Arab honour and the peace process
By Ted Belman
Arab honour is at the root of Arab rejectionism and intransigence. It prevents Arabs from accepting blame or compromising. It also prevents Arabs from losing land to Israel or ending the conflict.
Arab honour is closely linked to Islamic concepts of jihad and dhimmitude. Arab honour impells them to seek domination. Failure to dominate, dishonours them. Accepting responsibility is an anathema to their honour..
Muslim violence against the publication in Denmark of cartoons featuring Mohammed is a prime example of their refusal to accept the rule of law or western norms that are at odds with what their honour demands. The same goes for their reaction to Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.
Prof Richard Landes covers this phenomenon in Part III of “Paradigms and the Middle East Conflict.” titled HJP: Honour Jihad paradigm
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“The HJP understands the Arab-Israeli conflict through the prism of honor-shame culture and Islamic jihad. These elements of Arab culture are the main factors that have made it impossible to reach a solution to the conflict. Arab leaders view any compromise with Israel as “losing face,” since such an agreement would mean recognizing as a “worthy foe” an inferior group that should be subject. Such a blow to Arab honor cannot be tolerated for cultural and political reasons: losing face means to feel utter humiliation, to lose public credibility, and to lose power.[..]
“According to HSJP, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fueled by wounded Arab honor and frustrated religious imperialism.”
Denis Schulz on Honor and Islam writes
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“The less honor reposing in a person or a group, the more angry and violent the response to any challenge, real or imagined, by said person or group.”and “[..]
..those who have the least of it spend the most time defending it”.
The peace process, if not the existence of Israel itself, is closely tied to the necessitudes of Arab honour. The Arabs simply refuse to accept responsibility for the problem and therein lies the problem.
Using Shulz’s insight, the bigger the defeat, the greater the need to be fully vindicated.
In The refugees, still essential to peace, Rami G. Khouri* claims the Arabs wish to achieve a negotiated, peaceful end to their conflict. I beg to differ. If the Arabs were so willing, why aren’t they willing to compromise by agreeing to accept 95% of the land. The truth is, they are willing to end the conflict, if at all, only on their terms.
For Khouri, “Israel’s refusal to come to grips with the core issue that matters for the Palestinians, which is their status as refugees.” is what is preventing peace.
While he acknowledges “half the people were forced into exile, either by deliberate Zionist ethnic cleansing or by the normal dynamics of war that caused civilians to flee temporarily to safer areas.” he fails to mention that the Arabs started the ‘48 war or that the invading Arab armies counseled the Arabs to leave. He makes the ahistorical claim that “the national community of Palestinians was shattered” whereas no such community existed at the time.
He demands that
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“Israel acknowledges its role in the refugeehood of the Palestinians and takes steps to end that problem. The Arabs have all accepted the demand that they coexist in peace and normal relations with an Israeli state that is predominantly Jewish, as it is now, with Jews comprising around 80 percent of the population. The Israelis in return have not moved at all toward coming to terms with the legal, political and moral decisions they must take to play their central role in resolving Palestinian refugeehood – since they were the principal party in bringing it about. “
I would argue that but for Arab aggression against Israel, there would be no refugee problem, I would further argue that but for Arab refusal to resettle the refugees as Israel did Jewish refugees from Arab countries, there would be no such problem.
But he does make an interesting analogy,
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The current Israeli superiority in military power will not bring it lasting peace and security because the Palestinians will not simply disappear into history – no more than the exiled Jews in Babylon went away to never return. [..]
The Palestinians have passed through the same experience, two and a half millennia later, of seeking to end our exile through nationalist self-assertion and reaffirmation, along with patience and hard work.
He shamelessly takes from the Palestine Mandate which called for the “reconstituting their (Jews) national home in that country (Palestine)” by arguing on behalf of he Arabs, for “the eventual return and national reconstitution in the (Arab) ancestral homeland.”
Then he returns to the solution.
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For now, the Palestinians and all Arabs have expressed a willingness to coexist with Zionism – if the Israelis in turn come to terms with how critical it is to acknowledge and resolve the refugee issue in a reasonable and fair manner that does not negate the idea of a predominantly Jewish state.
Why should such “willingness to co-exist” be considered a concession. And why is it only “for now”? Israel was legally created and recognized by most states in the world in 1948. Yet the Arabs refuse to abide by the rule of law and accept it. Their honour demands that they not. Their honour demands that they destroy, or at least, dominate Israel.
Reading between the lines is the thought that Israel can accept some refugees back into Israel, because it is 80% Jewish, and still remain “predominantly Jewish”, i.e. one hundred thousand, or even two hundred thousand, barely alters the percentage.
If this was so important to the Arabs why don’t they agree to Israel retaining 10% of the disputed lands in exchange?
Nowhere does he ascribe to the Arabs, responsibility for causing the problem or for maintaining the problem, not just by refusing to allow refugees to be settled but also by inculcating in them the desire to return. But for this inculcation, there would not have been a national consensus or desire to return.
The analogy above noted is really a false one. Prior to the Jewish expulsion to Babylonia, Jews had a nation and a country. Prior to the ‘48 war, the “Palestinians” had neither.
Furthermore, to fight for only 5% of the 4.5 million “refugees” to be returned, is to fight to get Israel to take responsibility for the problem. That would exculpate the Arabs. But, accepting less than every inch of land back is something they will not do. And that assumes that the Arabs are prepared to end the conflict rather than to just coexist for now.
If that weren’t enough,, their honour doesn’t permit them to end the conflict. Islam requires all lands over which Islam is supreme to be retained or recovered, if lost. It would be an enormous loss of honour to end the conflict without destroying Israel.
Jonathan Dohoah-Halevi comments on the matter in a JCPA article,
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“Osama bin Laden has written: “We request of Allah…that the [Islamic] nation should regain its honor and prestige, should raise again the unique flag of Allah on all stolen Islamic land, from Palestine to Andalus.” Bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam, established that the Islamic obligation to wage jihad in order to recover lost Islamic territories applies to Andalusia.
“Accepting the Arabs’ terms for a Middle East settlement, or even going so far as “liberating” Palestine from Israeli rule, will not be the last stop in the radical Islamic journey being led by the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda, which share the vision of spreading Islam all over the world”.
Abbas is not returning to negotiations because he is not prepared to accept President Obama’s terms that the Arabs recognize Israel as a Jewish state and end the conflict.
Professor Barry Rubin, in his latest article on why Obama’s offer was rejected, referred to Arafat’s rejection of Barak’s offer at Camp David because it didn’t contain the “Right of Return”.
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“As for the Right of Return demand, it was in line with something Qaddumi had said in March 2002: “The Right of Return of the refugees to Haifa and Jaffa is more important than statehood.” [..]
Gaining total victory and destroying Israel was more important than getting a Palestinian state, ending the “occupation” and all the real or alleged terrible suffering of Palestinians we constantly hear about. So it was, so it remains.”
Nothing has changed for the better. Nothing will change.
* Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Ted,
No I do not have a blog. Thanks for the inquiry.
Rudi
I enjoy your posts, as I have previously noted.
Please, sir…may I have more?
Nobodies gotten to me I, I’m very hard to get to. I live in a desert wilderness with Camels and Bedouin for my closest neighbors. I also have some damn unfriendly snakes and scorpions to keep me company on lonely starlit nights . Who in hell might “THEY” be? I did notice while growing up that there were subtle differences between boys and girls and that most girls were innately smarter than the boys but some intentionally played to boys vanity and let them believe what they wanted or needed to believe. How’s that for science?
If what you say is true and based on sound science and not the pseudo kind, posted frequently in Aryan Nation and other similar high quality intellectual sites online these days how do you explain that when you go to any intercity hospital in America half or more of the medical staff are from what you would call 3rd world countries? How do explain that Asians in American make up the top 10 percentile in academic achievements. While the Bushes went to the best schools and were given the Good old boys treatment known as “AFFIRMATIVE ACTION” FOR THE STUPID PROGENY OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS!
In America The French explored and opened up the west married Indian women and I am not sure what were their average IQ’s But they had guts and did what few have before or since but it seems that as part of the human condition challenges and their responses have always had a say in matters. Like curiosity of seeing what’s on the other side of a mountain. Climbing the highest peak, taming a spitfire of a women etc.
The Chinese who built Americas rail systems and today their great gandchildren are Harvard MBA’s, Who did the testing of IQ’s on their grandpparents? Maybe they all had 170 IQ’s in an age when a high IQ and 5 cents would still buy you a 5 cent cup of coffee.
Judaism places scant value on intelligence but much on wisdom. Which comes first? What value intelligence bereft of wisdom?
I would hazard a guess that the most overvalued concept in our culture is intelligence. Give me any street smart kid growing up in any American inner city and I will match him in survivability in any situation over any genius or groups of geniuses you can supply or name.
The mind knows no limits; emotion moves and limits. Judah Halevy says there are no two philosophers who reached the same conclusions, and this shows the mind cannot be relied upon.
Your Western genius civiliztion seems to be trending in an ever quickening pace to be replaced by Chinese and Indian this century and I would bet the store that you will see this eventuality sooner rather than later. All civilization strut and fret upon the stage and then are heard no more, like sound and fury signifying nothing, so will go your western civilized nations populated with Hi IQ morons.
Note today most of the hi IQ citizens are those who came from those exact places you demean by innuendo as “Der Untermensch”
That’s very sweet of you but my first reply was very calculated and it resulted in your reply #46 That allowed me to post #53.
I’m not bad at chess either, how about you? I can’t say I mated anyone in 12 moves like someone else here claimed recently but concede to a higher IQ than my own. IF TRUE?
Yet it was disappointing when you advanced your pawn to the opponent’s back rank and loudly demanded, “King me!”
And your inimitable version of “forking” the opposition involves sticking a utensil in his eye.
Aside from that, you are basically indistinguishable from Bobby Fischer.
Or is it Eddie Fisher?
Sticking a utensil in his eye shtick is a Yamit trademark. It never fails as a diversionary tactic. I learned that gambit from Moe ,Curly and Larry.
Eddie Fisher? Oh My Papa
Yamit,
I did not bring up IQ of any other grouping of humans except Arabs. And, naturally, I did not mention race, I mentioned culture. But now that you brought it up…
In fact, the Mongoloids (this is truly a scientific terminology; I didn’t make it up) have a higher IQ than Caucasoids by almost more than one standard deviation.
Many of those Third World racial groupings you claim have filled American hospitals are there because of massive immigration and visas handed out like candy to attract doctors who willingly work for less or work in disadvantaged areas of the US. For additional insight into our newly credentialed medical professionals of both American and foreign backgrounds, please read Steven Farron, Ph.D., book: “The Affirmative Action Hoax: Diversity, the Importance of Character, and Other Lies.” Dr. Farron, a libertarian, and Columbia U grad, argues how progressive social policy may have rendered the medical system dangerous and futile. His extensive research uncovers how test scoring is falsified or outright dismissed because student doctors — even graduates from Harvard Medical School (which now employs a pass/fail policy) — cannot pass simple exams in biology and other sciences. Harvard’s “progressive social policy” is at the heart of the intentional slip-up which allows students who fail qualifying exams to graduate. I would venture to extrapolate from Harvard’s undemanding guidelines, that medical schools throughout the country have allowed unqualified doctors to fall through the cracks. Dr. Farron covers it all.
And, if you care to read the Healthcare bill: “Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should ‘give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population.’ And secondary-school grants should go to schools ‘graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities.’”
Now how fair is that Yamit? Please READ, READ, READ outside the liberal canon!
You are picking and choosing to score points in support of multiculturalism, the ideological religion you were trained in to provide lockstep answers to some thorny issues. I do not have the time to pick and chose and refute all of your picks and choices. The body of evidence collected measures average intelligence, not individual intelligence…it goes without saying there are individuals within all human groupings who possess exceptionally high IQs. To ignore this would be foolhardy indeed…and unfair. But human groupings do have average intelligence scores. And, I didn’t make that up. Modern IQ tests are culturally neutral: for additional references, read J. Phillippe Rushton.
As an explanation for civilizational evolution and advancements in human culture there’s not a better explanation around. We ignore these obvious truths. The country’s ruling establishment have been dictating the manner in which we will reflect upon on our culture. They laid down the rules some 40 years ago.
And, we always do what we’re told! Right Yamit?
Rudi
All,
Signing Off…It’s been a pleasure. — Rudi
I have been urging yamit to do this for decades.
Read outside the liberal canon!!!!!!!!!!!
Stop being the Israeli version of Jane Fonda!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But does he listen? Much less obey?
Just once, does he dispense with his asinine Marxist/Leninist approach to life?
Nyet!
This salutation possesses an ominous ring of finality.
We were just another one night stand for you, eh rudi?
Don’t know about you rudibaby but I’m the type who usually does the opposite of what I’m told to do. Now if I’m asked nicely and with an apparent or specific good reason I usually comply. That said, You did refer to intelligence:
Thats a real deep observation! Then; blinded us to human differences
No you didn’t I took the liberty of using stuff from your other posts. I thought it was obvious.
Then: the belief that any culture, and any people, can be reformed. Who thinks or cares about reforming others societies except brain dead leftists in Europe and America. Most Americans couldn’t show you N. Dakota on a map, think Kennedy is an airport and Santa Claus is a real person. American have made a science of consuming without producing and they want to reform other societies? America Emulates Rome by diverting the mobs attention from real issues through spectacles Sports and entertainment and the Prison population is the largest per-capita in the world.
I am not a multiculturalist but I am not against American diversity . It enlarges the gene pool allows America to Cherry pick the best the non America societal Bubble can offer which in most cases is superior to home grown
Just think of what America would look like today if it were only made up of inbred Anglo Saxons? What an ugly thought for a very ugly people. W/out Mexicans who will pick your lettuce and fruit? You?
There is all kinds of affirmative action, there is the “noblesse oblige” kind and then the kind I believe you are addressing. I am against both. Populism in a large country with large population by definition lowers all standards to reach a common denominator. So I would say the political system is at fault, therefore the experiment in Republican Democracy should be seen as a failed experiment. It would be a serendipitous event if any western democracy ever elected capable and worthy leaders.
What do you want to survive from and to what? Whats your national vision?
I had a friend who employed adults with Downs Syndrome he said he never found better more dedicated workers/ Yamits Law in a place with no plumbers be a plumber. Monopolies are great especially if I’m the monopolist. Takes all kinds to make a modern society and everyone has a potential value and I will not overplay and assign greater value of some to others although it’s tempting to do so. See how valuable an asset a garbage collector is when he goes on strike for am month in July?
All or most of your complaints, fears and observations can be laid on the doorstep a largely dysfunctional political system.
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Untrue statement! Israel received Nada from America Gratis until 73.
it has required U.S. support for its sustenance as a viable state.
the 2.5 billion in weapons we receive today and for about the last ten years is less than 1% of our GDP with economies like ending child payments to Arabs we can more than compensate for the losses in $terms from America.
It seems Hymie you are stuck in a mind-warp of Idee Fixe!
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