Good Readin’

October 6, 2006 - 12:21 PM by

From Commentary Magazine, a fascinating article outlining the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and its root causes, since 1948, with a look toward what has to happen in the future for there to be peace in the region. A clip:

That the Arab world still nurses a deep sense of wounded pride—a wound stemming from colonial subjugation and no doubt too from an awareness of the paucity of Arab achievements in modern times—is well known, as is the fact that into this wound Israel’s military victories and indeed Israel’s mere existence have rubbed a great deal of salt. . . . .

Curiously, the one exception in the Arab world to this pattern of opinion and emotion was in Lebanon itself. There is no doubt that the Lebanese were deeply bitter toward Israel for what it was doing to their country. But this did not prevent many of them, often at considerable personal risk, from expressing their anger as well at Hizballah and its patrons. . . . .

Outside of Lebanon itself, however, Hizballah’s popularity remained firm. And what drew “the admiring gaze of Arabs everywhere,” in the words of the scholar Vali Nasr, was assuredly not the sight of Lebanese blood but the sight of Israeli blood—the specter of Israeli vulnerability.

This helps explain why the Arab-Israel conflict has defied resolution. A leading Arab-American liberal said to me recently: “Of course the creation of Israel was an injustice, but I want to move on.” I believe him, and I believe there are many like him in the Arab world. But if it comes to seem possible that the “injustice” can once and for all be redressed, that the stain on Arab honor can at last be removed, how effectively will those in the region who think as he does oppose the call? In the exultant words of a columnist in a Hamas magazine, “The [Hizballah] victory in Lebanon will weaken those Palestinian voices that are heard from time to time, sometimes calling for making concessions, at other times calling for fortuitous ceasefires. Hamas will [now] be given a significant margin” to continue its “resistance.”

Hat tip: Yael

Tags: • Category: A New Reality, General, Politics 

Comments

One Comment on Good Readin’

  1. David on Sun, Oct 8th 2006 12:11 AM

    2. It is the ideological weakness so apparent eminating from Israel via its government. From Yitzhak Rabin to Arik Sharon and Barak in between who all lost their Zionist compasses to the weakness of Olmert that is the problem.

    It is essential that Israel stands up and declares the truth and rightness of its Zionist case.

    It is essential that Israel disregard the world and act with vehement overwhelming ruthlessness in military situations, only caring about one thing: defeat of the enemy and protection and defense of Israel.

    It was because of this attitude that Egypt made peace with Israel [be that peace ever so base] and why Jordan made peace, and why Saudi Arabia has always been wary of Israel [despite it being the nation of Wahabism], and so on.

    This is a very, very dangerous period Israel and the Jewish people are entering with Jew-hating in the form of anti-Israel attitudes and it now being trendy and chic in New York in Liberal circles to be against Israel.

    We can only win if we, the Jewish people, are unrelenting, unapologetic and defintely emphatic that we will survive, we will live and Israel will flourish because our will, as individual Jews will not bend and will not give up.

    We owe it to ourselves, to our children and to those who were murdered in the death camps when the world became deaf to their cries and to all the Jews who were persecuted and died refusing to give up who they were. Jews.

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