In 2015, the last time Palestinians rioted over the Haram-al-Sharif – the Temple Mount to Christians and Jews – a handful of pious Jews had committed the offense of attempted prayer. This week’s protest over the presence of metal detectors takes the dispute to a new level of unreality. After Israeli-Arab gunmen killed two Israeli policemen with weapons hidden on the site, Israel installed metal detectors, a common sight at mosques in many Muslim countries. After Israel removed the metal detectors under apparent pressure from Washington, the Muslim religious authorities announced that they would not accept any Israeli security measures of any kind, including cameras and remote sensing devices. Cairo’s Al-Azhar University denounced any and all Israeli security measures as “irresponsible and provocative,” adding, “All measures taken by the occupation authorities at Al Haram Al Sharif in occupied Jerusalem are null and void and are not based on any humanitarian or civilized principle.”
The outrage over security measures that are standard in public places in many parts of the world seems contrary to common sense. The trouble is that common sense is not an attractive proposition in the Arab world. Much of the Arab world clings to the belief that if the Jews do not control the Temple Mount, they really have not returned to Zion, and their presence in the surrounding city of Jerusalem and country of Israel must be a temporary aberration. It is a dangerous fantasy, and nothing good can come of nurturing it.
In 1993, the birth year of the median Arab today, East Asia’s per capita GDP was barely two-fifths of the Middle East and North Africa. Today it is a bit over half of East Asia’s. In real terms, the Arab world’s per capita GDP hasn’t changed in the past ten years while East Asia’s has more than doubled. Less than half of the children of the Arab world complete primary school, according to the World Bank, which puts the effective literacy rate well below 50%. Almost 30% of median-age Arabs are unemployed, without counting the public universities that disguise unemployment by warehousing the jobless young. Not a single Arabic-speaking university awards a degree that would pass the hiring department of a major corporation.
The illusions of the so-called Arab Spring are long gone. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Sudan are in chaos. Egypt avoided social breakdown only through the restoration of the military government that its people overthrew in 2011, and $10 billion in annual subsidies from the Gulf states. It is hard to point to a source of hope for countries that have neither the skills nor the governance to catch up in an Asian-dominated world. The best that the Arab-speaking world can hope for is the dull ache of the status quo. If there is change, it is likely to be in the direction of Libya.
Of all the humiliations that the Arab suffer, the most painful is repeated defeat at the hands of a tiny number of Israeli Jews. Five times a day Muslims pray to acknowledge the absolute sovereignty of Allah, repeating “Come to prayer, come to success.” There is no success to point to. The success of the Jews – the perverters of the true revelation given by Moses and Jesus, according to Islam, and restored by Mohammed – is inconceivable in Muslim beliefs on salvation. Yet the Jews have come back to Israel and Jerusalem, and even the guardians of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, the Saudi royal family, quietly seek help from the Jews to protect them against Iran. India, the largest developing country by population, has abandoned the Palestinian cause; its prime minister visited Israel without paying so much as a courtesy call to Ramallah.
Palestinian strategists have long since abandoned the hope of defeating Israel in the field, and hope instead to create a humanitarian catastrophe so loathsome that the world community will intervene on their behalf. Palestinian polemicist Mohammed Dareghmeh wrote in 2015, “Palestine is an international issue. [The issue] won’t be decided in a flurry of knives or acts of martyrdom [suicide attacks], or in protests or demonstrations. It will end only when the world understands it has a duty to intervene and to draw borders and lines, as it did in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Kosovo … One might ask: How long? And I say: The day will come. … One might ask: Did the peaceful struggle bring about the end of the occupation? And I say: Did the military and armed struggle do so? …. Only the world can bring the solution.”
With Donald Trump’s electoral victory, Palestinian hopes of luring the international community into a dictated agreement suffered an enormous setback. Meanwhile the Gulf states have come to view Israel as an ally against Iran, while Egyptian security cooperation with Israel is stronger than ever in history. The Palestinians are the odd man out. And President Trump himself went to the Western Wall of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, the first US president ever to do so – as a private citizen, to be sure, and without any Israeli official presence – in a powerful gesture of sympathy for Jewish national aspirations.
The last wedge that the Palestinians can drive between Washington and its Arab allies is the Temple Mount itself. This is not a matter of Muslim theology, nor a question of sentimental attachment: rather, it is the embodiment of the last hope that the hated Zionist presence will be temporary, and the prayers of a billion and a half Muslims for “success” eventually will be granted. Whether last week’s murder of Israeli policemen with guns hidden on the Temple Mount was a fortuitous pretext for the protests, or a provocation intended to produce a wave of outrage in the Arab world, is unclear.
That explains why Arab governments were “conspicuously silent” on the matter, as the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported July 24. One can only imagine the content of the telephone traffic between Washington and Arab capitals over the weekend. Israel at length removed the metal detectors to the official praise of the White House.
Washington and Jerusalem only have unpleasant choices in the short term. The so-called Arab Street has been quiet for several years. But life in the Arab world remains difficult to bear, and the danger of an eruption of popular rage is ever present. The Israelis (and above all the Israeli security services) do not want another Intifada and hope the issue will go away. Feeding the Arab’s refusal to admit defeat, though, will only encourage behavior that has come to resemble the Black Knight’s one-sided battle with King Arthur in Monty Python’s Holy Grail film. Peace isn’t made when one side is defeated, but when one side admits that it is defeated. Delaying this admission keeps the war going.
many true points,and as a i understand that the west needs to support the arab world,like the west did to japan after the war,i can understand the divide in the middle east but i am talking about supporting the sunni arab world,after all if peace is to come it has to be with those who want peace,and historically since the crusades the sunni arabs hace interlinked with the west..in terms of economic and social upbringing more inward investment is needed it is a potential growth market.
"If there is change, it is likely to be in the direction of Libya." Not quite sure what you mean here. Do you mean the alternative is to become a failed state?
The US protects Israel in a broad sense, but does not fight her battles. One-on-one, the IDF can wipe the floor with any Muslim-country military, and has repeatedly done so.
Over the last nearly two millennia, Jews were treated very badly more so in Christendom than Muslim world on issues of equality , human rights etc. even though they were "people of the Book", they were second class citizens! No times Jews were allowed to bear arms and could be beaten by others and severely punished.
Now these wicked "Jews" have their own little country and can bear arms and can hit very hard to decimate if wanted. This is a lesson, ignorant Arabs haven’t learnt yet. Hence all these bluster and bravado. What a pity!
David Goldman is wrong here! Unless there is a deep reformation in Islamdom and Quran is reedit end , there appears to be no end To humiliation.
It’s a pitiful pity that whites ever got involved in this ancient Levantine feud. A "foreign entanglement," indeed.
Kipling’s "Burden of Jerusalem" says it all.
Mr Goldman
The math is not adding up in
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In 1993, the birth year of the median Arab today, East Asia’s per capita GDP was barely two-fifths of the Middle East and North Africa.
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East Asia (EA) in 1993 had two fifths (40%) of ME/Africa per-cpita GDP.
Now comes
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Today it is a bit over half of East Asia’s. In real terms, the Arab world’s per capita GDP hasn’t changed in the past ten years while East Asia’s has more than doubled.
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What is "it"? One would think it is East Asia (going by gramattical rules) but is belied as at the end you write "half of East Asia’s." Ok so "it" in the first sentence is ME/Africa. So that means EA went from 40% of ME/Af to almost twice which is say 200%. Thats amost 5 times or conservatively 4 times if less than 200%.
Where am I wrong?
Who the "4by2s" worked overtime to let in.
Not sure what you mean by "our," "Yashad."
And it’s interesting that two whole millennia passed with whites feeling hardly any guilt at all.
Israel’s paramount objective should be encouraging sustainable secular regimes throughout the ME. In Syria, in Lebanon, in Iraq, eventually in Iran. Once religion becomes a matter of personal choice, without any state interference, all peoples from all religions may learn to live alongside each other, tolerating each others choices. And make no mistake, Israel is still far from being a secular state, a situation which has strongly contributed to hatred and violence in the ME.
So you say. Even so, the American aid bought Israel F35’s for Israel. The US delivered those first because that way the jets would be battle tested. As soon as the jets arrived, Israeli techs stripped out several systems and installed Israeli systems. Those systems, because they were going into American jets had to be made in the USA. American workers were employed. The US gained access to Israeli innovation. The jets are so different that they are now designated F35i – Adir. The US has a veto on arms sales to other nations by Israel. Israel has often developed their own weapons without recourse to the Americans, from the Uzi to the Merkava tank, Iron Dome and David’s sling to mention just a few. I honestly think that the US is doing some horsetrading that gets them everything they couldn’t get any other way and seeming to give a lot to Israel. In other words, they got their money’s worth and then some!
Michael Klopman, so you’re not civilised? Good to know! By the Way, Jews invented fire. Noted archaeologists have proof, so if you don’t want to participate in civilisation that includes Jews, give fire a miss.
Fire was first tamed at least a million years ago.
Jews were around back then? Day-um!
Listen to the brilliant podcast below. Dr. Harold Rhode, international Islamic scholar and expert explains the Arab mindset of perpetual war unto ultimate victory. Nothing the Palestinians or other Muslims do, which to us Westerners, defies logic, will ever surprise you again. It is an ancient calculated set of behaviors, and it dictates war against everything and everyone non Islamic forever This is the most important information about Islam and the way of life they plan for all of us I have ever heard. I urge everyone to listen and pass this on to everyone you know!
http://thelandofisrael.com/modern-islamic-warfare-an-ancient-doctrine-marches-on/
Ever check out the Talmud?
The Palestinians must concede that they have lost badly.They have a claim of persistent occupancy over temple Mount,nothing more.Rather than feting Jihadi mothers they must fete their tryst with destiny to live as equals side by side with the jews,with honor and dignity which comes with the acceptance that they have lost to a superior enemy.
Nobody believes Zionist Jew propoganda anymore…..your lame articles only prove to us more forcefully that behind every evil is that little Zionist rat of a country….you need to look around, the world over people have found out how wickid you Zionist jews are. I said Zionist and not all jews for amongst jews of faith there are good people.
Well said David thank you for your great article, The one thing the the Arab world can never take, and will never accept is defeat, and humiliation, and they R going to keep on holding to the lie and fantasy, that Israel is there temporary.
The WAQF , AL-Azhar University , Mahmoud Abbas & Erdogan sincerely believe that the magnetic field generated by the metal detectors & the cameras is seriously disturbing the Palestinian brain waves to the Great Almighty during their prayers ; thereby resulting in an unfair advantage to the Jewish prayers enemating from the Wailing Wall !!
Ian Harrison did they invent air too?
Not only that, but the magnetic field renders Arab men sterile and impotent!
What else. A successful developed country?