Sunday, July 09, 2006
Elder of ZiyonThe idea that ordinary Palestinian Arabs are not culpable for the crimes of the terrorists gets weaker and weaker as their support and tolerance for terror grows.
Major findings:
77% support the kidnap of Gilad Shalit
67% want more kidnappings of soldiers
80% oppose releasing Shalit to avoid a ground incursion into Gaza
60% support further Kassam rocket attacks against "targets"
Hamas would still win an election if held today, but barely.
Possibly the most fascinating finding was this one:
47% think that the kidnapping will end up hurting the Palestinian Arab side, and only 37% think it will help.
This would seem counter-intuitive. If a plurality of PalArabs know that the kidnapping will end up hurting their cause, why would they support it?
The answer is simple and sad. The Arab sense of "honor" is so overpowering, it trumps logic and even personal welfare. I wrote about this nearly a year ago - the flip-side to "honor" is a massive inferiority complex that results in infantile attempts to act in ways that will prove relevance.
A single kidnap against a single Israeli soldier is a victory, no matter how tiny and pyrrhic. In a world where the Arabs have precious little to feel pride over, this is something to feel proud of, in a completely sick way.
Terror seems a logical response when one's sense of pride is over-arching and psychotic. Israel can kill many Arab terrorists, but they cannot force the Arabs to give back their small victory and all it symbolizes.
A secure person can look logically at his faults and do things to improve himself. An insecure person cannot allow himself to admit any faults, and must blame all his troubles on others.
And that is the Israeli/Arab conflict in a nutshell.
Until this mass psychosis in the Arab world is dealt with, we cannot hope to have peace.
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