The Arabs are their own worst enemies
The Arabs know something they're not telling you. Even if - God forbid - Israel ceased to exist tomorrow, the Arab world would be unable to resolve its problems (Hat Tip: Real Clear World). Bernard Lewis, the renowned Princeton scholar of Islam, has called attention to the Arab tendency to play “the blame game.”Now, if only the 'international community' would stop coddling the Arab phobias.
He notes Arabs traditionally blamed the Mongols, the Ottoman Turks, the colonial powers, and now the Jews and the Americans for everything that has gone awry in their once proud and accomplished history.
When I question Arabs about this, I find they generally hide behind the mantra, “If only we were better Muslims and followed the Quran, we would do better.” But that becomes a self-set mental trap, excusing any original thought about the need to determine their own destiny.
Last year’s United Nations Arab Human Development Report suggested the Arab peoples tend to place too much trust in “institutions rooted in primordial loyalties, notably kinship, clanism and religion.” Overcoming them, the report concluded, “is an essential condition for strengthening human security in the Arab countries.”
...
So is overcoming the Arab obsession with Israel – the belief that the Jewish state is the root cause of Arab troubles.
Arabs lament that billions in US aid give the Israeli military an insurmountable advantage. But they disingenuously forget that American dollars also keep the lights on – and governments running – in a host of Arab and Muslim lands, from Egypt and Jordan to Pakistan and the Palestinian territories.
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Esteemed Jordanian journalist Rami Khouri caught the essence of the Arab dilemma when he cited a kind of cultural schizophrenia he described as “a strange combination of self-assertion and reliance on foreign actors.”
While Arabs indulge in rage and rhetoric, the hard-nosed Iranians – who are Persians, not Arabs – are building a sphere of influence from Kabul to the Mediterranean. With credibility, Iranian leaders now proclaim themselves the new saviors of the Islamic Middle East, committed to restoring dignity and justice to the Arab world under the rubric of a new Persian empire.
The historic irony is inescapable, and it is a clear consequence of growing Iranian power abhorring an Arab vacuum.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Arab blame game, Bernard Lewis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Persians
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:09 AM
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