{"id":16340,"date":"2012-08-04T09:48:12","date_gmt":"2012-08-04T14:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=16340"},"modified":"2012-08-04T09:48:12","modified_gmt":"2012-08-04T14:48:12","slug":"george-jonas-israel-is-essential-to-keeping-arab-regimes-in-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/08\/04\/george-jonas-israel-is-essential-to-keeping-arab-regimes-in-power\/","title":{"rendered":"George Jonas: Israel is essential … to keeping Arab regimes in power"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Jonas<\/a> in the National Post<\/em> explains that Israel is essential to the dictators, strongmen, and demagogues of the many Arab and Muslim states that surround it:<\/p>\n

An increase in hostility was predictable. Hatred against Israel, kept on a low boil, is the organizing principle of the Middle East. It\u2019s the region\u2019s main fuel of governance; often its only fuel. Some ruling regimes \u2014 kings, dictators, whatever \u2014 may have oil wells and sandy beaches, but other than hating Israel (and looking after their families and tribes) they have few if any ideas. If they do, chances are it\u2019s to hate some other group in addition to Israel.<\/p>\n

In the Middle East a country\u2019s national purpose often amounts to little more than a list of its enemies. A feeling of being ill-done by dominates the consciousness of groups and individuals. Since it\u2019s a self-fulfilling prophecy, it\u2019s not necessarily baseless: The easiest way to have an enemy is to be one.<\/p>\n

The centrality of hatred to the culture is remarkable. The Cartesian idea is \u201cI hate, therefore I am.\u201d Self-righteousness is overwhelming: each desire thwarted becomes an example of justice denied. It\u2019s not a pretty place, but millions call it home.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t understand much about the Arab Spring as long as we persist in looking at it through Western eyes. We see popular uprisings against dictatorships as moves in the direction of Western-style democracy. If they happened here, they probably would be. Where they\u2019re actually happening they\u2019re taking their societies in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

The Arab Spring is an attempt to return the region to its roots. It\u2019s not to Westernize the Middle East and make it more democratic; it\u2019s to Easternize it and make it more Islamic. If the early 20th century was about the East trying to join what it couldn\u2019t lick, the early 21st may be about the East trying to lick what it hasn\u2019t been able to join.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Jonas in the National Post explains that Israel is essential to the dictators, strongmen, and demagogues of the many Arab and Muslim states that surround it: An increase in hostility was predictable. Hatred against Israel, kept on a low boil, is the organizing principle of the Middle East. It\u2019s the region\u2019s main fuel of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[370,53,11],"tags":[47,291,720,694],"class_list":["post-16340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east","category-politics","category-religion","tag-islam","tag-israel","tag-protest","tag-syria"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4fy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16341,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16340\/revisions\/16341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}