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Know Your Enemy

(Asharq Alawsat-UK) Amal Al-Hazzani - Israel is a small state but stronger than the Arab world. Just browse some Internet sites and observe the number of pages Israel has posted with both Arabic and Hebrew-language support. Look at the number of Israeli newspapers and magazines with Arabic-language versions. The spokesman of the Israeli ministry of defense is a thirty-year-old man who speaks Arabic fluently. During every Islamic religious occasion he tweets the Israeli army's congratulations to Muslims and says "may you have a happy Eid, may your fast be accepted and may your pilgrimage be blessed." The Arabs have been preoccupied with rage and blind hatred since 1967. During this time, Israel has managed to build eight public universities and 200 museums that receive nearly 4 million tourists a year. It has also become a rival to the U.S. in the programming and software industry. Israel's annual GDP is $240 billion. Annual U.S. aid does not exceed 1.5% of this figure. We must understand the Israelis to know how we compare. Wars cannot be won by sentiments of hatred alone; otherwise the Arabs would have dominated the world long ago. Know your enemy so as not to suffer greater losses. This is all that I am saying. The writer is an assistant professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2013-02-08 00:00:00
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