A lot of opinion articles these days have a lot to say about what Arabs are thinking. One of the shocking revelations recently is that some citizens of Arab countries have begun lauding one Adolph Hitler, saying his only failing was that he didn't complete the destruction of the Jews.
That may sound somewhat reasonable, given the apparently endemic hatred of Jews in Arab countries. They, particularly Palestinians, seem bent on that same goal, elimination from the human race of the entire Hebrew people and culture. Genocide, we call it. The problem is it never works. There are always a few individuals who slip through the cracks and end up holding a massive and eternal grudge.
The Jews themselves have experience with this. In the days of their first king, Saul, they set about the elimination of the Amalekites, relatives who had attacked them when they were fleeing Egypt. Saul spared their king, Agag, but the prophet Samuel personally killed him. But somehow a descendant of Agag survived, and in the days of the Persian king Artaxerxes one of them, Haman the Agagite, plotted to kill all Jews.
Today it's highly ulikely that the Arabs could mount an even moderately successful attempt at Israeli genocide. Israel has too many and too powerful allies. The Jewish people are spread throughout the world and have merged themselves with many cultures. But hatred doesn't look at such practical considerations. Arab hatred of Jews is rooted in these very facts and it should be painfully clear to even the most closed-minded individuals that they think little of destroying themselves to accomplish their purpose.
An amazing little incongruity about this adulation of Hitler brought itself to my attention the day I read about this interesting twist in Arab thinking. Have they ever thought what the world would have been like if Hitler (or someone like him) hadn't attempted to destroy the Jews? Don't they realize that Zionism gained the strength to make its goals possible from the world's horror at what happened in north central Europe in the early 1940s? In short, they are currently paying part of the price for Hitler's crimes. It seems quite likely that without Hitler's "solution" there would be no nation of Israel today.
Yes, there are powerful forces in this country (and, I'm sure, in others) that help to maintain the support needed to keep Israel alive. There are American Jews, generally wealthy and quite influential. There is the Christian Evangelical movement that, despite the bloodshed and repression witnessed in nearly every religious republic in recent memory, seem to think we could establish such a republic here in the United States and not have to pay that terrible price. They have an interesting little Bible interpretation which suggests that there must be a literal nation of Israel or the rapture cannot occur. (What a weak God they serve!)
But I wonder if these groups are powerful enough to have pulled off the unprecedented land grab that formed the nation of Israel without the world guilt associated with the revelations at the end of World War Two in Europe. So the Palestinians have Hitler to thank for their plight and the Arabs owe him thanks for the loss of land they temporarily suffered and for the presence of a Jewish nation in their midst.
Having said this much, I have to wonder how well we know, or even can know, Arab public opinion. It is easy to see what happens in Arab countries in the light of our own socio-cultural milieu. While it has been under attack recently (some of its opponents even cloak their ideas in the first amendment [see addendum below]), freedom of speech exists in the United States to a degree nearly unprecedented in the rest of the world. So we tend to interpret what we hear about demonstrations and editorials in the Arab world as if they came from the kind of freedom to think and express that we enjoy. But we should know that this is hardly the case.
[There are those who think that limiting the power of a single individual to drown out other voices through "super speech" (speech assisted by massive infusions of cash) would be a violation of the first amendment's guarantee of free speech. That such "super speech" serves to silence a large and diverse body of thought doesn't seem to be an infringement of any rights. The rights of the ridiculously wealthy have always been more important than the rights of the average guy, so maybe they're right....]
Could it be that a few people who have risen to power in the Arab world have seen to it that their minority worldview be projected to the world as majority Arab public opinion? Could it be that the average Arab simply wants to live a decent life and die in dignity much like many of the rest of us? Could it be that hatred of the Jews is actively fanned to life by a minority of powerful Arabs, who send the poor of their countries to die fighting "infidels"?
I'm afraid such an understanding doesn't leave us much to go on in deciding how to relate to the Middle East. Arabs hate Jews; Jews have come to hate Palestinians and most Arabs; and Americans seem to hate anyone who doesn't think as shallowly as they do. If only we could find a way to treat others the way we would wish to be treated if we thought like they do, and believed the same things as they do. Oops, I guess that isn't that original a thought....