The Arabs have been big part of their own sorry fate

[oberliner]

For all the myriad flaws of US and Israeli policy in the Middle East, no one who looks at the region with an unbiased eye can fail to note the Arabs' role in this season of their own discontent. From Algeria, Morocco and Sudan to Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, government and opposition parties alike are engaged in all manner of underhanded and self-destructive activities. Arab regimes meddle in one another's domestic affairs with abandon and refuse to differentiate between sedition and legitimate dissent, preferring instead to repress both with equal enthusiasm. Many of those who rail against the current Arab condition refuse to offer policy platforms, lending credence to the theory that their only goal is to replace the existing order atop a mountain of authoritarianism and corruption. In essence, all are making war on one another and on their own peoples.

The region was not always this way. Even when conservative and revolutionary regimes clashed over how to deal with Israel and the West in the early years following the creation of the Jewish state, a certain decorum generally prevailed. Egypt's Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Saudi Arabia's King Faisal championed views that were diametrically opposed and even engaged in proxy warfare, but they also had enough respect for each other - and for the Arab world as a whole - to impose certain limits on just how far the contest could go.

Then came the bitterness over what some have described as the "lost victory" of 1973 and the premature peacemaking with Israel that cost Anwar Sadat his life. Soon whatever rules had ever existed were cast aside, and the region began its inexorable slide toward the wretched state that it knows today.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=83273&categ_id=17

[Solo_in_MD]

1. They have certainly managed to screw the palestinians royaly along the way

[AnneD]

2. I remember a quote....

it may have been Moshe Dyan, that said that the Arab would never have democracy. He based it simply on the watches that the Palestinian negotiators and Israeli leaders wore. He noted the Arab leaders all had Rolexes where as the Israelis wore Timexes. They would never have democracy until more Arab leaders had Timex's. I thought it was a shrewed observation of the strong cult and tribal personality and culture.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[sellitman]

4. verbalkint...welcome to DU.

I hope you post often and at length in this forum.

[oberliner]

5. Please note that this is an editorial from the Lebanon Daily Star

The opinions expressed represent those of the editorial staff of that publication.

[rayofreason]

6. Unfortunately...

...it is true that the Arabs have made very bad political choices, and these bad choices stem from a seriously warped political culture.

In particular, the Palestinians seems to have made to worst possible choices at each crucial juncture, that have now led them to this abyss where they are forced to be either in Hamastan or Fatahland.

However, there is deep historical reason (the Mongols) for at least some of this pathology, which also afflicts the Russians. For those unfamiliar with what the Mongol invasions meant for the Arabs and the Russians, I recommend the book "Devil's Horsemen"

http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Horsemen-Mongol-Invasion-Europe/dp/0785815678