posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:47 PM
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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4 Comments:
For the Arab emirs and dictators, democracy in the Arab world is an intolerable threat to their own position. That's why none of them support the U.S on Iraq. The Ba'athist regime was the natural order of things. But a government freely elected by an Arab people is a different story altogether.
NormanF,
The only thing that bothers me about the prospect of democracy in the Arab world is the likelihood that it will produce Islamist governments. My impression is that the US is going the extra mile to try to prevent that from happening. I doubt that the US or any other country has the resources to make the effort in all the other Middle East countries that the US is making in Iraq.
I quite agree. Iraq is probably the exception to the rule but only because Islamist movements have sought to impose their rule there through terror rather than at the ballot box. If the Arab world allowed free elections, Islamists would come to power. That happened in Algeria in 1992 and the military correctly had to step in because the alternative would have been far worse. The Arab emirs and dictators are no friends of America but their potential replacements would be even more extreme. That's the way Middle East politics works. While democracy can produce moderate governments, that hasn't happened with the Palestinians.
The "Arab Nation" is as rooted in reality as the communist idea of "international brotherhood of people". It exists only in the case of conflicts in which one of the sides is arabic/muslim, otherwise nobody gives a damn. Who of the Arab rulers in the Middle East would love to see a strong Iraq, either Sunni or Shia dominated?
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