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THE CORE OF MUSLIM RAGE
By Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times
March 6, 2002

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/06/opinion/06FRIE.html

The latest death toll in the Indian violence between Hindus and Muslims is
544 people, many of them Muslims. Why is it that when Hindus kill hundreds
of Muslims it elicits an emotionally muted headline in the Arab media, but
when Israel kills a dozen Muslims, in a war in which Muslims are also
killing Jews, it inflames the entire Muslim world?

I raise this point not to make some idiot press critique or engage in cheap
Arab-bashing. This is a serious issue. In recent weeks, whenever Arab
Muslims told me of their pain at seeing Palestinians brutalized by Israelis
on their TV screens every night, I asked back: Why are you so pained about
Israelis brutalizing Palestinians, but don't say a word about the brutality
with which Saddam Hussein has snuffed out two generations of Iraqis using
murder, fear and poison gas? I got no good answers.

Because the real answer is rooted in something very deep. It has to do with
the contrast between Islam's self-perception as the most ideal and complete
expression of the three great monotheistic religions ï¿½ Judaism, Christianity
and Islam ï¿½ and the conditions of poverty, repression and underdevelopment
in which most Muslims live today.

As a U.S. diplomat in the Middle East said to me, Israel ï¿½ not Iraq, not
India ï¿½ is "a constant reminder to Muslims of their own powerlessness." How
could a tiny Jewish state amass so much military and economic power if the
Islamic way of life ï¿½ not Christianity or Judaism ï¿½ is God's most ideal
religious path?

When Hindus kill Muslims it's not a story, because there are a billion
Hindus and they aren't part of the Muslim narrative. When Saddam murders his
own people it's not a story, because it's in the Arab-Muslim family. But
when a small band of Israeli Jews kills Muslims it sparks rage ï¿½ a rage that
must come from Muslims having to confront the gap between their
self-perception as Muslims and the reality of the Muslim world.

I have long believed that it is this poverty of dignity, not a poverty of
money, that is behind a lot of Muslim rage today and the reason this rage is
sharpest among educated, but frustrated, Muslim youth. It is they who
perpetrated 9/11 and who slit the throat of the Wall Street Journal reporter
Danny Pearl ï¿½ after reportedly forcing him to declare on film, "I am a Jew
and my mother is a Jew."

This is not to say that U.S. policy is blameless. We do bad things
sometimes. But why is it that only Muslims react to our bad policies with
suicidal terrorism, not Mexicans or Chinese? Is it because Arab-Muslim
conspiracy theories state that Jews could not be so strong on their own ï¿½
therefore the only reason Israel could be strong, and Muslims weak, is
because the U.S. created and supports Israel?

The Muslim world needs to take an honest look at this rage. Look what it has
done to Palestinian society ï¿½ where the flower of Palestinian youth now
celebrate suicide against Jews as a source of dignity. That is so bad. Yes,
there is an Israeli occupation, and that occupation has been hugely
distorting of Palestinian life. But the fact is this: If Palestinians had
said, "We are going to oppose the Israeli occupation, with nonviolent
resistance, as if we had no other options, and we are going to build a
Palestinian society, schools and economy, as if we had no occupation" ï¿½ they
would have had a quality state a long time ago. Instead they have let the
occupation define their whole movement and become Yasir Arafat's excuse for
not building jobs and democracy.

Only Muslims can heal their own rage. But the West, and particularly the
Jewish world, should help. Because this rage poses an existential threat to
Israel. Three broad trends are now converging: (1) The worst killing ever
between Israelis and Palestinians; (2) a baby boom in the Arab-Muslim world,
where about half the population is under 20; (3) an explosion of Arab
satellite TV and Internet, which are taking the horrific images from the
intifada and beaming them directly to the new Arab- Muslim generation. If
100 million Arab-Muslims are brought up with these images, Israel won't
survive.

Some of this hatred will remain no matter what Israel does. But to think
that Israel's exiting the occupied territories ï¿½ and abandoning its insane
settlement land grab there ï¿½ wouldn't reduce this problem is absurd.

Israel cannot do it alone. But it has to do all it can to get this show off
the air. It would take away an important card from the worst Muslim anti-
Semites and it would help strengthen those Muslims, and there are many of
them, who know that the suicidal rage of their fanatics is dragging down
their whole civilization.

Perspective: The Core of Muslim Rage

🔗Dante Rosati <dante.interport@...>

🔗paulerlich <paul@...>