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Source: http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=06ec1db2-14af-4e14-ab5d-5d07dd4fd476
Why Has Israel Succeeded Where the Arab States Have Failed?
[New Republic ] Martin Peretz - The return of half the Jews dispersed in the world to Israel is unprecedented, and the revival of an antique prayer language, Hebrew, is no less revolutionary. Add to these the realization of the essential conditions of serious democracies: civilian primacy over military power; the rule of independent legal institutions; an utterly free (and obstreperous) press; a plural society; and an indigenous culture open to foreign cultures. In contrast to these achievements, the surrounding world of the Arabs is a functional and philosophical calamity. The political development of the Palestinians has shriveled. They did not take up the UN partition plan, which allotted them a state that would now also be celebrating its sixtieth anniversary. The Palestinians are as much and as little a nation as the warring tribes and clans of Africa and Pakistan. They have to make peace among themselves before they can even conceive of peace with Israel.