It May Be Drivel, But ..........

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), May 25, 2010 at 18:43

In Daniel Pipes' report of Brendan Goldman's comments on a Marzui quote, I was very intrigued when Goldman said, "He [Marzui] was more interested in why 'Arabs lagged behind Jews in manifest genius' ".

It's been a long time since I can remember anybody frankly addressing one of the bigger 'pink elephants in the room' regarding Arab/Israeli relations. Namely, that a great deal of the mindless hate and violence many if not all Arabs feel toward Jews in general and Israelis in particular is due to rampant envy, conscious and unconscious, of Jewish accomplishments compared to the ongoing multiple dysfunctionalities of Islamic Arab civilization.

I can recall that when the Jewish experiment was underway in earnest after World War I, many Arabs flowed into Palestine not, as I initially thought, to fight Jews, but to find work toward a better life. But then Hussein, the Mufti of Jerusalem and one of the more triumphantly evil figures of the 20th century, managed, with unremitting religious intolerance, hatred, violence, and the killing of reasonable ('moderate') Arab Palestinians, to halt and reverse the process of accommodation that had actually been unfolding.

It would of course be a monumental sin of political incorrectness to actually say that many Arabs and Muslims would like to destroy Israel just to remove the offensive example of a far more accomplished society, whose mere existence is a standing rebuke to their political and economic backwardness. And, perhaps even deeper, the terrible Islamic and tribal treatment of half their population, the women.

So to have a well-known figure actually bring up this radical disparity of achievement ever since the drive to Israeli statehood was launched, and achieved, even if he tried to explain it away with a hodge-podge of statements that can be described as drivel, should perhaps be seen as an opportunity to discuss manifest facts, rather than dismissed by calling all his comments Anti-Semitism.

I think something much more interesting could be seen in his comments, and the initiative that might be launched from them. Such as, 'Just what are the reasons for the far greater levels of accomplishment by Jews in their own land, and in the countries where they have achievments far out of proportion to their numbers? And why are Arabs still dysfunctional in their own countries, and a growing disturbance and even menace in countries where they are living in large numbers?

Surely there is an enormous amount to discuss here, precisely on the basis of Marzui's quote cited above.

Ron Thompson

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