Posted on 08/02/2006 9:32:45 PM PDT by Tolik
Despite the claims of terrorist organizations, Israel's current two-front war is not just about land. After all, Hezbollah and Hamas fired rockets from Lebanon and Gaza well after Israel had withdrawn from both places.
Indeed, if sacred Arab ground were the driving force of the Middle East crisis, then surely Syria itself would now be willing to risk a shooting war over the all important Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Meanwhile, Cairo is still perhaps the nexus of virulent Arab anti-Semitism, even though Israel finished handing over Sinai to Egypt in 1982.
The world prayed that after the unilateral departure of Israel from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and the recent elections in Beirut and the West Bank, it was witnessing an incremental evolution toward a lasting peace between rational democratic states. Gradually, Israel was returning to its 1967 borders. In response, gradually, it was hoped, Israel's Arab neighbors would vote into office reasonable statesmen who would renounce terror and get on with the business of crafting workable economies and governments. But all that optimism presupposed a radical change in the Middle Eastern mentality. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened.
So, if the most recent war in Lebanon and Gaza is not about land per se, then whence arises the elemental desire to destroy Israel?
The answer boils down to Islamists feeling their reputation is at stake. Words like "honor" and "pride" are evoked -- in the sense that they need to be regained -- by every insecure radical in the Islamic world, from al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden to Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Fist-shaking crowds, fiery mullahs and terrorists all boast of not giving an inch to infidels, and of the restoration of the now sullied honor of the Islamic people.
Why their hurt?
For about the last half-century, globalization has passed most of the recalcitrant Middle East by -- economically, socially and politically. The result is that there are now few inventions and little science emanating from the Islamic world -- but a great deal of poverty, tyranny and violence. And rather than make the necessary structural changes that might end cultural impediments to progress and modernity -- such as tribalism, patriarchy, gender apartheid, polygamy, autocracy, statism and fundamentalism -- too many Middle Easterners have preferred to embrace the reactionary past and the cult of victimization.
At one time or another, they have welcomed all the bankrupt ideologies that traditionally blame others for prior self-induced failure: fascism, communism, Baathism, Pan-Arabism and, most recently, Islamic fundamentalism.
When there is high unemployment, corruption, zero economic growth, endemic illiteracy and no freedom, mullahs, dictators and jihadists of the Middle East always seem to fault the ancient colonial power -- Britain, France or Italy (though rarely Islamic Turkey) -- that supposedly set them back over a century ago. Or they try blaming the omnipotent United States whose oilmen developed the riches of the Gulf and whose military has saved Muslims from Kosovo to Kuwait.
But above all, for decades leaders like Gamal Nasser, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden have scapegoated tiny Israel.
It is the closest Western bogeyman, and its Holocaust survivors transformed a part of desert into a technologically sophisticated Western state. Israel's astounding success is a constant irritant to many nearby Muslims, representing the infidel's ability to fashion a prosperous Middle Eastern society without oil revenues under democratic auspices.
Victimization turns out to be the real creed of the Middle East, uniting disparate Shiites, Sunnis, dictators, theocrats and terrorists. "They did it to us" offers an easy explanation of why Islamic states are now weak and offer little hope to millions of their poor, who, ironically, emigrate to the much pilloried West by the millions.
American cash aid, Israeli concessions, windfall petrol profits and, most of all, appeasement of radical Islamists can do nothing to alleviate these perceived grievances.
Instead, there will be no peace in the general Middle East until Iranians and Arabs have true constitutional government, free institutions, open markets and the rule of law. Without these reforms, they will continue to fail, seeking easy refuge in the shreds of mythical ancestral honor -- and this pathetic neurosis of blaming nearby Israel for the loss of it.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com
Excellent as always. Thanks for posting.
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
They'd have a much better time of selling their *victim* case if they'd have just said no to blowing themselves up and urging their own children to do so as well.
Another home run by VDH!
Thanks for the ping. Another great read.
"The Haj" by Leon Uris has clarifying insights in it about the craziness of Israel's enemies...
It's even worse than that! The modern Islamics have failed the Prophet Mohammed. Mohammed defeated the and subjugated the Jews, stole there holy books, and reduced them to dhimni status.
Now these modern Islamics lose one war after another to the Jews, lose Jerusalem, and are humiliated by the shining achievements of Jewish intellectuals and scientists.
Modern Islamics have shown themselves to be unworthy of the Prophet and are desperately trying to take back their perceived place in the world. They just don't have what it takes.
"It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world." [FReeper Retief]
Reforms like that would require revolutions march through the region like Sherman through Georgia.
To the Citizens of Atlanta: General Sherman instructs me to say to you that you must all leave Atlanta; that as many of you as want to go North can do so, and that as many as want to go South can do so, and that all can take with them their movable property, servants included, if they want to go, but that no force is to be used; and that he will furnish transportation for persons and property as far as Rough and Ready, from whence it is expected General Hood will assist in carrying it on. Like transportation will be furnished for people and property going North, and it is required that all things contemplated by this notice will be carried into execution as soon as possible.
OOORAH
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Good article. Thanks for posting.
Good article. Saved. Thanks.
Are you aware that Muslims call Muhammad the perfect man? Whose example they must emulate. This is the linchpin of Islam. To emulate the life of Muhammad. Once I understood this I understood Islam. The problem with Islam is the murderer who founded it
Now these modern Islamics lose one war after another to the Jews, lose Jerusalem, and are humiliated by the shining achievements of Jewish intellectuals and scientists.
Modern Islamics have shown themselves to be unworthy of the Prophet and are desperately trying to take back their perceived place in the world. They just don't have what it takes.
Well, I do think that Islam needs to be reformed but I have some serious reservations about the extent to which that is possible because Muhammad is considered the perfect man and ultimate role model for Muslims and the problem is that he himself had people assassinated and he ordered the beheading of hundreds of Jews and he financed his exploits by robbing caravans and he took slaves and he said that "war is deceit" So, you know, it's hard to be optimistic."
What is the concept of Muhammad as a "perfect man" (al-insan al-kamil) and the behavior of Muhammad in his 78 military campaigns, including his stated reason for the campaign against the Jews of the Khaybar oasis, and his execution of the Jews of the Bani Qurayza taken prisoner?
Clarity, good sense, and a joy to read, as always...thanks.
When we invent dandelion fuel or the next best thing, and the world stops buying oil, Arabs will have nothing but carpets and sand to sell. At that point as always, it'll be someone else's fault...Jews, America. Whatever.
Holy mackerel, General Sherman's message to the citizens of Atlanta reads like leaflets Israel's dropping over Lebanon. The more things change, etc..
Does VDH have a speaking schedule anywhere that I could check out? I would love to meet him and get him to sign my book.
Absolutley brilliant and a masterpiece of concise and informative analysis on the ME today.
Hanson hits a home run with the bases loaded here.
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