The Region: Why the Middle East is sick

Barry Rubin , THE JERUSALEM POST

We now have the perfect metaphor for the Middle East's political situation. In Egypt, a little boy with cystic fibrosis badly needs a certain medicine. Unfortunately for him, that drug is only produced in Israel, and Egypt's health ministry won't let it be imported.

Unless one understands how this story typifies the region, it's impossible to understand the Middle East. Let's remember that Egypt has been at peace with Israel for over 30 years, and that, nevertheless, its government still does much to boycott, not to mention demonize, the Jewish state. By constantly pursuing a hate-Israel campaign, it stokes an atmosphere of hatred and extremism which also gives ammunition to the Muslim Brotherhood that seeks to turn Egypt into a war-oriented, totalitarian Islamist state.

So tightly controlled is the Egyptian media, so extraordinary the Israelphobia, that the English-language Cairo paper Al-Ahram was considered courageous even to mention the sick boy's family's effort to obtain the Israeli-invented medicine.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian wrote recently: "Admission into [a] state-run hospital is likely to cost one his life." This came shortly after a scandal involving a top ruling-party politician who was discovered selling tainted transfusion blood.

Arab countries cannot develop medicines and hi-tech advances precisely because they are too busy using up the resources for battles against various fantasy enemies of Allah.

SOME YEARS ago, a US official told me about funds that had been offered Egyptian officials to implement a program dealing with Red Sea pollution. But the project involved cooperation with Israel. The official was told that anything helping Israel was unacceptable, no matter how much good it might do Egypt.

In pursuit of its vendetta against Israel and the West, the Arab world is committing suicide - not only the individual suicide of the terrorist, but the suicide of entire societies. On a daily basis, this means rejecting the reforms those societies need. In the long run, it means risking takeover by radical Islamists.

The rest of the world, finding such talk incomprehensible, either thinks it's meaningless jabber, or ignores it altogether. Surely the problem must stem from addressable grievances, fixable misunderstandings and emotional exaggeration? Unfortunately, this is all nonsense.

What's the effective voice in the region? Not the "peace process" concept used in talking with the West, but the "resistance" concept, used in talking among themselves.

Even in countries with genuinely moderate governments, no official or state-controlled newspaper (and very few intellectuals) dare say: Israel is not an enemy; America is a friend; the true struggle is to raise living standards and promote freedom. This is as true at 2008's end as it was in 1998, 1988, 1978, 1968 and 1958.

When asked in a recent poll about their feelings toward al-Qaida, 60% of Egyptians answered "positive" or "mixed." The "positives" no doubt think al-Qaida is right and international terrorism is the best - probably only - way to deal with Israel and the West, no matter what the consequences. The "mixed" have reservations about methods, but believe al-Qaida's fundamental world view is accurate.

Analyzing the poll, analyst Doug Miller said such results were "yet another indicator that the US 'war on terror' is not winning hearts and minds."

Yet the fault lies not with America but with the rulers, journalists, clerics, educators and intellectuals in the Arabic-speaking world. The poll's results are yet another indicator that the war on democracy and moderation is what's winning hearts and minds.

Those defending the status quo mobilize the masses on its behalf, diverting them against foreign devils rather than domestic dissatisfactions. Those seeking revolution stir the masses into bloody upheaval against the status quo. The former ride the tiger; the latter want to set the tiger on its historic masters.

How can the United States possibly tame a tiger trained and owned by others who both whip and feed it daily?

WHAT DOES it matter if Arab notables speak soothingly at diplomatic parties or in Western media interviews while millions at home are inundated by a very different message? Even if the tie-and-suit, polished-manners crowd are sincere, they dare not say the same thing to their people that they whisper into the ears of gullible foreigners.

Here's a more typical rhetoric - coming from Hamas member of parliament Fathi Hammad on al-Aksa television, September 7:

"The approaching victory… is not limited to Palestine. You are creating the ethos of victory for all Arabs and Muslims, and Allah willing, even on the global level. Why? Because Allah has chosen you to fight the people he hates most - the Jews." (MEMRI translation)

Nowadays one can even say this kind of thing in front of the UN General Assembly, as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did recently, to tumultuous applause. The clapping drowned out his regime's appalling internal repression and economic failures.

It works. This is how Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks to his subjects. And while Egypt's president and Jordan's king personally detest such ravings, they pay the ravers' salaries.

Is Arab victory approaching? Well, no. But this kind of talk has kept the suckers in line for 60 years now. It's just so useful for rulers and revolutionaries.

The younger generation has already been thoroughly indoctrinated. Yet its victory will be as great as that of the little boy (involuntarily) doing his patriotic and religious "duty" by going without the medicine he needs.

The writer is director of Global Research in International Affairs Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal.
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