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.
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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.