Dr Ginosar Recalls

Again and again Israelis and my friends complain how come no one listen to reason about the Israeli/Palestinian reality. After all, the Israelis are going beyond any nation in history to reduce the suffering of its enemies. Enemies that are dedicated to extinguishing Israel. For example: The civilian casualties in the internal Arab world conflicts were 3 to 1 civilians to military, that is three civilians killed for one military person. [Total 5 millions died]. The Israelis have an opposite ratio, ten military casualties to one civilian. That is, the Arabs have been murdering their own civilian brothers 30 times more than the casualties caused by Israeli defending themselves.

Reasons, facts, logic, make very little impact on our emotionally-driven life. We want quick solutions, peace immediately, and solve problems now. That is the American expectation. But that is a dream. The Muslim world is a slow motion world, they wait, and they remember history of a thousand years back as if it was yesterday. Not long ago a million Shia Muslims run in the streets in Iraq cutting themselves in the memory of one of their religious leaders of more than millennia ago.

As the Arab world is changing radically in front of our eyes we will see more negative impacts, on the typical Arab life and their relationship with Israel and the West.

Expect serious difficulties in the total region for a long time.

Matania

The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood - Shelby Steele
The Arab-Israeli conflict is really a war of the Arabs against the Jews. The Durban conferences, the request for UN recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, and the general animus in the Middle East and elsewhere toward Israel and toward the Jews, what are they really about? Their real interest is to situate the Palestinian people within a narrative of victimization. Supporters of Israel are up against a poetic truth that no facts and no reason can ever penetrate. We keep hitting it with all the facts. We keep hitting it with obvious logic and reason - but it never has an impact.
Who would the Palestinians be if they were not victims? This narrative is the source of their power. It is the source of their funding. The idea among Palestinians that they are victims is the centerpiece of their very identity. It is not an idle thing. Our facts and our reason are not going to penetrate easily that definition.   The writer is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. (Hudson Institute New York)

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