Times columnist Nikolas Kristof contributes another in a series of dimwitted columns on the Middle East crisis, enlightening us on the source of Arab double-standards towards human violations caused by Israel as opposed to their own leaders.
Some 1,600 Palestinians have been killed since the latest round of violence erupted in the fall of 2000. In contrast, two million Sudanese have died in the ongoing civil war here, with barely anyone noticing. Likewise, Syria blithely killed about 20,000 people in crushing an abortive uprising in the city of Hama in 1982. And Saddam Hussein, who has killed more Arabs than Ariel Sharon and all his Israeli predecessors put together, is somehow a hero for much of the Arab world.
Andrew Sullivan's response is merciless, but on point. Kristof may want to look into the rabid anti-Semetism angle. However, since he is a Pullitzer-prize winning journalist, he almost trips over the core answer.
Another reason for the double standard in the Middle East is that Arab countries are shame-based societies, and Israeli repression of Arabs is seen not just as brutal, but also as humiliating. When a group of Yemenis scolded me for American support of Israel, I retorted that America supports the Middle Eastern leader who gives his Arab citizens the greatest political freedom, and that's Ariel Sharon. There was a long pause. Then one replied that Israel is a colonial outpost and that as a result while Israeli Arabs may have ballots and free speech, they have no dignity. In other words, protesters are enraged not just because Israel kills Arabs, but also because it humiliates them.
Shame - dignity - humilation - none of these have anything to do with Israeli actions on the West Bank, but with the exsitence of Israel as a sovreign Jewish state. History is instructive here. The Arab-Jewish encounter didn't just begin in the 19th century with a "colonial outpost." It goes back to the dawn of the Islamic age, and for the most part the ground rules were clear - the Arabs ruled, and the Jews resided at the grace of their Arab hosts. For the most part the Arabs played must more congenial hosts than Christian Europe - but the Jews always knew their place. The creation of the state of Israel changed all that - for the first time, Jews demanded to be met as equals, not subservients. In a word, they got "uppity." And so, like the poor Southern whites who responded to the newly-freed Blacks by created the Ku Klux Klan, the everyman of the Arab world, denied everything else, can funnel his frustration into the surest sign that the world has turned upside down - the existence of a sovreign, independent, flourishing Jewish state. Until world leaders recognize and address this pathological aspect of Arab society, no amount of diplomacy will ever achieve peace between Israel and its neighbors.
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