There are two kinds of Arabs in this world. Those who hate Jews, and those who don’t. And in my life, I have met more of the former than the latter.
I am not proud to say that. Arabs will not like me for admitting it. But it is true. And it is something I wish the Obama administration understood. It is something Americans should know as the “Arab Spring” enters its second year.
I didn’t know much about any of this as a Lebanese kid growing up in New Jersey. But I found out about it when I wrote my first pro-Israel column for my college paper as a young student journalist.
I defended Israel on some point I’ve long forgotten, but what I’ll never forget is the backlash I received from fellow Arabs. Some were Americans, others were students from Arab countries, many of whom I counted as friends.
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First came the letters to the editor, then the personal insults. It was as if I’d broken a secret code I didn’t know existed. Some secret blood oath, which goes something like this: Arabs don’t speak unkindly of Arabs in public, or kindly about Israel.
The backlash stunned me. I pondered the pounding I had taken, and floundered a bit. I even thought for a short time of writing something negative about Israel the next time I had a chance, just to balance things out and reestablish my Arab bona fides.
One friend accused me of being a self-hating Arab. He explained to me that I was exploiting my ancestry to ingratiate myself with white America and the Jews who controlled white America.
I explained to him that I was white. And that I was an American. And that I didn’t believe that Jews controlled America. The Jewish men I knew had a hard enough time controlling their own families! But nothing I said helped relieve the tension, not even my stab at humor.
I also explained that many of my Jewish friends did not like my column. Most were liberals from New York or northern New Jersey who assumed I was with them on the politics of the Middle East, that I was in agreement with the governing thesis that drives most Arabs and liberal Jews: that it is Israel that is the problem in the region, not the Palestinians, and not the Arab world itself.
I also explained to him that I was mostly Lebanese, but also part German and part Italian, and that I was raised by parents who didn’t much care for the whole notion of hyphenated America. They taught me to think for myself, and have the courage to challenge authority. Even theirs, if I could make the case.
The fact is, Arabs don’t all look alike or think alike. But we are often pushed into a kind of groupthink, a kind of self-censorship that hinders our development and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
We are not a universal group. But some of us believe in a simple universal truth: that every Arab deserves to live in freedom, wherever he or she might call home. Some of us want Arab countries to be more like America and Israel, places where the individual can flourish.
Say those words to many Arabs and they are shocked and angered. Soon, words like imperialist are thrown about, and the subject turns to Israel. Always, it seems, it turns to Israel.
Why the anger when I hint that America and Israel might have something to teach the Arab world? I thought about it for the longest time, and only recently stumbled upon the answer.
It is all about Arab self-doubt. It is all tied to a profound lack of cultural self-confidence, and a deep-seated fear that maybe, just maybe, Arabs won’t be very good at the self-governance thing. That Arab nations won’t be capable of building democratic cultures that engender the flourishing of human freedom, and that these nations won’t have the ability to tap the God-given talents of their people the way Americans and Israelis do.
That maybe, just maybe, the Arab world will never measure up to America or Israel.
Better, goes the logic, to cling to anger over the plight of the Palestinians. Better to cling to international policy disputes and to a deep-seated hatred of Israel. Better to play the role of victim, and the role of self-righteous critic, than to do the hard work of lifting up the conditions of your people.
yeah and maybe hell will freeze over and pigs will fly.
sorry my friend, but what you hope for will never happen. that should have been evident when they were burning effigies of mubarak with a star of daivd painted on his forehead (which the worlds msm blatantly ignored). hatred of "the jews" is how power is gained and held in the middle east and that will never change
Mr. Habeeb, your hypotheses provide much to think about. In any case where we focus on exterior issues, we lose sight of what we can do to change our circumstance.
In your reference to the late Rafic Hariri, however, you are correct and it is without question that he was a great man of peace, in ALL the world.
Way to go, Lee! Perhaps if there were 100,000 more with guts like yours, the world would be a better place. I do believe that most Arabs and Muslims also are afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation and even death.
You make an interesting argument. I had not considered anti-Semitism a by-product of envy. But, it makes sense.
It's also interesting to note, freedom is scary - for countries, for governments, and for people. You're right, there is no way to avoid responsibility for the results, if you're free.
Excellent Mr. Lee. I like all the questions posed by you. Power of introspection is often overlooked and lashing out at a preceived (sp?) enemy seems to be the norm of the human psyche, I suppose. I always wondered as to why and how some countries continue to flounder to have decent elected governments without having to succumb to Mullah rule. Case in point, a non Arab country, Pakistan which for all practical purposes should have been progressing at least as much as it's neighbor India. But alas no such luck.
Why is it that some populations inherently do not seem capable of establishing civilian governments with rule of law, respect, justice and equality for all (including women), freedom from persecution? I don't know the answer but certainly am delighted to read Mr. Lee's questions!!!!!
Excellent article. Sadly, as Mr. Habeeb points out, far too many Arabs fall into the Jew hating category. To compound matters, this hatred and the amount of resources spent on efforts to spread and enhance it only slows the advancement of Arab states and peoples in the world.
Great analysis Mr. Habeeb! I've also been fascinated by the achievement gap and it's effect on Arab sentiment. Of course, Israel is a largely European transplant country in the mideast, and that is why the gap exists. ("Guns, Germs, and Steel") There are many similarities to the US and our indigenous "Indian" population. In fact, Israelis travel to the West Bank for casino gambling, just as we go to reservations! Fascinating.
hate to break it to you, but the majority of Israelis are native born or are from the ARAB world! They are not "European transplants." Nice, subtle dig though.
I began 'Guns, Germs and Steel' at the behest of a teenage daughter of my neighbor as she had been given it as an assignment in High School. It was an irritating litany of mental contortion made in an attempt to remove Jewish and Christian values from the arena when discussing success. It's examples and reasoning were flawed and ignored a good deal of history in order to make a point. In all of history the countries that made the most advances the quickest were predominantly Christian, and historically most often tolerant of Jews if not welcoming. The U.S. the most productive, generous and successful country in terms of industry and human liberty welcomed Jews from the start. General Washington wrote a letter to a community of Jews telling them that they would always be a welcome addition to this country, more so than the Catholics even.
The reasons behind societal success were illustrated to me by a Polish teenager who lived with us after his father died. His parents were refugees form Soviet occupied Poland. He understood from them what kept Poland from achieving success in the years after WWII. He used the antebellum south as an example of what creates success, Christianity and freedom. In the U.S. prior to the Civil War the North was an economic powerhouse. The South was a stagnant morass dependent on the North for most of its manufactured goods. The slaves, a majority of whom were Christian, were too oppressed to be innovative. After the Civil War the Christian slaves moved north and began to write beautiful literature, compose music, invent and patent innovations to existing machinery, they became doctors, lawyers, school teachers and ministers. Once the former slaves were free they had the drive and ability to avail themselves of the same opportunities for success, and the strength to do so in spite of having to overcome the racist attitudes of some of the communities they moved to when they left the South. The ten commandments make you free. They exist solely in Jewish and Christian teaching.
Take countries that became secular in the 20th century, China, Cuba,the Soviet Union, and the countries occupied by the Soviets after WWII, they became a mess economically, and human life became cheap. No freedom and no ten commandments, about 100 million people died as a result of communism, the forced secular collectivism of the 'utopia' seekers. Get rid of Christian values and you have oppression and death on a scale unprecedented to mankind.
With all due respect, there are so many holes in your anecdotal interpretation of American history one scarcely knows where to begin. Your assertion that the South was a godless morass is inane, especially when you juxtapose it against your claim for Northern virtue. You completely ignore the reality that the virtue-filled Northern industrial utopia you describe was fueled by raw materials (i.e., cotton) that were a product of slave labor. In fact, from a financial standpoint, the North profited more from slavery than the South did. You also ignore the historical fact that a large proportion of the slaves in the South were imported by Northern entrepreneurs deeply involved in the slave trade (e.g., the Brown family, who bestowed their name and fortune to the Ivy League college in Rhode Island, made their fortune in trafficking human flesh). Your entire argument disintegrates in a similar fashion when exposed to the light of Truth.
@Bhunter, Please don't misinterpret what I said. The North wasn't all virtuous, and the South wasn't anti Christian. The point that the young man staying with us made was that you need both Christianity and freedom for success to happen. Freedom alone in the absence of Christian values won't work because people aren't naturally always good. Like the rules of driving you need certain guidelines for how to get along. The guidelines this young man pointed out were the ten commandments which were passed from Judaism to Christianity. For instance, not stealing or coveting what your neighbor has gives him the chance to be successful without having to fear losing the benefit of his hard work. Slavery held back the South economically as it meant that jobs were taken by a group of people who were not paid that could have gone to a group that would have been paid. This created a divide between the wealthy southerners and the poorer ones. The northerners were more innovative because the people doing the work were free. Even someone doing the crummiest job could be innovative if he found a way to accomplish his work more easily. There's little incentive for innovation if you don't benefit from the fruits of your labor. Anyway, the point Ian was making was more to illustrate that the success of this country came from a combination of Christian values and freedom. Once the slaves were free they became as creative and innovative as the rest of society.
I don't see anywhere in my comment where I say that the south was Godless or that the north was all virtue. If I did then I deserve to be corrected. My information on how the poor southerner experienced the economy in the south came from an account written in 1857 by Hinton Ravan Helper called A Poor White's Opinion of Slavery in which the author points out that southerners were compelled to rely on northern industry, "for almost every article of utility and adornment, from matches, shoepegs and paintings, up to cotton-mills, steamships and statuary; that we have no foreign trade, no princely merchants, nor respectable artists ; that, in comparison with the free states, we contribute nothing to the literature, polite arts and inventions of the age; that, for want of profitable employment at home, large numbers of our native population find themselves necessitated to emigrate to the West, whilst the free states retain not only the larger proportion of those born within their own limits, but induce annually, hundreds of thousands of foreigners to settle and remain amongst them...." This goes on, but you get the gist of what Mr. Helper was saying. Slavery held back southern industry and creativity. Mr. Helper wrote this in 1857, so I figured he knew more about the situation than I did. Too bad he didn't have you to set him straight.
By the way, this article was published in a Source Readers in American History, No.4 textbook published in 1904. I read a lot of old textbooks when I was a kid because I was curious to know what kids were taught a long time ago. Some of these old textbooks were undoubtedly inaccurate, so if I get corrected it's a good thing, it's just that in this case the author probably knew more about the situation because he was living it.
Excuse me but if raw materials from the South were so important then why the Union's economy didn't crumble during the Civil War? How it is that in fact in 1864 the Union produced _more_ of about everything than in 1861? How it is that in fact it often produced more than the whole of the United States before the Secession? So much for the North's industry needing the South's slave-produced raw materials.
The truth is that the South exported little beyond cotton and that the Confederates far overestimated its importance. Not only it impacted little on the North but the attempt of forcing European countries to reconize the CSA by depriving them of cotton and causing economic recession and social unrest made the same negligible impact on their economies it had made on the Union's.
Actually, the North was dependent on the South for its resources, namely cotton (aka King Cotton). Far from being a "stagnant morass", the South produced two-thirds of the *world's* supply of cotton. The South's production of cotton was worth more than all other exports combined.
In order for the North to have the necessary resources to manufacture, it needed much of the South's resources. THAT is the reason that Lincoln and the North didn't want the South to secede. It was all about money and power, as it almost always is.
To Ron Reich. No Israel is not a largely European transplant. Jews are Semites, like all the people in the area. It is incorrect to talk of Arab antisemitism as it might be construed as a form of self hatred. Judeophobia would be more appropriate.
And do not forget that the European/Western values were first dreamt in the middle east.
That is specious drivel. Anti-Semitism is an exclusively anti-Jewish phenomenon whose political manifestations are sourced from the 19th century and are traced in both the Christian and Muslilm worlds for 2000 and 1400yrs respectively as the Jews rejected both Jesus and Mohammed.
It is found and espoused in all arab countries. Do you suggest that arab anti-Semites are thus against themselves?
Such sophistry is just another plot to disenfranchise and delegitimise Jews and their unique history of suffering. Anti-Semitism entered its racial phase only under the racial mania of National Socialism otherwise it was vilification directed against Jewish belief (or non-belief) systems and Jewish social participation. Jews are not a race. The semantics of arabs as semitic peoples has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
Anthropologically speaking the concept of 'race' has been discredited and is now exclusively used by racists and fascists to make absurd points like this one that appeals to the bigotry of the simple minded.
