Posted on 05/22/2002 8:24:29 PM PDT by blam
Lying is cultural trait of Arabs, says Barak
Brian Whitaker in Jerusalem
Thursday May 23, 2002
The Guardian
Palestinians have no compunction about telling lies and see truth as irrelevant, the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak has claimed in an interview. "They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie... creates no dissonance," Mr Barak says. "They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judaeo-Christian culture."
"Truth is seen as an irrelevant category," he says."There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for whom everything is permissible. There is no such thing as 'the truth'."
Interviewed by the Jewish historian Benny Morris for an article in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Mr Barak not only relates his comments about lying to Yasser Arafat in particular, but to Arab society in general.
He says: "The deputy director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation once told me that there are societies in which lie detectors don't work, societies in which lies do not create cognitive dissonance [on which the tests are based]."
As an example of Mr Arafat's alleged mendacity, Mr Barak cites an incident in October 2000, shortly after the start of the intifada. The Israeli and Palestinian leaders, together with Madeleine Albright, the US secretary of state at the time, were meeting in Paris to discuss a ceasefire.
Mr Arafat had agreed to call a number of his police commanders to implement a truce.
Mr Barak recalls protesting: "'But these are not the people organising the violence. If you are serious, then call Marwan Bargouti and Hussein al-Sheikh [two West Bank Fatah leaders].'
"Arafat looked at me, with an expression of blank innocence, as if I had mentioned the names of two polar bears, and said, 'Who? Who?'
"So I repeated the names, this time with a pronounced, clear Arabic inflection... and Arafat again said, 'Who? Who?'
"At this, some of his aides couldn't stop themselves and burst out laughing. And Arafat, forced to drop the pretence, agreed to call them later."
"Truth is seen as an irrelevant category," he says."There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't.
There is no way to live at peace with a person or group who despises objective truth. It's the same spirit of lawlessness at work. Leftists, globalists, palpots...
They sound a lot like democrats. No wonder they take their side so often.
Also concerning Arabs, you do NOT, repeat NOT want to leave any female of any age or condition alone with an Arab man for even a second.
The flip side of their despising women as inferior and always holding the WOMAN to blame in any sexual embroglio, is the moral obligation Arab males feel to try and force intercourse on any woman or girl left alone in their presence. Unprotected goods are goods for the taking, and I had a Palistinian friend tell me once, in his cups, that the terms for rape in Arabic, both slang and traditional, do NOT have a negative connotation.
Something like "to take by happy storm" as I think he said. On sobering up, he said he regretted telling me this.
Fascinating culture.
So as the Democrats and other leftists, like the pathetic Brits, will tell you, we simply MUST keep importing these exotic creatures into our countries so that in a generation or two there won't be anything left of anything we hold dear. What happy days these are.
If you think Arabs are rational creatures, the news just came in that Pakistan, in the middle of this horrific nuclear stand-off, has just tested a surface-to-surface missile in Northern Pakistan. Wonderful folks, and if your child's milk is glowing in the dark a week or two from now, you can thank the ARABS and the MUSLIMS.
Remember the beard salesman (played by Eric Idle) in Life of Brian?
No, no. Not like 'at. You've got to 'aggle!
Hmmmmmm, that explains alot.....
You've got to 'aggle!I swear, I've lived that one. I thought of that line many times... Classic!
It's funny, cuz whitebread Americans like me are afraid to haggle. We'd rather just shut up and pay. Hell, we even have a major automobile line sold specifically to the "Pay Full Retail" personality type. Granted, it's named for a planet, but those of us who pay full retail like this kind of marketing, I guess. (Disclosure: I bought one of the first Saturns... -- heh, I believed Ronbo when he said 'buy American.' I even started an export business as a political statement.)
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