Palestinian Arabs missing Nasser

Omar Helmi Ghoul, in an editorial in Al Hayat al-Jadida in Arabic, mourns the death of Gamal Abdul Nasser as perhaps the most important September anniversary for Palestinian Arabs, more than Black September and more than the beginning of the current war against Israel. As he lovingly describes it:

The departure of President Gamal Nasser also immortal 1970, who passed away a result of the tremendous efforts made to address the Jordanian-Palestinian clashes, then, what happened to his heart delicate and sensitive breach, which led to myocardial infraction, and the absence of one of the greatest symbols of the nation in modern history.
...The value is in alerting the Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general that the sword of history is not merciful, even if assumed rights, to turn the pages of history without interruption, yes, is the turn spin in successive simple arithmetic, but it leaves an impact in the lives of peoples and nations.

The departure of President Arabi was coming back and collapse that struck the Arab nation in the wake of the defeat of June 1967, and lost dies compass, and lost the national standards and national, has been the stage of disintegration and fragmentation, and falling values.

When the late leader, in spite of all the flaws, which accompanied the stage and its political, but it was the most important Arab leader in the life of the Egyptian Arab people and the peoples of the Arab nation, and best able to represent the interests of the nation and to express them.

The Arab nation needs to be a real awakening at the current stage, to defend the interests of their peoples, and such seemingly awakening in fact difficult or can not foreseeable in the foreseeable future, with the great events in the life of nations has touched history doors without warning, as they now also Peoples a sudden earthquake. ...
(We need) to defend the image and standing regulations Arab peoples and interests in the markets seek foreign invasions, especially the Israeli-American, which seeks diligently to crush any shred of dignity Arab atoms, and dispel Arab interests, and payment of the Arab region to the laboratories sectarian division, sectarian and security, to establish the Middle East the new leadership or large Jewish state and, unfortunately, what can these scenarios move forward one step forward if halt Arab rulers, and stopped one man in the face of the American-Israeli bulldozer.

By any reasonable standard, Nasser was a disastrous leader, leading the Arab world into their most spectacular military defeat in history. It is instructive that this writer feels that the best Arab leader is not one who pursued peace with Israel but one who pursued war.

The reason is simple - to Arabs, pride is more important than anything else, and Nasser instilled a huge amount of pan-Arab pride. His failure is not important because in the end the Arabs care more about honor and dignity (see his perception of the US and Israeli role in Arab history as to "to crush any shred of dignity" in the Arab world) than any real, concrete accomplishments. And by extension, dignity in Arab thought is closely affiliated with warfare, not peace.

It would be impossible to imagine an Arab eulogy for Mubarak in thirty years praising him as a man of peace for his role in Camp David. Peace is not the goal in the Arab world - it is domination and the honor that accompanies it.

Here is an educated columnist in what would be considered a moderate Arab newspaper and he is bemoaning the death of a failed warmonger. To him, the pride that Nasser instilled trumps all of his failures to the Arab people. He, and most Arabs like him, do not think the way we do.

This point cannot be overemphasized - as long as the West treats Arabs as if they think the way we do, we are doomed to fail.The Western desire for peace will be the recipe for losing the inevitable war.