What comes first?
Reader comment on article: Does Israel Need a Plan?

Submitted by Boris Frenkel (United States), Feb 2, 2003 at 20:58

Excellent article, Dr. Pipes, thank you.

Responding to one of the postings:
1. It would be naive to think that Arabs will ever stop teaching their children anything different, unless they see a need for it. This need will come with total defeat, because we saw that reforms, promises, negotiations did not help.

2. It would be naive to think that Arab countries will ever recognize that Israel is not their enemy unless they see a need for it. This need will come with total defeat of their current policy followed by powerful economic stimulus.

A question remains, are Palestinians/Arabs able to learn the lesson from their failed policy and take positive direction? Can we make this assumption that is proven to be true for Germans and Japaneese? Not being a racist, I certainly think so, otherwise my believes in uniform human nature will be quite damaged. However, I don't see much examples of this type of learning in the Muslim world in the past few centuries. Most if not all of their defeats caused further isolation from the rest of the world, further antagonism and frustration. Where is a dead-end of this trend? At which point the Muslim world will say: "Ok, it's enough, either we turn around or that's the end of it"? It does not seem this moment is close...

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