Lying Is Cultural Trait Of Arabs, Says Barak

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 5-23-2002 | Brian Whitaker

[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."

[miss marmelstein]

our first Arab President...

Thanks for the laugh!

[timestax]

Actually lying is very much an Asian characteristic. It is also a tribal trait where. Your tribe or, in the case of Moslems, your religion is the entire legitimate world. Everything outside of your world is enemy and giving them true information is giving the enemy power over you. Within these societies the dynamic works at the level of the clan and the family also. There is no desire to work with other groups because you must not give those others power over you. Other groups are tolerated so long as it is necessary and displaced when possible.

Very interesting!

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[aculeus]

Lying and stupidity.

[Mamzelle]

"War is deception"--Mohammed

[dennisw]

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[dennisw]

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[dennisw]

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[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Actually it fits the entire set of cultures in South Asia and the Middle East. Try doing business with the bastards.

Please add West Africa to your list!

[gitmo]

"Truth is seen as an irrelevant category," he says."There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't." Mr Barak said in an interview today.

How it'll be reported in the Arab press, attributed to him and twisted around.

BINGO

[TADSLOS]

The sad part is that Barak and other arabs don't see the moral wrongness of lying even after recognizing it as a cultural trait and announcing it publicly. He tries to pass it fatalistically as a lame excuse, expecting us to bite the moral equivalancy bait. Why should the Judeo-Christian world trust any treaty, any agreement, political or otherwise from arabs? According to Barak, we can't. Ultimately, as history has shown, the only thing these people understand is power in the form of overwhelming brute force. They respect that, just look at Saddam and Iraq.

[swarthyguy]

You may not want to take my word for that.

[gitmo]

LOL

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[Don Myers]

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[Bill Davis FR]

AND THE KORAN TEACHES THE MUSLIMS TO LIE TO JEWS AND CHRISTIANS...THEIR MESSAGER MOHAMMED SAID TO LIE TO THE NONBELIEVERS....

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[TomSmedley]

It is also a tribal trait where. Your tribe or, in the case of Moslems, your religion is the entire legitimate world.

Good friend of mine is an engineer from Burma, a tribal man 3 generations out of the stone age. About 500 people speak his native language. "Walk five miles down the road, and nobody understands you anymore."

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