That would be a better headline for this story from the AP.

Forty years after Israel's stunning victory over three Arab armies, the defeat still lingers in the Arab world — so much so, some blame it for everything from a lack of democracy in the region to the rise of religious extremism.

On June 5, 1967, Israeli warplanes destroyed 400 aircraft belonging to Egypt,
Syria, Jordan and Iraq — most of them sitting on airport tarmacs. Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, Syria gave up the Golan Heights, and Jordan relinquished the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Trying to minimize the defeat, Arabs have long called the Six Day War the "naksa," or "setback," but its impact remains a deep wound.

Egyptian columnist Wael Abdel Fattah wrote in the independent weekly Al-Fagr newspaper that Arabs blame the defeat for "everything" — from "price hikes, dictatorship, religious extremism, sectarian strife, even sexual impotence."

The thing is, though, that every single one of the problems that is listed long pre-dated the 1967 war -- lousy economies, totalitarian regimes, the teachings of Islam, the divisions between Sunni and Shiite, and (presumably) lack of sexual prowess among Arab men. It is simply one more example of Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism to blame the Jews for these problems, when they are part and parcel of the failure of Arab/Muslim culture and "civilization" (if you can even call it that over the last several centuries).

Until the Arabs take responsibility for their own destiny, admit that their societies are fundamentally flawed and dominated by a barbaric and backwards theological system that holds them back in the modern world, there is little that can be done to help them -- and strife will continue in the Middle East.

Posted by: Greg at 02:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 302 words, total size 2 kb.