Arab, Arabs Quotes

The Arab World is made up of many small states who usually vote as a bloc. In addition, most of the other Islamic nations vote with their Arab co-religionists. Since its founding Israel has developed rapidly while the Arab nations have not and some have regressed. Their governments are embarrassed by their lack of progress and blame Israel to mollify their citizens.

There is a corollary to this proverb, that frequently reflects itself in Arab culture. It is that one who is not strong must never concede. To concede out of strength is manly and noble. To concede out of weakness is cowardly and base. Middle Eastern International politics is totally irrational to Westerners when a badly defeated country of group will often not even meet with the victors to discuss peace or terms of surrender. It is the victors only who can make concessions without losing dignity and respect.

This proverb only makes sense in the light of understanding the Arab concept of revenge—“blood.” In a rural desert environment where little can be expected of government, the Arabs have developed a law enforcement and peace keeping mechanism which while primitive from modern standards, nevertheless worked to some degree. It is that revenge—“blood” is a moral necessity and obligation of all people, and revenge is not limited by time or to the individuals involved in the first incidence. The immediate family are the first to extract revenge, but the extended family follows and often the entire clan. Sometimes revenge is tribal or even national. Anyone who fails to revenge a member in his group is not only a disgrace, but is a clear and present danger to the group because then they can be attacked with impunity. So revenge is a strong obligation of the group members and blood must be paid with blood no matter how many generations it may take. The only thing that keeps me and my family safe, is the surety what whosoever kills one of us will themselves be killed or if they die a natural death we will take revenge on one of the evildoers relatives. Crime must never pay!

14 Arab Armies in a coordinated attack on the 1 day old Israeli state, intended to massacre all the Israelis as demonstrated by this quote. Note that this kind of extermnination intent was advertised with pride. To everyone's surprised, the Jewish defenders not only beat back the viscious attacks but enlssarged their terroitory by capturing strategic sites from which the attacks had been launched. Many people credit to the Israely victory to the fact that they were litterally fighting for their lives. Defeat would have meant death for them and their families. The Arab armies, in contrast, were fighting for land that other Arabs claimed that should have been theirs. The willingness to stand and fight for this goal did not match the self preservation that motivated the Israelis--especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust killing 6 million Jews in WWII.

There are some who argue that the quotation was made earlier and was not meant as an incendary call for massacre of Israelis. It well may be that in his original thinking, he was predicting what would happen if the State of Israel was created, basing his thoughts on historical artrocieties of the past. And many think he was concerned about that possible outcome and was trying to avoid it. The import of the quotation was not necessaruly to hisltorically blame Assam for the point of view but to simply establish that there were many Arab voices calling for victories of history where there were massacres in the Middle East. And there were those who took Azzam's quotation and broadcasted it on Arab radio, calling for the very massacre that Assam may have been warning about. Note that this notion of Jewish massacre and extermination was also picked up 60 years later and called for by the President of Iran.

There were Arabs living in Palestine since Roman times. However, there was no concept of Palestinians as a separate people from Jordanians or other Arabs in the Middle East. There had never been a Palestinian government separate from the other Arabs in the region and separate from the Kingdom of Jordan. At the birth of Israel, all the Arab Armies of the region attacked the new state, which managed to defend itself but in the process the Arab governments had told the Arabs of Israel to leave the Area so their Armies would be able to attack all others. After the Arab victory, they could return and could have their land and the Jewish land. The victory never happened and the Arabs who left have been refugees outside of Israel and describe themselves as “Palestinians” which have had a quasi government in the PLO. The Palestinians who stayed in Israel became full citizens of the Jewish State. Other Palestinian refugees left the area and emigrated throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.

At the time, some Palestinian Arabs claimed exclusive rights to the territory on the grounds that Arabs had dominated the area for the longest period of time. They gave no credence to the fact that the Jews had dominated the area and it was the center of their kingdom for many years before—that Jews had constantly lived in the area of longer than the Arabs, nor did they give any credence to the fact that the Christians had conquered the area from the Muslims during the Crusades.

The Nazis and most of the Arabs were allies in WWII. The Jews of Palestine—although they were opposed to many of the British policies regarding Palestine—were active in the Allied cause contributing units to the British Army. Although the Germans were brutal to civilians, murdering millions, they refrained from public pronouncements or exhortations to kill civilians in most cases. The Arabs did not. The Mufti was actually given the rank of General in the Nazi SS and had his own SS unit. In this despicable exhortation he actually uses a concept and wording from the Koran. See {584355}. This quotation is important in that it refutes a common claim by some Palestinians that it was only the Germans who were responsible for the Holocaust and the post war Jewish Refugee problem and that the Palestinians had to bear the price rather than place Israel in Europe. This quotation and the other by the Grand Mufti prove that Palestinians were not only complicit in persecution of Jews but took a leadership and advocacy role.

During this period—especially the first 500 years, the Islamic world was far ahead of the Christian intellectually and culturally. A university in Bagdad actually had women students as well as men. Ironically, the Muslims studied and preserved the ancient Greek and Roman science and literature while the West slipped into the Dark Ages. The Muslims developed science and the arts to new heights. However, around 1100 a religious orthodoxy began to take hold that saw new innovation of any kind as blasphemous. Intellectually, Islamic society began to decline while at the same time the Christian world was emerging from the dark ages. After the Protestant reformation, Christendom intellectually began to thrive while Islam continued in its anti-intellectual and intolerant mode which still prevents most Muslim nations from modernizing, Note that there was American intellectual interest in Islam towards the end if the 19th century,

“Musselman” was then a term for Muslims used by Europeans. The Arabs then, as many terrorists still do, commonly captured American and European ships enslaving the crews and passengers or holding them for ransom. Jefferson and Adams explained that if this could not be stopped and resolved it might mean war. The Americans could not understand why they were attacked when American had done nothing to offend the Arab Counties. The Arab envoy explained their “duty” and “right” to attack Americans and why war was not a serious deterrent to Islamic nations. Ironically, the same explanations were given by Arab leaders in the early 21st century to illustrate why the Arab countries could not be intimidated.

Although Jabotinsky believed that the Arabs would have to be defeated militarily—see {604497}—he and the other Zionist leaders assumed that the eventual state would have Arab citizens. From this beginning, the principle of equal rights and participation in the politics and public affairs of the Jewish state was in the design. See {587034} as to how this manifested itself. The rights possessed by the Arab minority of Israel exceeds not only those of Jews in any Arab nation, and exceeds those of any minority in an Arab state. And because Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the Arabs of Israel possess more political rights than do Arabs anywhere else in the Middle East. The number of Arab political parties in Israel is larger than that of most Arab nations where opposition parties are rarely permitted.

This proverb only makes sense in the light of understanding the Arab concept of revenge—“blood.” In a rural desert environment where little can be expected of government, the Arabs have developed a law enforcement and peace keeping mechanism which while primitive from modern standards, nevertheless worked to some degree. It is that revenge—“blood” is a moral necessity and obligation of all people, and revenge is not limited by time or to the individuals involved in the first incidence. The immediate family are the first to exact revenge, but the extended family follows and often the entire clan. Sometimes revenge is tribal or even national. Anyone who fails to revenge a member in his group is not only a disgrace, but is a clear and present danger to the group because then they can be attacked with impunity. So revenge is a strong obligation of the group members and blood must be paid with blood no matter how many generations it may take. The only thing that keeps me and my family safe, is the surety what whosoever kills one of us will themselves be killed or if they die a natural death we will take revenge on one of the evildoers relatives. Crime must never pay!

Nasrallah claims to be descended from the Prophet Muhammad. Unlike some other Muslim fundamentalist terrorists and politicians who regard the Jews in Israel as enemies, Nasrallah is anti-Semitic and wants to kill all Jews, not just free the “holy land” from the Jewish presence. See {585746}. This quotation was used by the Israeli Prime Minister when addressing the U. S. Congress in March of 2015.

This quotation is significant. Ibn Khalodun was one of the great intellectual Arab scholars, yet he looked upon Blacks as subhuman and fit for slavery. While Islam preaches the equality of all people, the Arabs had and many still have a raciest view of Blacks. The Arabs were the leaders among the slave traders and many an American Captain of a slave trader bought his slaves from Arab slave traders. Saudi Arabia was the last nation to outlaw legal slavery (1963) and it is still illegally practiced in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Middle East. The attitude can be seen in much of the Arab Middle East even today. For examples, the Muslim Arabs in Northern Sudan refer to the Black non-Islamic Southerners using a derogatory term that means slave.

After the 6 Day War, Israel was in control of the West Bank.

What he meant by “crosses” was cross breeding or what we would call inter-racial breeding. He was under the scientifically false assumption held by many racists that interracial breeding deteriorates the progeny. Actually, without diversity, species are subject to genetic problems which is why we have prohibitions on marrying siblings and other close relatives. He was also historically inaccurate in the Arabs and the other Semitic people of the Middle East were inbred with less intermarriage than most European whites.