The "Nakba" Myth

Virus said:
Why? All I said was that Israel accomplished heaps of stuff but that Arab states haven't accomplished anything. Which is 100% true. To not understand this would be to miss out on a major impromptus behind Islamism, and other totalitarian systems for that matter.

The Islamic and Arab world lags behind the rest of the world. Arab universities are bottom of the world. They create nothing, they contribute noting, they're incapable of anything. The Islamists know this. They think that if they embrace the values of Islam when it was at its cultural peak, and purge all the "impurities" then they'll become a superpower. Which is completely mad but that's what totalitarianism is.

Think of the Chinese communists boasting of catching up to Britain by forcing everyone into collectives and melting all their metal in backyard furnaces. An appallingly pathetic idea. We're going to catch up, but not through a free government, free press, free exchange of ideas and free markets (totalitarianism is a rejection of all these things) but through our new visionary way that's even better.

Believe me, the Islamists know how poorly their societies measure up to the rest of the world, including Israel. Supremacist ideology is an attempt to compensate for this and the conspiracy theories absolve them of personal responsibility for their situation.
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However one can note the parallel with Christianity. Today Islam can be described as being like Christianity 600 years ago, mainly still in the Dark Ages. A few cities in Italy were part of the beginning of the Renaissance as are a couple of small middle eastern countries today.

But your observations do not address Islam. Rather you are addressing the minority of the population of Muslims in the middle east and north Africa. The majority of Muslims live in countries east of Iraq starting with Iran and stretching to Indonesia. Should you even open your computer you will find many of the parts made in Indonesia and Malaysia.

As for the social customs of the middle east other than the occasional horrible example they are about one century behind the West although they do it their way. A woman unaccompanied in public in the US in 1910? Must be a prostitute. Not wearing a hat? Unthinkable! More than head and hands uncovered in public? Definitely a prostitute. ditto pants, smoking, bicycling. These were quite often crimes for which women were arrested. Pregnant outside of marriage? Never stoning but a nunnery was an alternative to being thrown out of the home with no visible means of support. Skirts above the knee? What were the 1970s coming to?!

But it is not only the women. In the US men did not stop wearing hats in public until the 1950s. Special Sunday clothes died in the 1960s.

There is a lot more but this should suffice to make the point that one must compare and contrast else a discussion cannot be distinguished from a diatribe or hit piece.
 
Virus said:
The Islamic and Arab world lags behind the rest of the world. Arab universities are bottom of the world. They create nothing, they contribute noting, they're incapable of anything. .
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yeah..whatever.

Virus said:
Supremacist ideology is an attempt to compensate for this and the conspiracy theories absolve them of personal responsibility for their situation.
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IRONY...
 
Virus said:
Why? All I said was that Israel accomplished heaps of stuff but that Arab states haven't accomplished anything. Which is 100% true. To not understand this would be to miss out on a major impromptus behind Islamism, and other totalitarian systems for that matter.

The Islamic and Arab world lags behind the rest of the world. Arab universities are bottom of the world. They create nothing, they contribute noting, they're incapable of anything. The Islamists know this. They think that if they embrace the values of Islam when it was at its cultural peak, and purge all the "impurities" then they'll become a superpower. Which is completely mad but that's what totalitarianism is.

Think of the Chinese communists boasting of catching up to Britain by forcing everyone into collectives and melting all their metal in backyard furnaces. An appallingly pathetic idea. We're going to catch up, but not through a free government, free press, free exchange of ideas and free markets (totalitarianism is a rejection of all these things) but through our new visionary way that's even better.

Believe me, the Islamists know how poorly their societies measure up to the rest of the world, including Israel. Supremacist ideology is an attempt to compensate for this and the conspiracy theories absolve them of personal responsibility for their situation.
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and btw, can i see your list of Universities? on the list i took a look, there were several Arab universities listed among the 400 best universities in the world.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/educ...orlds-best-universities-top-400.html?PageNr=8
 
DC said:
and btw, can i see your list of Universities? on the list i took a look, there were several Arab universities listed among the 400 best universities in the world.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/educ...orlds-best-universities-top-400.html?PageNr=8
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There's 3 listed, King Saud University @ 247th and American University of Beirut (AUB) 351st, if even Lebanon is considered an Arab country, and United Arab Emirates University 357th.

There's a few listed for Malaysia and the Philipines. Then again, these are Asian countries not Arab ones.

Same goes with University of Tehran, Iran and Bilkent University, Turkey, both not Arab.

I did count 5 Israeli ones listed there.

Just to be abundantly clear, once again, I'm not joining in on this Arab country bashing, but I do find it highly suspect that Arab countries overall do not have more representation in the academic world. There have been heated debates on Al Jazeera about this lack of involvement as well....
 
bigjelmapro said:
There's 3 listed, King Saud University @ 247th and American University of Beirut (AUB) 351st, if even Lebanon is considered an Arab country, and United Arab Emirates University 357th.

There's a few listed for Malaysia and the Philipines. Then again, these are Asian countries not Arab ones.

Same goes with University of Tehran, Iran and Bilkent University, Turkey, both not Arab.

I did count 5 Israeli ones listed there.

Just to be abundantly clear, once again, I'm not joining in on this Arab country bashing, but I do find it highly suspect that Arab countries overall do not have more representation in the academic world. There have been heated debates on Al Jazeera about this lack of involvement as well....
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what is suspect about it? :boggled:
 
DC said:
what is suspect about it? :boggled:
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You really couldn't get this on your own?

Arab world (ie ME and N. Africa) = ~350 million people = 3 ranked (albeit towards the bottom) on top 400 universities worldwide.

Israel = ~7.5 million people = 5 higher rank universities on the same list.

Can't get any clearer than that.
 
bigjelmapro said:
You really couldn't get this on your own?

Arab world (ie ME and N. Africa) = ~350 million people = 3 ranked (albeit towards the bottom) on top 400 universities worldwide.

Israel = ~7.5 million people = 5 higher rank universities on the same list.

Can't get any clearer than that.
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and what is suspect about that?

and still this are the BEST 400 Universities in the World, not the worst ones.
 
DC said:
and what is suspect about that?

and still this are the BEST 400 Universities in the World, not the worst ones.
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Wow, now I know you're intentionally trying to miss the point. Its about the ratio of top-ranking universities to that of population. Compare this to the proportion of universities in European, Asian, and the Americas to that of overall population. Its evident that the Arab countries, that of the ME and N. Africa, lack proper investment in higher education.
 
bigjelmapro said:
Wow, now I know you're intentionally trying to miss the point. Its about the ratio of top-ranking universities to that of population. Compare this to the proportion of universities in European, Asian, and the Americas to that of overall population. Its evident that the Arab countries, that of the ME and N. Africa, lack proper investment in higher education.
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Sure i never said anything else, i just wonder how that is suspect.
 
Matt Giwer said:
People do not have emotional responses to things that happened before they were born to people they never knew. It is all a sham. Like I said, it is like hiring mourners.
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People have emotional responses to fiction, why wouldn't a normal person react emotionally to an emotional event?

Seriously, I suggest you talk to a competent doctor. Normal human beings are empathic people, capable of relating to other people in all kinds of circumstances no matter how far removed. While I'm certainly not qualified to give a medical diagnosis, that you seem to find this to be an alien concept brings terms such as "sociopath" or "autism" to mind.
 
What it means, DC, is that the Arab world, for some reason, is not fulfilling anything near its potential.
 
Michael J Totten interviews Jonathan Spyer. Excellent work.

Might need to add this guy's book to my reading list.

MJT: The Arab world has its own political culture, and it’s not like the political culture I know, or even like other Middle Eastern political cultures.

If the Palestinians had a Western political culture, the problem here could be resolved in ten minutes. If you Israelis were dealing with Canadians instead of Palestinians, you would have had peace a long time ago. And if the Palestinians were dealing with Canadians instead of Israelis, there would still be a conflict.

Jonathan Spyer: That’s exactly right. And that’s why it’s so frustrating sometimes when people say, “If only the two sides could sit down and talk.”

Israel has had its own moments of nationalist madness and score-settling and that sort of thing, but there’s less and less of it over time. Even within my living memory Israel has matured astonishingly. People here are a lot more disenchanted, a lot less likely to get carried away and follow political leaders.
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http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/
 
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