If you want to understand why much of the Arab world is a basket case, it’s worth considering Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s address to an Islamic Solidarity Conference in Mecca this week. Morsi came out in favor of regime change in Syria. But the most urgent problem facing the Muslim world today, he said, is the Palestinian issue.
Now consider a few simple statistics: Since the Syrian uprising began 17 months ago, more than 19,000 people have been killed, including more than 2,750 in July alone, according to the Syrian opposition. The number of Palestinians killed by Israel during those 17 months is around150, according to B’Tselem – less than 1 percent of the Syrian total. In fact, according to Palestinian casualty data compiled by the University of Uppsala, the Syrian death toll over the last 17 months is greater than the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel over the entire 64 years of its existence.
So by any objective standard, the Syrian problem would look incomparably more urgent: Solving it would save far more Muslim Arab lives than solving the Palestinian problem would. But for Morsi, and for all too many others in the Arab world, securing the well-being of his fellow Muslim Arabs is evidently less important than undermining the well-being of the hated Jewish state. The Syrian crisis being a purely intra-Arab conflict, solving it doesn’t contribute one iota to the latter goal. But an obsessive focus on the Palestinian problem does.
Of course, it’s also possible that Morsi doesn’t actually believe in the primacy of the Palestinian cause, but is merely playing the time-honored game that Arab opinion leaders – politicians, journalists, artists and intellectuals – have been playing for decades: Let’s divert attention from the internal problems of Arab society by focusing on an outside enemy. But either way, the message is the same: What really matters isn’t what the Arabs do to themselves, but what the Jews do to them, even if what Arabs are doing to themselves (or each other) is far worse. And therefore, the focus of Arab activity must be Israel, not the Arab world’s internal problems – even if focusing on the latter would do more to actually improve the lot of ordinary Arabs.
More than half a century ago, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said that “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” Sadly, that’s still true. But it’s equally true that as long as Arab leaders accord higher priority to their campaign against Israel than they do to the welfare of their own people, the Arab world will continue to lag far behind the West by almost any standard of human well-being.
In fact, the Arab world has paid a far higher price for its Israel obsession than Israel ever has. The Jewish state has grown and thrived despite being continuously at war. But ordinary Arabs can still be slaughtered by their own government while their Arab brethren look on and yawn – and continue prating about Israel.
God works in mysterious ways. n nThe more they hate Israel, the more they cannibalize and weaken themselves. n nAs long as we keep sharp instruments and nuclear weapons out of their hands, not so bad. n nHow they treat each other is quite instructive, furthermore. n nIt should remind all people of good will how the Jews would be treated should Israel be overrun, and its people fall into Arab hands. Sobering.
What Morsi means that Palestinian issue is more intractable than Syrian Issue. Morsi understood that problem in Syria will solve soon in favorable to him. But Palestinian issue is lingering forever with no solution in sight while Israel is eating away everything nYou shouldn't see his comment under the Israeli Prism. n
Amazing isn't it. n nAnyway I decided to check out UNDP website for fun. At first I couldn't find 'Palestine' but then I realized it wasn't labeled under 'P' it was labeled under 'O' for occupied. That's our UN. But it gets 'better' for 'Palestine' they have on their map Jerusalem. But on Israel's map, the have Jerusalem labeled as West and East. Sadly, this conflict will never die.
No, the Jews mean something else, something deeper, to them. n nAs is was for Hitler, so it is for devout desert muslims. The Jews are the archetypical and arch enemy. The nemesis.
"Of course, it’s also possible that Morsi doesn’t actually believe in the primacy of the Palestinian cause, but is merely playing the time-honored game that Arab opinion leaders – politicians, journalists, artists and intellectuals – have been playing for decades: Let’s divert attention from the internal problems of Arab society by focusing on an outside enemy." n nMuslim leaders go after Jews because it's the one thing the vast majority of Muslims can agree about. From the Muslim perspective, every day that a Jew continues to draw breath is a day that the ummah hasn't fulfilled the mitzvah handed down by the Prophet Muhammad. This isn't the doing of Muslim leaders – it's the result of over 50 generations of religious tradition handed down from father to son. Muslim leaders talk about the Jewish problem because the ummah responds positively to it. If Muslims had been taught by their forebears, from generation to generation, to love Jews, Muslim leaders would undoubtedly mirror that affection. n nThe neo-conservative assertion – that the ummah are blank slates waiting for their political leaders to write on – is absurd. Muslims don't need new gods – they've found that the one they've got (Allah, with Muhammad as his divinely ordained sidekick) perfectly serviceable. They don't get their prejudices from their political leaders; they get them from their ancestors, handed down from one generation to the next.
President Morsi and the media in general, including COMMENTARY, do not do the most elementary history. "Palestinian" has been synonymous with "Jew" since the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea to "Palestina" in 135 A.D., after having defeated the last Jewish rebellion under Bar Kochba. (He also outlawed Judaism and changed the name of Jerusalem to "Aelia Capitolina," Aelius" being his gens name.) Since that time, the name "Palestine" was synonymous with "land of the Jews," which is why after World War I, Great Britain was given the "Palestine Mandate" to be "the homeland of the Jews." nCalling Jew-hating Arabs "Palestinian" is the consequence of the invention of the "Palestine Liberation Organization" (P.L.O.) by Gamal Nasser, ruler of Egypt, and the Soviet Union, both haters of Jews, in Cairo in 1964. The name became used to Arabs as a consequence of the massacre of the Israeli (continued)
(continued) the massacre of the Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972 by the "P.L.O." n n(Note that while the Olympic Committee under Rogge refused to honor the murdered athletes with a moment of silence, he included the group that murdered them in the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games as the nation of "Palestine." Of course, there is no nation of Palestine.