assad's Syria wouldn't be able to keep themselves in power by focuing their citizenry's rage at Israel.

Have you ever had one of your kids bang his head against the wall because you wouldn't give him or her their way? That's exactly what the Arabs are doing. The difference is that we love our children so sometimes we step in to stop them from hurting themselves. No one outside the Arab world truly loves the Arabs. Were it not for the economic necessity of an oil supply, the world would long since have abandoned them to their fate. The day the world is able to eliminate its dependence on Arab oil, the Arabs will be abandoned to their fate. Then they really will live in the 8th century. I won't cry for them. Will you? They've brought this on themselves!

It's time to wake the spoiled brats up to reality and tell them to grow up.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:58 PM