Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Frida Ghitis writes in the San Francisco Chronicle about some of the blogs that account for the "minority report" amongst Arab opinion: Arab blogs that fight for reform
However, buried below the furious, raging surface, a different sort of commentary flowed through the Internet.
In Arab blogs and deep inside the Web comment pages of some major news organizations, a few people dared to disagree. In fact, some Arab advocates of political and social reform saw recent events in the Palestinian territories as ammunition with which to criticize the dictatorial regimes they want to change in their own countries...
...Many -- though not all -- in the Arab blogosphere sharply criticized Israeli actions as excessive, but they saw in the fury of the Israeli government something lacking in their own: concern for the life of a single citizen. "They will turn the world upside down to get that soldier back," wrote Sandmonkey, who describes himself as 25-year-old Egyptian living in Cairo. "I kind of envy how much they care about their own." The sentiment was echoed by Isis, at BigPharaoh.com, wishing that "our government had half the respect" for its citizens' lives "that the Israelis have for theirs."
Lebanese bloggers found bitter irony in the failure of their leaders to accomplish very much and yet find the time to rhetorically blast Israel. Lebanonesque (lebanonesque.blogspot.com) printed a local news item about a meeting of the country's National Dialogue, which "failed to solve any of their own country's problems ... but they did manage to agree that the international community should step in to halt Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip." A contributor noted sadly that "Arab 'leaders' are following in the grand tradition of posturing and emitting hot air while unable/unwilling to deliver bread to their own people."...
[h/t: Jeff Jacoby]
Reminds me of this post at Iraq the Model which notes that Iraqi opinion on the Shalit kidnapping was often at odds with other Arabs in a comment thread at the BBC Arabic edition: Singing out of the flock.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Arab blogs that fight for reform.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/6530
As necessary background, DEBKA is firmly on the Israeli right, a constituency that didn’t really favor our present undertaking in Iraq, though the center (Sharon, Perez, et cetera) did. That said, it sure looks like Baghdad is in the grip of civ... Read More
3 Comments
Leave a comment to: Arab blogs that fight for reform
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!
, p.44
I was thinking similarly about the squabbling over which border crossing Palestinians could use to return to Gaza from Egypt. Maybe Israel could be handling the situation more humanely, I don't know, but the complete disregard of the PA for the lives of its own citizens is incredible, even for them. What kind of crazy government lets its people die of heatstroke over something like this?
Our propensity to project our own goals and motivations on "them" (cognitive egocentrism) has been a huge obstacle to understanding the entire history here. Our (laudable) distaste for anything which has the feel or appearance of "demonizing the enemy" has been a huge obstacle in getting over that hump.
It's also worth noting that Israel's "their own" extends, again, to doing absolutely anything for captured Druze.