(Toronto Sun-Canada) Salim Mansur - The fact of how small Israel is territorially, and how this fact deepens its sense of vulnerability, weighs down upon anyone who visits the country. Israel is merely a dot relative to the Arab world, and yet made responsible for the problems of the Middle East and the inability of the Arab-Muslim culture to deal with the challenges of the modern world. The Arab world, excluding Iran and Turkey, is comprised of 22 countries with a total area around 13 million sq. km. and a population of nearly 350 million. Israel is barely 22,000 sq. km., or about three times the size of New York City, with a population of 7.5 million of which 20% are Israeli Arabs. An objective consideration of the huge disparity in size and population between the Arab world and Israel should dispel the drivel the world has been fed that Arabs are the "underdog" in a colonial struggle against Jews as a colonizing people. Arabs, Muslims and their apologists in the West fault Israelis for the collective failure of the Arab world. It is as if the plight of Palestinian "occupation" by Israelis explains the Sudanese civil wars and genocide in Darfur, or the savage killings inside Algeria, or the long list of atrocities, gender oppression, humiliation of religious minorities, wars, military dictatorships, violence and murder in the name of Islam across the Arab world. It is sheer absurdity to hold Israelis responsible for the utterly dysfunctional nature of the Arab world.
2010-08-25 08:03:42Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive