Middle East

[The Conquistador]

Originally Posted by smc

You cannot speak of U.S. policy with respect to any particular Arab regime without putting it in the context of Israel. Egypt and Mubarak are "allies" of the United States only in exchange for being a bulwark against Arab League opposition to Israel. Meanwhile, each and every authoritarian Arab regime stokes the fires of passion for the Palestinian cause on the streets of their own countries (and in Iran, too) precisely because so long as people in the Arab world have this issue before them, they can be easily manipulated to avoid confronting the roots of their own oppression -- namely, their own dictators (and, in many cases, the U.S. government that backs, to greater or lesser degrees, those regimes).

Solve the Palestinian "problem" and these Arab regimes will collapse like houses of cards.

And lest anyone get the wrong impression of my view of Israel, this Jew (yes, I am Jewish) believes it has no legitimate claim to exist as a country, and that
Zionism (the political ideology) is, in fact, the main progenitor of anti-Semitism
in the world today.

C'mon smc! What is so wrong about the Jews having some beachfront property?

It's interesting that you bring up the effects that Israel and Zionism have had on the Middle East. It seems that before the emergence of the Hebrew state in the Middle East(pre-1940's), it was a pretty cool and adventureous place to visit. After reading the works of T.E. Lawrence and others who chronicled their trips to the Middle East, there was no mention of Jihadism, radical Islam, anti-Semitism or anti-western sentiment. It seems all that came about after the the foundation of Israel and was a response to the spread of Zionism in the region.

I am neither for nor against the Jews. This is purely my observation.